The 1950’s were strong years for young families rebuilding the US economy and bringing new life into the world. Few mothers at that time thought ahead to the impact this baby boom would have on the future.
State Demographer Eddie Hunsinger said those post-war babies now make up the bulk of the Kenai Peninsula’s population. But their needs now are very different from 60 years ago…
Hunsinger: “We’re already starting to see, I believe, increases in the healthcare industry and so on. We’ve seen a good deal of those and a lot of that is related to the aging of the population.”
Most of the baby boomers moved to the Kenai Peninsula as young men and women, ready to work and build families of their own…
Hunsinger: ‘It is quite a change for the state to have a large 65+ population. A lot of those people who are 50-65 right now, they moved here in the 70’s and 80’s and they didn’t move here with their parents, so that generation above them didn’t live in Alaska. This is a really big and new 65+ population for the state.”
By the numbers, 36% of the Peninsula’s population is over 50. That’s higher than the 27% statewide composition, but still below national rates. The median age of an Alaskan is 33.2 years, while the US median age is 37.6.
Hunsinger said Alaska’s population is aging, but for the foreseeable future he expects the state to stay younger than the country as a whole.
