EXCERPT: “Nearly 35 percent of rural counties in the United States are experiencing protracted and significant population loss, according to new research released by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Those counties are now home to 6.2 million residents, a third fewer than lived there in 1950. In all, the researchers found that 746 counties representing 24 percent of all U.S. counties are depopulating and 91 percent of them are rural. In contrast, just nine percent of urban counties are depopulating. ‘Population loss from outmigration is the most important factor in the initial stages of depopulation,’ the researchers said. ‘These depopulating rural counties had an average migration loss of 43 percent of their 20-to-24-year-olds in each decade from 1950 to 2010, and that chronic young adult outmigration means there were far fewer women of child-bearing age and, as a result, many fewer births. In addition, 60 percent of these counties had more deaths than births. This combination of young adult outmigration, fewer births and more deaths produced a downward spiral of population loss that will be difficult to break.'” FULLSTORY: http://bit.ly/2WRgygj
