Kansas Population Age Report

The Center for Economic Development and Business Research, with funding from the Patterson Family Foundation, forecasted population growth for the regions in Kansas by race, ethnic group, age, and gender over the fifty-year period from 2021 to 2071. These projections were forecast utilizing statewide and regional population, birth, mortality, migration, age, and gender with county, ethnic, and gender variations.

The total Kansas population is projected to grow by more than 468,000 residents, an increase of almost 16% from 2021. On average, the state's population is predicted to grow by 0.3% each year until 2071. While this growth rate is slower than what Kansas experienced between 1960 and 2010 (which was 0.54%), it is still faster than the slow growth seen since 2010.

The forecast projects faster growth in the 2050s and 2060s compared to the 2030s and 2040s. While the overall growth rate is slower than Kansas' long-term historical trends, it is an acceleration from the slow growth seen since 2010 and masks a number of divergent trends within different groups inside the state. For example, there is expected to be considerable variation across the state, both across different age groups, between rural and urban areas, and by race and ethnicity.

One significant finding is that the 65-year-old and older age group is projected to have the highest growth rate. In 2015, only 14.6% of Kansans were 65 or older, while 57.9% were between 20 and 64 years old, and 27.5% were 19 years old or younger. However, by 2071, the 65 and older age group is expected to have grown by 111,000 residents, representing 17.7% of the state's population. On the other hand, the 19 and younger age groups are expected to have an annual growth rate of 0.17%, adding 67,462 residents and representing 25.1% of the population. This means that there will still be more young people (around 852,000) than older people (around 601,000) in the state.

Interestingly, even though the number of elderly people is projected to grow, the population dependency ratio (the number of non-working-age persons compared to the number of persons aged 20 to 65) is expected to decline. In 2021, there were 0.77 non-working-age persons for every working-age person, but this ratio is expected to decrease to 0.75 people by 2071. This is possible because the working-age population is anticipated to grow steadily at a rate of 0.35% per year, with a concentration of growth in the age group of 25 to 34.