An unprecedented drop in California's child population coupled
with a growing wave of Baby Boomer retirements has major
implications for the state and should drive lawmakers to adopt
policies that will nurture young people with improved
educational opportunities and healthcare, according to a report
released today. An analysis of census data shows that children
will make up 21 percent of the state's population by 2030, down
sharply from 33 percent in 1970, according to the report by
USC's Price School of Public Policy and the Lucille Packard
Foundation for Children's Health. Several factors are behind
California's shrinking child population, including declining
birth rates, fewer newcomers coming to the state and a smaller
number of women of childbearing age, said Dowell Myers,
professor of policy and demography and director of USC's
Population Dynamics Research Group. "These trends are not yet
widely recognized, but they should be a wake- up call for
policymakers," Myers said. "We will be increasingly depend