State’s Population Increases Only 1.4% : Demographics: Year-to-year growth rate is lowest since early 1970s. The slight gain to 31.7 million is attributed to the effects of the recession.

Reflecting the stubborn recession, California’s population totaled 31.7 million last July, posting only a 1.4% increase from a year earlier, the smallest gain in two decades, state demographers said Monday.

That trend was reflected in Orange County, where a 1.7% increase was the smallest since state demographers began doing annual population surveys in 1960. In 1991-92, the county grew by 2.3%.

California’s addition of only 442,000 people adhered to a pattern of declining growth rates that started with the recession in 1990, demographers said. It was the lowest growth rate since the economically troubled early 1970s and the smallest numerical change since 1979.

In a report of changes from mid-1992 to mid-1993, demographers of the Department of Finance also said that of the growth that did occur, 319,000 people, or about three-quarters of the total, were immigrants from other countries, a 5% increase over 1992.

Meantime, 252,000 people left the state, the second consecutive year that more people moved away than arrived from other states. However, there was still a total gain in people moving to California of 67,000, as a result of arriving foreigners. The rest of the increase was accounted for by births outstripping deaths, the department said.

The department said it earlier had anticipated an upsurge in population growth, but only slight growth occurred “due to the severity and duration of the economic recession.”

Orange County’s population rose from 2,533,200 in mid-1992 to 2,576,000 in 1993, an increase of 42,800. There were 51,132 births and 14,600 deaths, demographers estimated, and 6,268 people migrated into the county from elsewhere. In 1991-92, the county’s population swelled by 57,400.

The population figures, which vary from U.S. Census estimates because different measuring methods are employed, are used by government policy-makers and businesses for making budget and financial decisions.

Continuing a trend, the Gold Rush country of Northern California remained the fastest-growing region at 2.7%, followed by the San Joaquin Valley at 2.6% and Southern California at 1.2%. The overall statewide rate was 1.4%.

Rural counties grew at the fastest rate, starting with tiny San Benito in Central California at 4.9%, Mono at 4.8% and Imperial at 4.5%.

Times staff writer Eric Bailey contributed to this report.