The Herald reported U.S. Census Department data Sept. 10, 2019, which put the median age of Cape May County over 50 years old for the first time (http://bit.ly/2IIlD51).
The newest American Community Survey (ACS) data shows the county continues to age, with a median age of 50.4 years.
It may seem like a small movement, and one within any statistical estimate’s margin of error, but the consistent shift of the reported median age displays a trend that is not as easily brushed aside.
As the county continues to get older, it’s also getting smaller.
Population Declines
The fact that the county’s population has been declining since the reported peak in the census of 2000 is not news. The new ACS data puts the county population estimate at 92,560, 10% below the peak, in 2000, and also below the census population figure for 1990. The population level has marched back 30 years and shows no signs of stopping its reverse trajectory.
It is also not news that the location of the loss is easy to identify. If one counts Dennis, Lower, Middle and Upper townships and Woodbine as the mainland and the 11 other municipalities as the islands, the mainland has held its own through the years of declining population, growing from 2000 to 2018 by a little less than 1%. The island communities lost over 20% of their permanent population.
Construction on the islands has boomed, land values and assessments are at record levels, but populations have dwindled. Towns like Stone Harbor have 85% of the municipal housing stock listed as vacant by the Census Bureau, with almost all second homes for out-of-county residents and taxpayers.
In 1980, for the first time in the county’s recent history, the population of the mainland communities equaled more than half of the county’s population, standing at 51%. Now, two out of every three residents of the county live in mainland communities.
From 1980 to 2000, while the population of the county, as a whole, grew by 25%, the mainland communities expanded by 45%, with the island communities standing still, except for Ocean City.
After 2000, a second home construction boom and the resulting rise in land values produced a migration of permanent residents from the islands, encompassing the entire decline in county population.
With that also came the aging of the population that remained. The recent ACR data tells that tale.
Population Ages
From 2000 to the present, the population of the county age 18 or younger has declined by 28%, almost three times the rate of overall population decline. Meanwhile, the population 65 years old or older has increased by 22%.
A county of parents has given over to a county of grandparents.
Cape May County has the highest median age of the 21 counties in the state, yet, once again, the difference in character between the island communities and the mainland asserts itself.
The median age of Middle Township is reported at 42.3, eight years lower than the county median and just a tad higher than the state median age of 40.
What one sees in the numbers is a tale of two counties in one, mainland and islands linked together by dependence on a seasonal tourist economy.
Data on the educational attainment of persons 25 or older shows that, in the county, 37% have no more than a high school diploma, a figure greatly influenced by the island and mainland dichotomy. That number is 46% in Middle Township, 48% in Lower Township and 50% in Dennis Township. In the state, as a whole, that number is 36%. In Avalon and Stone Harbor, the number sits at 17%.
The county’s economy is not structured to reward large numbers of individuals with a college education. The anecdote one hears repeatedly is that many who aspire to the jobs a college education would prepare them for, move on and take their young families with them. True or not, it is clear that the younger members of the county are fewer.
2020, Beyond
The trend of an aging, smaller county population is pivotal for issues of education, health care, affordable housing, homeownership and economic development.
In 2016, the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization (SJTPO) projected demographic trends for each of the South Jersey counties. For 2020, the projection for Cape May County’s population was 92,200. The most recent ACS report estimates the current county population at 92,560.
What may frighten some is that the same SJTPO projection puts the county population, in 2040, at less than 80,000 people.
This year, with the 2020 census underway, data will be collected to provide a richer and more robust picture of the county – one that may need to inform a variety of policy decisions by county and municipal officials.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.