The latest birth statistics (2006) have appeared at the State of Massachusetts. When taken in the long run, we continue to see a downward trend in the number of births each year registered to Dracut residents though in the last eight years or so, the trend is fairly flat.

You would think that over the long run, with so many people moving into town that the annual number of births would increase. However, the data shows that even with increased population over the same time period from 25,594 in 1990 to 29,385 in 2006 the actual rate of births per 10,000 residents also showed a downward trend.

Again, this seems to taper to flat in the last few years.

What can account for this? The demographics of the population of Dracut are defininately changing. More people in and coming to town are either older, or choosing not to have children.

This could be a result of the increase in over-55 developments in town, but the fact is that not many of them have been completed yet. It seems more the trend that less people are having children than in the past.

I thought this was some interesting information for us to ponder. I’ve uploaded the spreadsheet over in the “downloads” section for those who may be interested in the raw data.