Lincoln (Neb.) - Nov. 2, 1999 - Nebraska gained more working- age residents than it lost in the early 1990s and the gain of nearly 11,000 in the 20-64 age group wasn't confined to the state's five metro counties.
Those were among the findings in a study published in the October issue of Business in Nebraska, the newsletter of the Bureau of Business Research in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Business Administration. William Scheideler, research analyst in the bureau, said Nebraska had a positive net migration of 1.2 percent from 1991 to 1996. While the bulk of that gain (an estimated 9,731 people) was in the metro counties, the 87 rural counties experienced a positive net migration of 1,153 people in that key age group.
That, Scheideler said, reverses the negative net migration trend over the past two decades for the state's working population. Nebraska's nonmetro counties had negative migration rates in their working-age population throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including a 9.3 percent average net loss for the late '80s. The state's metro counties (Cass, Dakota, Douglas, Lancaster, Sarpy, Washington) also had negative working-age migration rates from 1975 to 1990, but not nearly as large.
"The fastest positive net migration rate for the working-age population occurred in the Mid Plains region," Scheideler said, describing a 19-county area that stretches from Kansas to South Dakota east of the Panhandle. "The 2.3 percent net migration rate for the Mid Plains region topped the Omaha metro region's 2 percent rate."
The four-county Omaha region still gained nearly two-thirds of working-age residents migrating into Nebraska during the period - 7,089 of the state's 10,884. Lincoln had a positive net migration of 1.5 percent in the age group, the Northeast region 0.9 percent and the Southeast region 0.3 percent.
The Panhandle and Central regions experienced negative net migration among the working-age population, 1.4 and 0.4 percent, respectively.
Scheideler found that in general the more remote the county, the larger its negative net migration rate in the 20-64 age group.
"The state's most rural counties experienced higher rates of negative net migration than others," he wrote. "In particular, since 1985 remote nonmetro counties have experienced the highest levels of negative net migration."
"Most rural" counties are defined as those with fewer than
2,500 town or city residents. "Remote" nonmetro counties are
nonmetro counties that do not border metro counties.
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