2024 Kansas Population Age Distribution Report

This report series presents findings on population growth in Kansas over a fifty-year period from 2022 to 2072. The research conducted by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research, with funding from the Patterson Family Foundation, forecasted population growth for different regions in Kansas by race, Hispanic origin, age, and sex. The projections utilize comprehensive data on statewide and regional population, birth, mortality, and migration rates for various demographic groups.

According to the forecasts, Kansas’s total population is projected to grow by over 469,000 residents by 2072, signifying a cumulative increase of 16% compared to the 2022 population. The expected growth rate is 0.3% annually until 2072, representing a modest decline from the higher growth rate experienced between 1960 and 2010 (0.54%), though markedly higher than the 0.3% annualized growth seen between 2010 and 2022.

Annualized growth rates vary, with a relative slowing between 2032 and 2052 as Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers reach ages of higher mortality. Despite this apparent slowing, fundamental drivers are on the increase throughout this period, such as growing birth counts and increasing diversity. From 2052 onwards, the forecasts estimate a wave of population growth that exceeds Kansas’ growth between 2010 and 2020 (0.3%). Notably, the growth trends differ among different groups within the state, influenced by factors such as age, urban or rural location, and race or ethnicity.

The table below presents the population projections by the core three age ranges (below 20, working age, and retirement age) and by the constituent 5-year age cohorts. Broadly, it is evident that the Kansas population is growing, but the growth rates differ significantly by each age group.

By 2072, the population in the core three age groupings is forecast to grow, though the largest growth by proportion is seen in the 65 and Older age group, with 22.7% growth. The working-age population is expected to grow by 16.7%, while the younger population below age 20 is expected to grow by a more modest 10.1%. As the statewide population is likely to grow by 16.0%, the age distribution will shift slightly upwards. 

The growth trends in these age groupings, however, are not linear. The 65 and Older age group has an initial spike as gen-Xers age into their retirement years, with a significant reduction through 2042 as this wave dies out. Following 2047, this age group has a more progressive growth as subsequent age cohorts reach retirement ages. The working age group, aged 20 to 64, experiences a steady, positive growth trend, with only a single period with little change from the previous in 2067. While the population below age 20 experiences an initial decline through 2027 as “echo-boomers”, or the grandchildren of baby boomers, age out of this range, there is a surge through 2042 as rising birth figures create an influx of new young Kansans.

Broken down to 5-year age cohorts, we see several distinct features within the population’s growth of the fifty-year span. By 2072, the number of children below age five is expected to be 23.8% more than in 2022. These growing birth counts will be a powerful driver of population growth beyond 2072. More moderate growth is seen between ages 10 to 19, and even a slight reduction in the number of 20 to 24-year-olds. Considering the outsized bulge in 2022’s population age distribution from the “echo boomers” represents a gradual smoothing out of the population’s age structure among younger age cohorts that is less of a series of waves than before. The highest growth is seen in the older retirement-aged population, between ages 70 and 84. Only slight increases are seen above 85 by 2072 compared to 2022.

Another important factor in the age distribution of the population is not only the growth trends of these age groups but an understanding of how much of the population these groups represent. For easier understanding, the chart below describes the share of the population for five age groupings: persons below age 20, early working-age population aged 20-34, middle working-age persons aged 35 to 54, late working-age persons aged 55 to 64, and retirement-age persons over 65. By these groupings, a clearer pattern emerges, with the fraction of the population represented by persons below age 35 declining markedly. The working-age population tends to cluster more tightly to the middle working ages, while the fraction of the population in the retirement ages also increases notably. This shift by 2072 presents numerous challenges to the Kansas population, with careful considerations needing to be made to understand how to best care for the growing elderly dependent population and how to best utilize a workforce with potentially fewer new entrants relative to the size of the overall force.

Kansas will undergo significant changes in its population distribution and demographic composition over the next five decades. Understanding these trends will be crucial for policymakers and businesses to plan and address these shifts' unique challenges and opportunities.

These forecasts, along with detailed, customizable, embeddable, and downloadable charts and data tables, are available on the CEDBR.org website under the population forecasts page at https://cedbr.org/forecast-blog/population-forecast.

Methodology Updates and Notes

This data represents an update to, and evolution of, CEDBR’s 2023 50-year population forecast from 2021-2071, funded by the Patterson Family Foundation. Broadly, the methodology remains consistent with the 2023 forecast, with two primary updates. First, the starting year has been updated to 2022 from 2021 and now utilizes the Census 5-Year American Community Survey Estimates instead of the 2021 estimates used last year, with subsequent forecasted years adjusted later by one year to remain consistent with the 5-year interval. These five-year intervals are necessary to align with Census ACS age by sex and race/ethnicity data for each county.

The second update within the methodology is a more accurate simulation of the elderly population’s carryover related to mortality between periods. In the 2021-2071 forecast, the population aged 85 and older was subjected to the average mortality rate for all persons over the age of 85, which would then appear in the next period’s estimates. That sum total population 85 and older in the second period was again subjected to the same mortality rate to calculate the carryover to the third period, and so on. In the new 2022-2072 forecast, this carryover population has been calculated by instead identifying the 5-year age cohorts beyond age 84 and subjecting each, individually, to the respective mortality rates for those age groups rather than the average and applying the survivors back into the population in subsequent periods, reported simply as 85 and older to maintain consistency.

The reason this is important for accurately predicting elderly populations is due to how this more closely reflects actual mortality. Individuals aged 95 to 100 naturally have higher mortality rates than individuals aged 85 to 90, and thus the former were previously being overrepresented in the 2021-2071 estimates during the years in which a significant remnant cohort was carried forward five or ten years beyond what would realistically be expected. In effect, this change somewhat reduced the mortality rate for individuals aged 85 to 89 while increasing it notably for individuals aged 90 and above. The chart below compares the inverse mortality rates; the survivorship rates for each 5-year age cohort, which represents the percent chance an individual has of surviving the previous 5 years to reach each listed age cohort’s starting year. Note that an individual’s chance of surviving to age 85 is higher in the 2024 estimates than in the 2023 estimates but continues to decline over time, while in the 2023 estimates the survivorship rate remains the same as they age into older age cohorts.

A vision of how this change impacts the model is by comparing models in their estimates of the same year using linear interpolation between each period. By lining the models up in this way, it is evident that the revised methodology avoids some of the volatility in this population seen in the 2023 estimates, though broadly reflects the same trends, particularly mitigating the notable decline seen through 2026 in the prior model. The net effect of this change is a more stable population in this age group, less influenced by survivorship of the generational echo cohorts that were surviving beyond what is reasonable given the fact that mortality rates increase very sharply beyond age 85.