Texas is getting older, but its child population is growing

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Texas is growing older faster than the rest of the nation, but the number of children in the state has grown while the country’s population of young people has shrunk.

The population of Texans age 65 and older grew faster than any other age group since the start of the decade, U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday show — including working-age adults and children under the age of 18. The number of elder Texans grew 3.8% from 2023 to 2024, faster than the rest of the nation as a whole.

People are living longer than in past generations. As they age, older Texans will increasingly rely on those of working age, a population that isn’t growing as quickly, for support, said Holly Heard, vice president of data and analytics at Texas 2036. Older Texans face increased pressure from the state’s high housing costs. In a state with the highest levels of people without health insurance, a growing number of Texans will face ailments as they age.

“Texas is less equipped than many other states to take care of our aging population,” Heard said.

The number of working-age Texans hasn’t kept pace with growth in the senior population even as the state has boomed. Texas has seen fewer people move here from other parts of the country, but the state will have to lean on labor from outside its borders to keep its economic growth humming, said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer.

“If we're not producing our labor in Texas and if we can't import them, then that's going to potentially have an impact on the expansion of our economy,” Potter said.

Texas remains fairly young. The median age ticked up slightly from 35.3 years old in 2020 to 35.8 last year, below the U.S. median of 39.1.

As the rest of the country saw the number of minors decline since 2020, Texas’ population of young’uns grew.

The state’s population of Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos has taken off since 2020 — and those families have been the source of the state’s relative baby boom compared with the rest of the country, Potter said. Still, their birth rates are declining. White Texans are having fewer kids, too, as that group’s population has stagnated.

Children outnumber seniors in Texas, which isn’t the case in 11 states including Delaware, Oregon and Philadelphia. But 76 out of 254 counties have more elders than children — predominantly rural places young people left when they came of working age to seek job opportunities elsewhere, Potter said.

Disclosure: Texas 2036 has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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