2024 Kansas Population Forecast Regional 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.

This report will further detail the population growth by region. Kansas is divided into seven regions: Kansas City, North Central, Northeast, Northwest, South Central, Southeast, and Southwest. A map of the regions is included below. Approximately 54.5% of the state’s population is concentrated in the Kansas City and South Central regions as of 2022, corresponding to the largest two metropolitan areas surrounding Kansas City and Wichita. By 2072, that share is expected to grow to 60%.

This dramatic shift in concentration follows population growth and decline across the state, which differ significantly by region, as detailed in the table and chart below. While the major metro regions are expected to grow well in excess of the state’s average population growth, the Northwest and Southeast regions are forecast to decline by 16.2% and 12.9%, respectively, through 2072. Of Kansas’ forecasted net increase of 469,986 residents by 2072, the Kansas City and South Central regions alone account for 443,638.

Even within each of these regions, the growth trends differ over time. While Kansas City and South Central Kansas each present relatively solid growth trends, Southwest Kansas changes from a growth trend to near stagnant in the latter half of the forecast. Northwest and Southeast Kansas, despite overall decline through 2072, experience dramatically slower growth in the latter half of the forecast as diversifying communities bolster growth, and the “echo boom” effect of Baby Boomers’ and early Gen-Xers’ grandchildren themselves having children takes root. An even more pronounced example of this is seen in North Central Kansas, which shifts from a decline to a growth trend in 2052. The broader state average trend is that growth rates see a moderate uptick in the mid-century.

A significant factor in this forecasted shift in population growth trends over time is the growing diversity of race and Hispanic ethnicity across the state. Higher fertility rates among the population that identifies as non-White or Hispanic origin are set to shift the racial and ethnic demographics of the state dramatically. The fraction of the white population statewide is expected to fall from 85.1% in 2022 to 79.5% in 2072, a shift of 5.7 percentage points. Some regions are forecasted to shift by even wider margins. In South Central Kansas, the large Black and Other Race populations grow significantly in share while the White race population declines by 6.5 percentage points of the total. In the Northeast region, the share of the White race alone falls by 7.4 percentage points, the largest racial change for a whole region in the state. Even wider, however, are the 50-year shifts in the share of the population identifying as of Hispanic ethnicity, regardless of race. Statewide, the Hispanic population is expected to grow from 13.8% in 2022 to 19.5% in 2072, a swing of 5.7 percentage points. In South Central Kansas, the swing is forecast to be 7.3 percentage points, with a resultant 21.3% of the population identifying as of Hispanic origin in 2072. The most significant Hispanic population growth, as a fraction of the total, is in the Southwest region. As of 2022, 42.5% of the Southwest’s population identifies as Hispanic, and by 2072, the forecast expects this share to climb to 60.3%, a massive 17.9 percentage point growth.

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.