According to population projections by the Indiana Business Research Center, Porter and Elkhart counties are expected to have more people in 2050.
Indiana's total population is expected to grow by 5.6% in the next 40 years, according to the analysis by the Indiana Business Research Center at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.
Porter County is expected to grow by 5.6% between 2020 and 2050 and Elkhart County by 1.8%, according to the STATSIndiana website. Other counties in Northwest and North Central Indiana are projected to see slight population decreases.
Both Lake and St. Joseph counties will grow through 2035, and then see slight decreases in population.
Matt Kinghorn, a senior demographer at the Indiana Business Research Center at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, said population growth in Indiana will significantly slow in the next four decades.
“To underscore how swift and severe this change will be: Indiana’s total population growth over the next 40 years is projected to be lower than the state’s growth between 2000 and 2010,” Kinghorn said in a press release.
The Indiana Business Research Center is part of a national network of data centers representative at the U.S. Census Bureau.
Natural increase, the difference between deaths and births, will be the primary reason for slowing population growth.
“To some degree, this trend was always inevitable,” he said. “With the aging of the baby boom generation — a cohort that today is between the ages of 60 and 78 — Indiana was sure to see a substantial decline in the natural increase, and with it, a slowdown in population growth.”
The number of births in Indiana has been declining since 2008. The state's 79,000 births in 2023 is a 12% decline compared to 2007.
The mortality rate also has increased for people ages 25 to 54 from 231.1 per 100,000 residents in 1998 to 287.3 per 100,000 residents in 2019. In 2023, those rates were estimated at 304.2 per 100,000 residents — 6% higher than in 2019.
“Our projections show sharp decline in natural increase over the next 40 years and that the state will begin to see a natural decrease of the population — with deaths outnumbering births — beginning in the 2040s,” Kinghorn said. “In-migration will become Indiana’s sole source of growth.”
In March, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2023 estimates show that population in six Northwest and North Central Indiana counties grew since 2022.
- Lake County: 499,657 to 500,598
- Newton County: 13,839 to 13,960
- Jasper County: 33,345 to 33,535
- Porter County: 174,848 to 175,335
- St. Joseph County: 272,282 to 272,848
- Starke County: 23,203 to 23,206
“Domestic migration patterns are changing, and the impact on counties is especially evident,” said Lauren Bowers, chief of the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Branch, in a press release.
