Illinois is down young people — by a lot.

To put it bluntly, our pipeline is drying up. We’ve lost than 185,000 people ages 18 and younger compared with 2020, a 6% decrease. Cook County lost the bulk of these youngsters, with its 18-and-under population decline accounting for over half of the state’s total.

Meanwhile, the retiree population grows. Illinois’ median age is now 39.4 — nearly five years older than in 2000 — and rising steadily.

Twenty-five years ago, Illinois was younger than the rest of the U.S. on average — today, that’s no longer true.

Yes, the U.S. population is aging overall — but Illinois is aging faster than most.

That’s true for several reasons.

First, outmigration, particularly of younger people and families.

Illinois faces a demographic double bind. Not only are fewer women of childbearing age remaining in the state because of persistent outmigration, but those who stay are having fewer children than their counterparts elsewhere. Our birth rate already lags behind most states — particularly those in the South and West — and the gap is growing. The long-term implications for our workforce, tax base and economic vitality are hard to ignore.

While no U.S. state has gotten younger, several have held steady, including Utah, Alabama and Tennessee. Some fast-growing metro areas have even seen median ages decline in recent years.

Consider who has kids: People in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Many in their 50s have teenagers. This age group is sometimes referred to as “prime-working age adults,” and it’s instructive to look at the trends for Illinois versus the rest of the country.

Nationwide, the number of working-age adults grew by 2% from 2020 to 2024. In Illinois, the number is down by 1%.

For many years, one of the most controversial conversations about Illinois was its population loss, a trend political leaders here were happy to see end in 2023 after the state began to receive an influx of migrants from Texas.

But the conversation isn’t over — population loss continues to drive Illinois’ accelerated aging.

Gov. JB Pritzker shrugged off questions about youth population loss recently, but he must know we desperately need to retain and attract young people, because he just signed a handful of bills aimed at making college more accessible and affordable, which is critical to retaining college students. Nearly half of the Illinois high school graduates who go on to college pursue degrees out of state, according to research from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

“There is a 70% likelihood that when they get to whatever that university is outside of Illinois, they’re not coming back,” Pritzker said at a news conference in March. “That’s a real problem, so we want to keep our best and brightest in the state.”

A dwindling youth population means shrinking potential — not just economically, but in civic energy, creativity and community life. That’s bad news for a state that depends on young people to power its workforce and its future.

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