The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development released population projections today, which show a significant increase in Kenai Peninsula population by 2042.
Research and Analysis Section Demographer David Howell explained their methods.
Howell: “For the Kenai Borough we’re projecting it using a fertility rate of about 2.4 and what this is is about 2.4 children per woman if she were to live her entire lifetime at today’s fertility rates, and so that’s well above replacement level so you’re going to see a lot of gain just from that natural increase but then also the Kenai Borough gains population due to migration, over each five year period they’re gaining roughly 2% of their population due to net migration, so they are seeing gains from natural increase as well as migration.”
Overall the Kenai Peninsula Borough is projected to gain nearly 10,000 residents by 2042.
We asked Howell if that included any of the up and coming oil and gas projects.
Howell: “Well we don’t really factor in any type of factor in any pipeline event, we do talk about it just a little bit just for historical perspective and generally the gas booms of the late 70’s and 80’s created pretty wild migration swings, but we don’t build anything like that into the projections, we don’t try to forecast economic events at all.”
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