NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
September 7, 2000
Between 1990 and 1999, domestic migration resulted in 37,387 more persons moving out of North Dakota than moving in according to the latest Population Bulletin released from the North Dakota State Data Center at North Dakota State University.
"The exodus of people, especially young adults, from the state remains one of the North Dakota’s greatest concerns," said Richard Rathge, director of the State Data Center. "During the past decade our losses through out-migration were greater in number than our fourth largest city, Minot. We need to put more energies and resources into creating sustainable solutions for rural economic development in order to stem the loss of people. The information age, value added agriculture, technology transfer, and innovative public-private collaboration offer exciting opportunities. However, it takes bold leadership to turn opportunities into realities."
Net movement from abroad showed 8,289 more persons moving in than moving out of the state. These residents slightly offset the overall out-migration from the state resulting in a net loss of nearly 30,000 persons over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, natural increase (births minus deaths) added 24,183 persons to the state’s population, resulting in the overall population decrease of 0.8 percent.
Roughly 58 percent of North Dakota counties had more deaths than births between 1990 and 1999. This is largely due to the loss of young adults. The number of births in the state has declined every years since 1982. In addition, only five counties (Cass, Burleigh, Morton, Ransom, and Traill) had an overall in-migration. This resulted in only six counties showing an increase in population during this 10-year time span (Cass, Burleigh, Rolette, Morton, Ward, and Sioux).
Grand Forks County showed the largest losses in population due to out-migration between 1990 and 1999. An estimated 14,654 people left the county during the decade with nearly half of these movers leaving after the flood of 1997. Ward County had the second largest out-migration numbers, but due to a rather large natural increase the population remained fairly stable.
Cass, Burleigh, and Rollete counties had the largest percentage increases in population between 1990 and 1999. Cass and Burleigh both showed natural increases as well as domestic in-migration. Rolette County had domestic out-migration but had a high birth rate during this period.
Net domestic migration is movement to and from North Dakota within the United States. Federal citizen movement is movement of federal employees (both military and civilian) and their dependents into and out of the United States. Net international migration is migration to North Dakota from outside the United States (immigration) and migration from North Dakota to outside the United States (emigration). Net movement abroad is the sum of net international migration and net federal movement during the period.
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Source: Richard Rathge (701) 231-8621
Editor: Tom Jirik (701) 231-9629
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