Thinking about Florida's population

Earlier today, while doing some reading about population trends in major North American metropolitan areas I started poking around the web to find more up-to-date population numbers.  Not to far into my search for numbers I happened across the Google Public Data site and started playing around.

It didn't take me long to display Florida's population information.



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And then it didn't take me long to observe that Florida's population has basically doubled in the past 30 years.  In 1980 the population was 9.7 million and as of mid 2011 it was 19 million.

My immediate thought was that this meant that at least 50% of Florida's population has been in the state for less than 30 years.  From there it didn't take me long to realize that to assume anywhere close to 50% was seriously overestimating the portion of the population that had been in Florida for 30 years.

First of all, mortality rates were something that I needed consider.  If we take the 1980 mortality numbers and assume a consistent mortality rate and apply this number the population for the 30 year period we find that 3 million of the starting 9.7 have since died.

Secondly, internal migration is something that we need to consider.  Some portion of the population living in Florida in 1980 are now living somewhere else.  It didn't take long to find some numbers on internal migration from the Census Bureau.  I was particularly surprised to learn that despite it's reputation as a hub for retirees "Florida experienced net outmigration of those aged 85 and over."  Anyway, though this is definitely a rough guess, I kind that suggesting about a 1% rate of outmigration a year would be fair.  Again this ends up being about 3 million of the starting 9.7 million.


And while I'm sure that I should think about more than just death and internal migration, if we take just these two factors and apply them or the 1980 population of 9.7 million we likely now have only about 3.7 million of those people still living in Florida. Another way of thinking about it is to say that only about 20% of those currently residing in Florida have been there for 30/32 or more years. 


Given that some Pew numbers I found suggest 70% of Florida's adult population wasn't born in the state I am inclined to think that my numbers aren't too far off the mark.


I guess the point I'm getting at is that whether we say that 70% of Florida's population wasn't born in state or that only 20% have been there for more than 30 years it does seem to be the case that most taxpayers and voters in Florida do not have a long history in the state and thus are not likely to have first-hand experience with the economic/social/political developments that have taken place over the past few decades.


Following from that point, to what extent does this reality undermine political socialization that is somewhat reflective of Florida's historical development?  Put another way, is Florida making Floridians of its new inhabitants or is Florida just full of north easterners (one of the areas from which many of Florida's internal migrants come)?  I can't help but wonder if jurisdictions with similar population trends have less predictable political outcomes because of the lack familiarity the incoming population has with the traditions of the area.


If nothing else, it's kind of amazing to think that less that only about 20% of Florida's population have lived there for more than 30 years.