During the next 20 years, Colorado will likely see its percentage of working-age adults shrink from one of the highest in the nation to below the national average as the number of senior citizens in the state soars.
But the changes will vary dramatically across the state, with the biggest shifts taking place in the Denver metro area and ski counties as baby boomers age, an analysis of population data projects. The San Luis Valley will have almost as many old and young residents as workers, defined as those ages 20 to 64. The northwest energy belt will see a surge in both young and old as the retirement and oil-and-gas exploration industries flourish.
“Colorado has never had a lot of older people,” said state demographer Elizabeth Garner. “Now, the folks that moved in during the 1970s are finally starting to hit 65.”
The result, Garner said, is that the number of seniors in the state will triple between 2000 and 2030.
The Denver Post analyzed population projections developed by the state demographer’s office and compared them with national projections on population changes.
Today, an estimated 10.3 percent of the state’s population is 65 or older, and 62.1 percent of residents are in the prime workforce segment, ages 20 to 64. That is the fourth-highest percentage of working adults relative to the total population in the nation, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
By 2030, Colorado’s workforce segment will shrink to 54.5 percent of total population, slightly below the expected national average of 54.6 percent. The senior-citizen population will climb to 18.4 percent, according to state population forecasts.
The Denver metro area, the prime destination for migrating baby boomers in the 1970s and 1990s, will get a major face-lift as seniors rise from less than one in 10 residents this year to almost one in five by 2030.
One of the biggest challenges will be filling jobs as the adult workforce shrinks, Garner said.
Not only will the state still be creating new jobs with growth, but it will need to replace retiring workers, she said.
“Our model actually shows we are migrating in more people than we are creating jobs because we have this exodus of people leaving the labor force,” Garner said.
“They’ve got all this history”
Gary Horvath, managing director of the research division at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, said companies probably will end up hiring back some retirees as consultants or part-time workers.
That will be particularly true in the aerospace industry, which emerged in the 1960s when baby boomers were just entering the workforce.
“They have been with it since Day One. They’ve got all this history you would hate to lose,” Horvath said.
Garner said the percentage of seniors who work beyond age 65 has risen from 6 percent to 16 percent in the past 10 years.
Metro-area residents will see the changes in their neighborhoods.
Subdivisions once devoid of adults during working hours will be peppered with retirees during weekdays. In addition, the areas will become more diverse with a mix of older, younger and middle-aged residents, she said.
Housing searches could become more difficult for younger workers as seniors stay in their homes after retirement in sought-after neighborhoods, Garner said.
The ski counties on the Western Slope will see an influx of seniors as some move there for retirement, others convert their second homes to permanent residences, and the year-round residents age, said Rachel Lunney, research project manager for the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments.
“A lot of the second homes up here are owned by baby boomers,” Lunney said.
The result is the senior population in that part of the state will go from Colorado’s smallest, 7.4 percent, to middle of the pack at 18.4 percent over the next 20 years.
Demand for social services
The council held a series of town-hall meetings last year on the coming surge and has begun a study of what sort of services are needed, Lunney said.
Now, there are few assisted-living centers and beds set aside for long-term care, she said. Public transportation is in good shape along the main corridors but lacks service to pick up seniors near their homes.
The state can get a glimpse of what is in store by looking to the San Luis Valley and Eastern Plains, where senior populations today are about double of those in the ski counties.
“What they’ve got is a more normal age distribution,” Garner said. “They are unique because they are what a normal place would look like compared to the Front Range.”
Frances Valdez, executive director of South Central Colorado Seniors in the San Luis Valley, said she has seen a steady increase in demand for services for seniors.
Valdez said there are now five to six long-term care facilities for seniors in the valley.
Still, the agency can’t keep up with the demand for services, especially those that help seniors stay in their homes.
She said she has cobbled together a system where volunteer drivers meet seniors’ family members or neighbors halfway to deliver hot meals.
Last year, the social services agency received a grant to hold classes for the increasing number of grandparents raising their grandchildren.
“We don’t have enough money to meet the entire need in transportation and homemaker services,” Valdez said.
“It’s only going to get worse. There’s going to be a greater need.”
