This issue of the Trendletter highlights findings in a new report soon to be published by the Missouri Office of Administration. Detailed projections are given by gender for many age groups, including school-age populations, young adults and the elderly. Black and white race detail is also given for selected counties. Each of the three projection scenarios uses a different assumption about the key migration component. Two scenarios allow observed migration to continue into the future.
All scenarios incorporate the same moderate assumptions about future fertility and mortality.
Size and Growth Missouri has kept its ranking as the fifteenth most populous state through modest but consistent growth. Projections indicate that growth will slow in the coming decades. Overall growth between 1990 and 2020 may more resemble growth in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, when the population grew by one-half million people, than growth in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when the population grew by 800 thousand people. Scenarios L and R project growth of 460 thousand and 564 thousand people, respectively, over the next thirty years. Scenario Z projects the highest level of growth, to a total state population of 5.8 million in 2020, but this is still below growth in the previous three decades.