Calif. population falls for first time since 1900

California's total population has dipped for the first time in at least 120 years, a change that state officials and experts said was caused by immigration restrictions, pandemic-related deaths and a low birthrate.

According to data released Friday by the California Department of Finance, the nation's most populous state lost 182,083 residents in 2020, reducing the population to 39,466,855 people as of Jan 1, 2021.

The 0.46 percentage-point drop represents the first annual decline since state officials began estimating population in 1900. State officials said several causes are behind the population shrinkage.

More than half the drop, a loss of 100,000 people, was caused by a decline in immigration, a direct impact of the Trump administration's suspension of work visas and other restrictions imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, state officials said.

The pandemic was another contributing cause to the decline in population, state officials said.

The Golden State has been the nation's epicenter for much of the pandemic. Roughly 51,000 Californians died of COVID-19 in the past year, leading to a 19 percent increase in the state's average death rate in the three preceding years.

Officials said 51 out of the state's 58 counties saw "excess death", or rates above the past three-year average. Of those counties, 19 reported death rates up to 10 percent above average; 20 reported deaths between 10 and 20 percent above average; and a dozen reported deaths 20 percent or more above average.

California has suffered 61,246 COVID-19 deaths and had 3,656,967 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The state's birthrate, which has gradually declined for years, was another factor in the population drop.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show monthly deaths across California escalated dramatically during the second half of 2020, while the birthrate during took a downturn.

There were 446,749 babies born in the state in 2019, according to the CDC. In 2020, that number fell to 419,612.

"In recent years, the slowdown in natural increase - a nationwide trend affecting California more than other states - has contributed to the state's population growth slowing and plateauing. The addition of 2020's COVID-19-related deaths, combined with immigration restrictions in the past year, tipped population change to an annual loss," state officials said in a statement.

Adam Fowler, director of research at Beacon Economics, said that the underlying factors in California's population decline are temporary.

"If the US enacts meaningful immigration reform, and the pandemic is brought under control, the state's population will stabilize in a positive direction," he told China Daily.

"The demise of California is hype and has been hastily overblown. That said, when growth does resume, it will be constrained given the state's severe lack of housing supply. There has been a long-term trend of out-migration of lower- and middle-income households replaced by an in-migration of wealthier households," he added.

Fowler believes California will drive the nation's economic growth as the US emerges from the pandemic, but that growth and opportunity need "to be open to all".

The only way to do that is for California's leaders to enact zoning and land-use reform, he said.

California has dealt with slow population growth long before the pandemic. State officials said that in 28 of the past 30 years, the state has seen more people leaving than moving in.

What some people have called a "mass exodus" from California is attributed to the high housing and other costs as well as income disparities that force middle-income families to leave.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, about 6.1 million people moved from California to other states in the 2010s, while 4.9 million people moved in.

The institute found that those who move to the state are more likely to be working age, employed, and to earn high wages, and are less likely to be impoverished than those who move away.

People who move to California also tend to have higher levels of education and income than those who move away, researchers at the institute found.

Global restrictions during the pandemic also resulted in 53,000 fewer international students, who remained home as California universities and colleges pivoted to remote instruction, officials said.

California, which is home to about 15 percent of the foreign student population, saw a decline of 0.7 percent in the total number of students in the 2019-20 school year.

Chinese students accounted for 44 percent of the 160,592 international students in the state.