UF researchers: Florida has fewest older baby boomers

July 13, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida is missing a large part of the nation’s greatest growth explosion as the Sunshine State ranks dead last in the percentage of households with older baby boomers, according to the latest statistics available in a newly released University of Florida publication.

While Florida has the highest percentage of householders over age 64 (28.7 percent), the share of those between 45 and 54 was the lowest at 17.4 percent, according to “Florida and the Nation 2001” from UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. The figures are from 1998, the most recent ones available.

“Depending on whether the baby boomers head someplace else like the mountains when they retire, we may see a bit of a lull in Florida’s growth,” said June Nogle, a demographer with the bureau. “But we won’t see growth slowing to the point of population loss because migration will continue.”

Alaska had the largest share of householders between 45 and 54 (24 percent), while most states fell within the 18- or 19-percent range, she said.

“That’s not to say we don’t have baby boomers, because we certainly do,” Nogle said. “It’s just a little less than the national average because we have more people in other age groups, like 65 and older.”

Actually, Florida’s 1999 median age of 38.7 came in second to West Virginia, the nation’s oldest, which was 38.9. By comparison, the U.S. median age was 35.5.

“It’s not that West Virginia has a lot of older people,” Nogle said. “It simply has lost a lot of young people who have moved out of state, making its median age higher.”

Age of householders was just one of several aspects the researchers examined.

Last year Florida’s homeowner vacancy rate of 2.6 percent set the national record, which Nogle attributes to the seasonality of the state’s population.

“There are many homes that are second homes owned by someone who doesn’t regularly live there,” she said. “That’s symbolic of the amount of tourism and seasonal population we have in Florida. No other state in the nation has the same type of incredibly high levels of tourism.”

Of more than 101 million households nationwide, Florida’s average household size of 2.48 persons in 1998 was relatively low compared with other states, said Susan Floyd, the bureau’s coordinator of information and publication services. Utah was the highest with 3.06 people, she said.

But Florida had the second highest number of single-family housing starts in the nation (104,900 units) last year, just behind Texas (108,300), Floyd said.

“Considering we have the fourth largest population and 85 percent of our growth comes from migration, we’d expect that figure to be high because most of these newcomers are going to be looking for houses,” Nogle said.

In other comparisons, the publication reported:

• Florida was the eighth densest state with 296.3 persons per square mile in 2000.
• The state admitted the third highest number of the nation’s immigrants in 1998, with 59,965, (9.1 percent), behind California (25.8 percent) and New York (14.6 percent). Most came from Cuba, followed by Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
• Florida ranked 29th in average annual pay with $28,911. The U.S. average was $33,313, with Connecticut the highest at $42,653 and Montana the lowest at $23,253.

New to this year’s edition are recently released state population figures from the 2000 census, as well as data on female-, black- and Hispanic-owned businesses, Floyd said.

The 2001 version is the publication’s fifth edition. Used by city planners, Realtors, bankers, educators and the media, the book has sold out every year, she said.

“Florida is such a busy state, with people coming and going and businesses deciding to move here,” Floyd said. “We’ve found that people are starved for statistics looking at how Florida compares nationally.”