The nuclear family is slowly melting down in Southwest Colorado, according to numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau released recently.
The archetypal family married parents with children living in a house they own now accounts for a much lower share of the population, especially in rural areas.
Instead, more people rent.
More live in multigenerational families.
More live alone.
And there are fewer children around, especially in the rural areas of Southwest Colorado.
In fact, the median age increased by nearly five years in Montezuma County to 42.9, meaning half the population is older than 42.9 years. Cortez remained a bit younger, with a median age of 38.3, an increase of 1.9 years.
The retirement-age population grew by nearly 1,000 in the county to 4,269 and by about 200 in the city to 1,513. More than one in six residents in Cortez and Montezuma County as a whole is over age 65.
The local numbers follow a larger trend toward smaller families and fewer homeowners, but the trends are amplified in Southwest Colorado.
Montezuma County saw an 11 percent increase in the proportion of people living alone, while Cortez saw a 6 percent increase.
Its not just a statewide trend but a national trend on the number of single-person households, said Elizabeth Garner, the state demographer.
The trend has been building for decades, she said.
In rural areas of the Four Corners, people older than 65 accounted for a larger share of the growth in people living alone than young people, according to a Journal analysis of the Census numbers.
Were getting this from two ends, Garner said. The younger people are delaying marriage and deciding to live on their own. On the older end, weve got this really large baby boom population.
Divorced or widowed baby boomers might account for the growth in the population of single seniors.
At the youngest end of the spectrum, children make up a smaller part of the population now. But families with two married parents raising their own children saw an especially steep decline.
The proportion of the population living in a home with married parents and kids dropped by more than 10 percent in both the city and the county. Just about one in six households in Montezuma County are now nuclear families, down from one in four a decade ago.
Garner said she still needs to study the reasons behind the drop in the childhood population, but she suspects its a combination of lifestyle changes and an aging population.
On the other hand, the region saw a small uptick in the number of people living in a home with someone elses children.
The economy has forced the trend to bigger households, said Dave Hart, deputy director of the Piñon Project Family Resource Center.
Certainly, were seeing more families staying together longer, kids staying in the house longer, because there arent as many jobs, Hart said.
Other families with children have moved away to seek work elsewhere, leading to further drops in the childhood population, Hart said.
Better local job prospects could halt the trend and keep people at home in Southwest Colorado, he said.
Any time you have hardships like that, people have to make some tough decisions, Hart said.
Piñon Project workers also have noticed an increase in unrelated people moving in together to help pay rent and household costs, but the main increase in blended households came from different generations of the same families sharing a home, Hart said.
Also, Colorados increasing Hispanic population brings a tradition of multigenerational households, said Garner, the state demographer.
All these changing households are living in a changing mix of housing, too.
Every part of the region saw an increase in the housing stock. Montezuma County added nearly 1,600 homes, 377 of them in Cortez and 84 in Mancos.
A few more homes stood vacant in most parts of the region, except for Cortez, which saw a slight increase in its rate of occupied homes to 92.4 percent.
Dolores Countys high vacancy rate of 38.8 percent was mostly due to seasonal homes. Nearly one in three homes in Dolores County was for seasonal use, according to the Census.
The Census counted vacant homes on April 1 too early for summer sun-seekers or fall hunters.
Meanwhile, slightly fewer people own their homes. One in three people in Montezuma County now rent their homes, while in Cortez and Mancos, two out of five people rent.
The tiny town of Rico, population 265, bucked most of these trends.
The mountain town saw a 10 percent increase in its proportion of homeowners, as well as a doubling of its nuclear family households.
The Census Bureau generated the May 19 numbers from last Aprils Census questionnaires and follow-up surveys to find the reasons for home vacancies.
On the Net: New Census numbers on family life are available online at factfinder2.Census.gov. Click on Geographies to narrow your search to cities or counties within Colorado, and choose the first file at the top of the page, 2010 Demographic Profile SF.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
