California’s population growth can be broken down into two major components-natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) and net in-migration (persons moving into California from other states and countries, minus those leaving California for out-of-state destinations). On average, these two components have tended in the past to contribute about equally over time to the state’s population growth. However, their relative shares can vary significantly from one year to the next depending largely on the strength of the net in-migration component-by far the most volatile element.
Natural Increase. We project that the natural-increase component will average 318,000 new Californians annually over the forecast period. This net natural gain reflects an average of around 576,000 births annually partially offset by about 258,000 deaths annually.
Our forecast incorporates the well-documented trend of declining birth rates that has been in effect for essentially all ethnic groups in recent years in California. Despite these declining birth rates, however, the number of new births in our forecast actually trends up a bit through 2012. This is due to significant growth in the female population of child-bearing age groups in the faster-growing segments of California’s population, including Hispanic and Asian women. As a result, even after accounting for growth in the number of deaths occurring annually in California, we project that the natural increase component will grow slightly during the latter half of the forecast period.
Net In-Migration. We project that combined domestic and foreign net in-migration will average roughly 145,000 annually over the next six years. This is less than during the latter half of the 1990s and in the early 2000s when annual net in-migration averaged about 260,000. It also is considerably less than the projected 318,000 natural-increase component noted previously. Regarding this in-migration:
Most of the net in-migration we are projecting reflects foreign net in-migration from other nations. This component has been relatively stable over the past decade and has proved to be less sensitive to the economy than domestic population flows between states. We forecast the net foreign in-migration will be fairly constant through 2012, averaging about 165,000 annually.
Regarding domestic net in-migration, preliminary data suggest that this is likely to be negative in 2006 (that is, more people left California for other states than flowed in from them). In large part, this is attributable to continued modest job growth and high home prices. Our economic forecast is not strong enough to induce significantly more net domestic in-migration from other states. Thus, we do not foresee a return to net interstate population in-flows for a couple of years, after which only modest net domestic in-flows of 5,000 annually are anticipated. Over our entire forecast period, net domestic out-migration will average 20,000.
It's dumber than the Tastes Great/Less Filling argument!!! I told you the only growth industry we have up here is Government!!!