Charles Rynerson

Older Moms Deliver: How Increased Births to Older Mothers Can Impact School Enrollment

This paper is an outgrowth of demographic support provided to Portland Public Schools (PPS) by the Center for Population Research at Portland State University. The District’s enrollment began to decline in the mid 1990s, but in the mid 2000s some of the elementary schools in upscale established neighborhoods began to show modest increases in enrollment. We noted that there also was a shift in numbers of births from younger to older mothers in the District that outpaced national and regional trends.