According to the Ohio Department of Development, Ohio’s population will shrink from 11.8 million people in 2020 to 11.1 million people in 2050.
To many policymakers in Ohio, this is a key public policy issue. Last year, Gov. Mike DeWine urged university officials to ramp-up recruitment efforts to “keep more talent in the state of Ohio.”
There is some truth to the benefits of population growth to population vitality.
New people means new ideas, new businesses, new consumers. I like living in a city with a vibrant immigrant community where I can eat foods from places like the Philippines and go to karaoke nights where people sing Brazilian standards.
I also like having friends from states ranging from Pennsylvania to California who have different backgrounds and life experiences from me.
But population decline can be a symptom as much as a cause of quality of life problems, if not more.
The slowest-growing states in the country, West Virginia and Mississippi, are also states that struggle with the highest poverty rates, lowest educational attainment, and lowest life expectancies.
Understanding causality is hard here, though.
Surely people with higher education and income have more ability to move from state to state, meaning part of what is causing these poor statistics is just losing people who are better off.
On the other hand, there are reasons they are leaving, too, that could be attributed to quality of life.
Then there are the exceptional states like Vermont, which is one of the slowest growing states in the country despite having one of the lowest poverty rates and some of the highest educational attainment and life expectancies among U.S. states.
Clearly there is something happening with Vermont. Meanwhile, Montana had bottom-five population growth in 2024, but is around the middle of the country when it comes to poverty, education, and life expectancy.
So what should we make of Ohio’s population growth trajectory?
Compared to the rest of the country, Ohio has a high poverty rate (top half of U.S. states), low bachelor’s degree attainment (bottom half of U.S. states), and low life expectancy (bottom half of U.S. states). That means Ohio looks a lot more like the Mississippis and West Virginias of the country than it looks like Vermont and Montana.
If this is the case, population decline could be an indicator for deeper quality of life problems in the state.
Ultimately, these other statistics matter more to Ohio’s trajectory than population growth.
If Ohio lost 700,000 residents on net due to births, natural deaths, and migration rates but the poverty rate declined, bachelor’s degree attainment improved, and life expectancies rose, I think pretty much everyone would agree the state would be better off than it was before.
Targeting public policy toward reducing poverty, increasing educational attainment, and improving public health will likely lead to a more well-off state population than one that focuses squarely on population growth.
Let’s realize that quality of life is the most important consideration for Ohio residents, not how many people decide to move in or out of the state.
This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.