State population up by 46,000
Advertiser Staff
Hawai'i's population grew at both ends of the age spectrum from April 2000 to July 2003, with noteworthy increases in the number of children under age 5 and the number of elderly age 65 and older, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
But with the overall increase in the number of people living in the state, there was little change over the three-year period in the proportion of various age groups to the total population.
The Census Bureau estimated an increase of 46,071 residents from 2000 to 2003, a jump of 3.8 percent. The 2000 census counted 1,211,537 Hawai'i residents. Using data on births, deaths and immigration, the bureau calculated the 2003 population at 1,257,608.
Adults age 18 and older made up 76.4 percent of the state's population last year, or 960,466 residents. That's almost 5 percent more adults than three years ago.
The number of residents age 65 and older increased 5.4 percent from 2000 to 2003, to 169,346, while the number of people aged 85 and older increased 26 percent, to 22,070 residents.
The Census Bureau estimated that adults age 65 and older accounted for 13.5 percent of the total population in 2003, and adults 85 and older were estimated at 1.75 percent of the population. In both cases the proportion of these age groups to the rest of the population nudged upward from 2000 to 2003 by less than half a percentage point.
The number of school-age children in Hawai'i declined by about 5,500 from 2000 to 2003, but the number of children younger than 5 increased by almost 7,000 during that same period. The Census Bureau estimated there were 85,073 children in that group last year, making up 6.8 percent of Hawai'i's population.
Hawai'i joined the majority of states in showing a decline in elementary school-age children. The bureau estimated there were 146,599 children ages 5 to 13 in the Islands in 2003, a drop of about 5,200, or 3.4 percent.
Those children made up 11.6 percent of the state's population.
Utah and Alaska had the highest proportion of their population in the 5-to-13 age group (15 percent) in 2003, with Texas, Arizona, California and Idaho at 14 percent. The national average was 13 percent.
Only 14 states experienced an increase in their elementary school-age population between 2000 and 2003, with Texas, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada leading the way.
The number of children ages 14 to 17 was estimated at 65,470, or 5.2 percent of Hawai'i's population in 2003, according to the Census Bureau. That's a difference of less than 300 teenagers from those counted in the 2000 census.
More than half of the states experienced an increase in their high-school-age population between 2000 and 2003, led by California, Florida, Texas, North Carolina and New Jersey. Alaska and Utah had the highest percentages of high school-age population at 7 percent. Nationally, 6 percent of the population fell in this age group.
According to the census estimates, California was the nation's most populous state in 2003, with 35.5 million residents, followed by Texas (22.1 million), New York (19.2 million), Florida (17.0 million) and Illinois (12.7 million).
Nevada (12 percent), Arizona (9 percent), Florida (7 percent), and Georgia and Texas (6 percent) experienced the highest rates of growth from 2000 to 2003.
