Ontonagon is a quiet little town, and it’s getting quieter.

There are three funerals for every birth in this Lake Superior shore village of about 1,500 and the surrounding county of the same name. The number of children birth through age 9 in the western Upper Peninsula county plummeted 32 percent just since 2010.

“We’re Mayberry,” said Jan Tucker, referring to the quintessential television small town. “But we’re Mayberry without children.”

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Ontonagon may be Ground Zero for Michigan’s baby bust, but it’s far from alone. Since 2000, the number of babies born in Michigan has plummeted 18 percent, the second-biggest drop in the nation (after Illinois) and triple the decline in the U.S., according to Bridge Magazine analysis of Census data.

The ramifications can be seen around the state, from closed maternity wards in northern Michigan to sinking school enrollment.

And the implications for the state’s future are sobering, from economic struggles and school closings in northern Michigan where the birth declines are steepest, to challenges filling jobs in a state that is aging and likely to lose population.

“All of our policy thinking assumes (population) growth, and instead we have stagnation and decline,” said retired University of Michigan demographer Ren Farley. “The fact is, we may have to start managing stagnation and decline.”

The most likely way to head off demographic disaster may be to look outside our borders, says Kurt Metzger, former demographer for Data Driven Detroit and current mayor of Pleasant Ridge. Metzger says the state must entice young adults to move here from other states, a mantra of state policymakers for at least two decades (Remember Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s “Cool Cities Initiative”?) Attracting non-Michiganders to ward off demographic disaster likely involves more high-paying jobs, and possibly incentives from cities or the state.

No historic precedent

The last time so few babies were born to Michigan moms was 1944, when Franklin Roosevelt was president, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, and the state had about half as many residents as it does today.

There were about 153,000 births in Michigan in 1990, according to U.S. Census figures. Births dropped to 136,000 in 2000 and 114,000 in 2010. In 2017, the last year data is available, there were about 111,000 births.

“You haven’t had this sustained drop in births in Michigan’s history,” Metzger said. “And there’s no indication, unless a lot of folks move here and decide to have children, that it will change.”

A total of 49 of Michigan’s 83 counties – including virtually all of northern Michigan – had more deaths than births in 2017. Two counties, Ontonagon and Alcona, had three deaths for every birth; another four, Roscommon, Montmorency, Iron and Presque Isle, had more than two deaths per birth.

Kent (1.8 births to each death) and Ottawa (1.7) counties on the state’s west side had the most promising ratios in the state.

Eric Guthrie, the state’s official demographer, speaks to groups around the state about the dynamics of Michigan’s population. It’s a conversation that can be depressing.

“What we’re looking at is the confluence of long-term trends,” Guthrie told Bridge. “Along with a decrease in fertility rates over the 25 years, we’re going to see the effect of baby boomers dealing with mortality.”

“Dealing with mortality” is Guthrie’s way of gently saying Baby Boomers are going to die off in the next few decades, making today’s birth-to-death ratios look like the good old days.

“You can draw a diagonal line across the state starting at the crook of the thumb (a line that would include Bay City, Midland and Mt. Pleasant), and almost everything north is in natural decline (more deaths than births) already,” Guthrie told Bridge. “Over the next decade, that line is going to creep south. Over the next 10-20 years, the entire state will have more deaths than births.”

What’s happening in Michigan is happening to a lesser extent across the U.S. But the drop in births in Michigan (18 percent since 2000) has been much more precipitous than the national average (5 percent).

The reason behind Michigan’s baby bust is buried deep in the demographics of the state.

Michigan women of childbearing age give birth at close to the U.S. average (59.5 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in Michigan, compared to 60.3 nationally), according to Census data.

The problem: a shortage of women.

In Michigan, 37 percent of women are between the ages of 15 and 44. That’s in the bottom 10 in the country (the national average is 38.7 percent). A 1.7 percent shortfall of childbearing-age women doesn’t sound like a lot. But that's about 32,000 women and about 2000 births a year Michigan is missing out on.

An example of how that plays out in baby bust or boom: Nearly one in two residents are child-bearing age women in fast-growing west Michigan Ottawa County; In Ontonagon, it’s just one in five residents.