One of the most jarring images from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was that of smiling white delegates hoisting placards declaring, “Mass Deportation Now.”
I couldn’t help but put that image into the context of one of mankind’s worst policy blunders. Between 1980 and 2016, the Chinese government placed a “one-child” restriction on families. While this Communist Party social engineering policy prevented an estimated 400 million births, it resulted in a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce and a striking gender imbalance where men outnumber women by 30 million.
Are the United States and Indiana making similar demographic miscalculations?
Fertility rates in Indiana have fallen 11% since 2007, according to the March of Dimes. Not because of overt government policy like that of China, but because of cascading societal pressures surrounding job creation and security, childcare, family affordability, school shootings and whether the U.S. is on the “right track.”
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have already shown a fertility rate of 1.57 per 1,000 women in 2025. The Congressional Budget Office predicts fertility will decline to 1.53 by midcentury. The population replacement rate is 2.1.
Indiana has a fertility rate of 1.75, compared with 1.64 in Ohio, 1.45 in Illinois, 1.52 in Michigan and 1.77 in Kentucky.
Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, noted in an op-ed published in The New York Times this past weekend, “If America’s population does decline, it will strain our entitlements system, damage the economy, reduce innovation and entrepreneurship, and cause serious labor shortages. The more accurate projection, which I outlined in a recent report for my organization, the Institute for Family Studies, sees the American population beginning to shrink in the 2050s. It is a forecast so grim it could upend American budgeting and, thus, American politics.”
“In that scenario, population growth will be anemic in the 2020s and 2030s, fall to essentially zero in the 2040s, and then, starting in the mid-2050s, experience a long, grinding decline,” Stone wrote. “Each generation will be more than 30% smaller than the one before, the work force will shrink beneath the retirees it has to support, and the American century will give way to American contraction.”
Matt Kinghorn, senior demographic analyst for the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, wrote in the publication InContext, “If Indiana’s average age-specific fertility rates between 2006 and 2008 had held steady over the last 16 years, the state would have had approximately 151,000 more births over this span.
“As a result of this shift, Indiana has already seen a decline in the size of its school-age population since 2010, and our latest population projections show that this slide will likely continue over the coming decades,” the report continued. “This trend could have impacts on areas such as the size of Indiana’s labor force and our economic growth, housing demand, the fiscal health of state and local governments and our ability to adequately support the growing ranks of retirees.
Compounding this challenge is immigration. President Donald Trump’s administration is pursuing the deportation of a million unauthorized immigrants annually while dramatically restricting legal entries.
Indianapolis-based Exodus Refugee Immigration observed that an average of about 70,000 people legally immigrated to the United States annually. In 2024, there were 100,034 arrivals. But since Trump took office, only a few dozen have been admitted. Exodus resettled 884 refugees in Indiana in 2024.
The agency reported that Trump announced the lowest goal ever: just 7,500 individuals for 2026 — nearly all of them white Afrikaners.
Immigration is the primary driver of Indiana’s recent population growth, accounting for about 70% of the state’s annual demographic increases, according to FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization.
Temporary protected status holders — immigrants who cannot safely return to their home countries — numbered 22,000 and contributed $463 million to Indiana’s economy in 2024. An estimated 48,000 immigrants in Indiana are awaiting a decision on their asylum claims.
Immigrants are heavily concentrated in critical sectors: 11% in construction and manufacturing, 11% in leisure and hospitality and 19% in agriculture. This is in a state where the Indiana Department of Workforce Development reported 94,000 unfilled jobs in May.
Rachel Strange, a geodemographic analyst for the Indiana Business Research Center, observed in 2024, “As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age, we’re expecting to see labor force growth slow significantly over the next 10 to 20 years. Attracting young adults is going to play an increasingly important role for Indiana’s economy. International migration will be a big piece of that puzzle.”
What we’ll be watching this week in places like Logansport and Springfield, Ohio, is the impact on Haitian immigrants with temporary protected status as they lose their legal authorization to work or drive. Many fill essential jobs that employers have struggled to staff, including processing hogs, picking tomatoes and providing elder care — work that many longtime Hoosiers have shown little interest in doing.
Republicans dominate politics in Indiana. At the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, dozens of Hoosier delegates hoisted the aforementioned “Mass Deportation Now” placards.
They are now getting their wish, with generational policy implications coming to a farm, restaurant, nursing home or meat-packing plant near you.
Brian A. Howey is an opinion columnist for State Affairs Indiana and the founder of Howey Politics Indiana. His writing offers analysis and opinion shaped by decades of experience covering Indiana politics. Email him at howey@stateaffairs.com.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Howey: Indiana faces a demographic dilemma | Opinion
Reporting by Brian Howey, Columnist / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Brian Howey, Columnist | USA TODAY Network
