Oregon’s population grows at fastest rate in 20 years, fueled by new residents

Oregon’s population continued to grow at a rapid pace last year, including in the Salem area, as new residents poured into the state.

Oregon’s population reached 4.1 million in 2017, growing by a total of 64,750 during the past year, according to new estimates from Portland State University’s Population Research Center.

The 1.6 percent growth rate, combined with similar gains in 2015 and 2016, mark the largest population growth in Oregon since the 1990s, the report said.

Eighty-eight percent of the increase came from new residents migrating to Oregon, the report said, while only 12 percent was due to an increase of births over deaths.

In the Salem area, Marion and Polk counties both grew at 1.6 percent, the state average. Marion County’s population increased to 339,200, up by 5,250 people, while Polk County’s population reached 81,000, up by 1,270.

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Oregon’s three most populous counties in the Portland metro area experienced the largest gains. Multnomah and Washington counties each added more than 12,000 residents, and Clackamas County added just over 8,000. Portland’s population reached 639,100.

The largest percentage growth occurred in the Central Oregon counties of Deschutes (3.6 percent) and Crook (2.4 percent).

The slowest growing Oregon counties were on the state’s east side, where Grant and Sherman counties each grew by just five people.

The report’s major finding was how much migration was fueling Oregon’s population growth and how much natural growth has slowed.

“Due to an aging population and declining birth rates, natural increase now contributes less to Oregon’s population growth than at any time since the 1930s,” the report said. “The number of deaths continues to climb due to the growth in older population.”

At the same time, migration has continued to spike. Over the past five years, people moving to Oregon has added 200,000 to the state population.

“Net migration has accelerated, as the number of people moving to Oregon exceeded the number moving out by more than 50,000 for the second consecutive year,” the report said.  

Notes from report
• Portland continued to add more residents than any city in Oregon. Its 2017 population of 639,100 includes growth of 11,705 (1.8 percent) since 2016.
• Bend had the second-biggest population gain among Oregon cities, adding 3,265 residents (3.8 percent) to reach a population of 86,765 in 2017.
• Other Oregon cities adding more than 1,000 residents each were Gresham, Hillsboro, Salem, Eugene, Happy Valley, Tigard, Roseburg and Medford. Most of Roseburg’s growth was due to recently annexed population.

• Just over half of Oregon’s counties experienced natural decrease, meaning there were more deaths than births. These included eastern, southwestern and coastal counties. However, net in-migration (more people moving in than out) offset these decreases. Net in-migration is estimated to have accelerated in most counties statewide over the past several years as the state recovered from the recession.