Youth bolting state (Massachusetts)

BOSTON — Young adults are earning their college degrees in Massachusetts and leaving the state, taking their eager work ethic, vitality and young families with them, according to a new study.

The entire Massachusetts population has dwindled over the past 14 years, but young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are disappearing the fastest, according to a study out of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

And they are not just leaving the Bay State. All six New England states rank in the top 10 in the country when it comes to losing members of Generation Y.

"It really affects the economic and social character of the region. Businesses that are growing fast, such as technology fields, need the energy of entry-level workers, and if there's a decline in this group, they may look to settle elsewhere," Ross Gittell, author of the study, said.

Each of the 67 counties across New England has lost young adults since 1990 except Nantucket, Gittell found. Berkshire County lost 34 percent, Worcester County lost 20 percent, and Windham County in Vermont lost a whopping 41 percent.

The loss not only threatens the state politically in terms of congressional representation, but also has more subtle implications, said Sen. Steven Panagiotakos, D-Lowell.

"We have a very aging population, and we have one of the best benefits systems, but you need those young entrepreneurial working-class people to support that system. Losing people in the 25 to 34 age group hurts us today, but it hurts us even more ten years from now when those people would be getting into the prime of their business careers," Panagiotakos said.

Although several universities in the state attract young adults, Massachusetts is unable to keep them, leading to a "brain drain," of skilled workers. "Our greatest resource is our highly skilled work force. If that erodes, we will lose our competitive edge," he said.

Massachusetts could lose up to 40 percent of their young workers who have bachelor's degrees by 2020, according to a study by the Nellie Mae Foundation.

Once those young workers are gone, it gets harder to attract investors and expand businesses, and the area begins to be "branded as old and cold," said John Schneider, interim president at MassInc, a public policy think tank. Communities also are losing out on the innovations and tolerance that younger generations bring into a community, he added.

"Younger people bring new ideas and new ways of thinking about things and more diversity, and we lose that element. It's not just work force, but also to the contributions young people make to civic and cultural community," Schneider said.

State Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox, hopes to work with Gov. Deval L. Patrick to entice young adults to stay here, explaining that a creative job market might keep them.

"We need to revitalize the economy in Massachusetts region by region. The market here in the Berkshires is very different from the market in Boston," Pignatelli said.

Call me cynical, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath either. The libs won't wake up, even when their charming glorious paradise is going down in flames around them. THey'll still be blaming the right.

I extend the invite to any Massachutan sick of the bs to come to Florida.

You say that your mother told you that at one time Southern speech varied from state to state. That's true, and I think it may be somewhat true even today. I know that at one time there were speech pathologists who could listen to someone speak and nail down the state and sometimes, even the section of the state that they came from. >p?There was one word that my stepfather, who came from southwestern Georgia, pronounced very oddly. Instead of "un yns" for "onions" he said "earn yuns" and someone told me that that word was not pronounced like that anywhere else in the USA.

Sometimes it works to create unpleasant differences. Once we brought some of my young relatives from down South to visit my wife and me in northern Virginia (where no trace of a Southern accent can be found. The Yanks have taken over that place). The neighborhood children had a great time making fun of how my relatives spoke. Of course, my kin were too polite (there's that Southern trait at work) to say that the neighborhood kids sounded odd to them.

Well, IMHO, one of the traits that I'm going to miss when the South is completely overrun with us Yanks is their warmhearted openness. They'll talk to you; invite you into their house; share a cup of coffee with you; give you the coat off their back. My son went to a military school in Virginia and I recall one of the gentlemen down there telling me the reason Southerners were so much more hospitable was because that society was primarily an agrarian one (and that's slowly changing) as opposed to the industrial north. In agrarian society's, people NEED each other and they have to work together. In the industrial north, you just drag your sorry butt into the factory every day and collect your paycheck from the "machine." Generalizations, yes, but pretty on the spot if you ask me.

Well, IMHO, one of the traits that I'm going to miss when the South is completely overrun with us Yanks is their warmhearted openness. .... the reason Southerners were so much more hospitable was because that society was primarily an agrarian one (and that's slowly changing) as opposed to the industrial north. In agrarian society's, people NEED each other and they have to work together. In the industrial north, you just drag your sorry butt into the factory every day and collect your paycheck from the "machine." Generalizations, yes, but pretty on the spot if you ask me.

I have alway read that the Southern states were originally populated with Scots/Irish. New England was originally settled with the English. It was the differences in those cultlures that are apparent today.

If California weren't so horribly expensive, i would still be there

Try Oregon, similar weather to CA, yes we are a blue state but only the north west of the state, the rest of the state is red. I am in southern Oregon, about an hour and a half from the CA border. Close to the famous Oregon coast in Roseburg.

Most everybody is conservative, low property taxes, low real estate prices, low cost of living. You can still buy a house for less than $200K, with $1300 a year taxes. Not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter, it snows once a year for a day and we only we get about 32" of rain a year. No traffic, no mexicans, no long lines at the stores.

I am not so sure that is true but if you go by temperament in general, it would follow. Irish/Scottish people are much warmer than the English. I have traveled to all three (Ireland, Scotland and England). Incidentally, I am descended from English AND Irish on my mother's side and these were Southerners.

I am a 98% Spud and I love the South!
Northernes are Massholes because Harvard College started here. Boston convinced it self that it was the equivalent of Athens!
B.S.!!
I have never seen so many ignorant boobs per square inch than here, that's why I am leaving.

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