Goodby Past, Hello Future: California’s Demographic Shift : Population: We’re losing older residents, gaining younger ones in a healthy rebalancing of labor supply with demand.

A new Department of Finance report shows an increasing number of people moving away from California and fewer people moving in. Domestically, the state is now a net exporter of population to other states.

We ought to welcome this development. The “goodbys” may reflect the painful passage of one era. But in the procession of people coming and going that is California, the “hellos” foreshadow its future. These opposite flows of migrants are what reshapes a region’s labor force and its people.

As harbingers of change, the new streams of migration describe a fundamental--and probably necessary--generational change reshaping California’s work force. Nearly one of every two adults moving to California from another state is someone under 30. Many of them originate in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. Indeed, California is attracting twice as many young adults from these three states as are moving in the opposite direction.

In contrast, one of every four adults moving out of California is someone over 45. Within this range, “goodbys” outnumber “hellos” by 2 to 1. Many of those leaving head for the Pacific Northwest, Arizona and Nevada.

These contrasting age profiles are no accident. As manufacturing wanes--especially in aerospace--California necessarily looks toward a changing future, tied partly to its Pacific Rim access. The pathways to that future rest in part on a foundation of human resources drawn from other regions of the nation. What this age pattern of these arriving and departing migrants reveals is a healthy rebalancing of labor supply with demand.

As domestic migration flows re-establish balance at older ages, they continue to enrich that supply with young men and women energized by dreams (and, incidentally, educated at another state’s expense). Thus, the combined count of young adults who moved to California from Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey last year virtually equals the number of Californians over 45 who left for Oregon and Washington.

Whether in search of opportunity or to escape confining circumstances, people’s readiness to migrate serves important functions. Inevitably, their individual decisions are colored by a spectrum of motives. But as a prism separates light into its constituent colors, so does migration select distinct types of individuals. Through that prism, we see young adults flowing into California from other places, not out.

California has always been a destination for interstate migrants. Today, though, young newcomers originating in Massachusetts, New York and other states are eclipsed by the vastly larger numbers who originate in other nations. The well-worn migration paths leading to California now have global origins.

Color of motive is the one constant here. Young individuals see in California opportunities beyond what their own regions of birth can offer. Passing through that prism of migration is more human ambition than anyone can measure.

Leaving California

Net gain or loss in population based on California driver’s license address changes. Numbers in thousands

‘92-’93: -100 Source: California Dept. of Finance