San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Children becoming increasingly rare in S.F.
Share of population younger than 18 falls to 13% in 2020 census
The gap-toothed city skyline provides a distant backdrop in “Street repairs, Potrero Hill, San Francisco, 1949.”
San Francisco is not an easy place to raise kids. The city’s soaring cost of living and large share of professionally oriented adults have contributed to making it the most childless city in the U.S. for years, behind other expensive urban hubs like New York and Seattle.
The most recent U.S. Census Bureau data from the 2020 decennial census show that kids continue to make up less and less of San Francisco’s inhabitants. The city remains dead last in its share of youths under 18 among the top 100 most populous cities in the U.S. Children made up 13.4% of San Francisco’s population in 2010, and now they make up just 13%.
The overall number of San Franciscans under 18 actually grew by about 5,700 people since the last census count in 2010. But the adult population grew faster — hence the decrease in the proportion of kids. Whereas the
city’s adult population grew by 9%, the number of youths grew by just 5.3%. Overall, the city’s population grew by about 8.5% from 2010 to 2020.
San Francisco’s drop in percentage youth population was actually less extreme than the rest of the Bay Area. All nine counties in the region saw a drop in youths as a share of population, and many counties saw these drops after decades of stability or growth.
Napa County saw the biggest decrease since 2010, from just over 23% to 20%. Contra Costa, which has the greatest share of youths of any Bay Area county as of 2020, dropped over two percentage points from nearly 25% to under 23%.
However, San Francisco remains the Bay Area county with the lowest share of kids by far. All other counties in the Bay Area have at least one person under 18 for every five people, or 20% youth share.
The city has been working to make itself less difficult for families. It became the first city in the country to mandate that employers provide six weeks of paid leave for new parents in 2017, and has worked to improve its park system and other kid-friendly public amenities.
But the city’s more intractable problems, like its shortage of family-friendly affordable housing units, have yet to be addressed.
“San Francisco must reverse the trend and attract more families to live in San Francisco,” Norman Yee, former District Seven supervisor for the city, wrote in 2017 in a policy briefing on upgrading housing options for families. “When we lose our families, we lose part of what makes San Francisco a strong, vibrant community.”