Massachusetts State Immigration

Population

Massachusetts' population increased from 5,148,126 in 1960 to 6,557,254 in 2010. That was an increase of 27.4 percent.

The foreign-born (FB) population increased from 576,452 in 1960 to 983,564 in 2010. That was an increase of 70.6 percent. The foreign-born share changed from 11.2 percent to 15.0 percent.

The share of the overall population that was native-born (NB) increased by 21.7 percent.

	Massachusetts: Population  1960-2010

Sources of Population Change

The primary sources of population change are:

Natural Change [Births minus Deaths or B-D];
Net Domestic Migration [NDM - movement between states]; and
Net International Migration [NIM - movement into and out of the country].
There is also a residual "other" amount that isn't placed in one of those three categories.

The first chart below shows the three population change factors for three periods adjusted for annual average amounts. All population increase came from either B-D or NIM as domestic migration was negative. NIM rose over the period from more than one-third of overall population increase to nearly two-thirds.

The second chart shows the same data but with an adjustment to reflect births to immigrants shifted to NIM. In it, NIM became the principal factor of population increase in all periods and nearly the sole factor in the most recent data.

	Massachusetts: Sources of Population Change 1990-2014 		Massachusetts: Sources of Population Change (Adjusted) 1990-2014

		 B-D	 NDM	NIM						  B-D	NDM	NIM	
	90-'99	 64.8%	 neg. 35.2%					90-'99	30.2%   neg.  69.8%
	00-'09	 47.4%	 neg. 52.6%					00-'09	14.7%   neg.  85.3%
	10-'14	 34.9%	 neg. 65.1%					10-'14	 0.9%   neg.  99.1%

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