Influence of baby-boom generation waning in Sonoma County

Millennials, the wave of young people who grew up in the Internet Age, are increasingly displacing their elders, the baby boomers, as the dominant demographic group in the United States, reflecting the younger generation’s increasing influence as an economic and cultural force.

There are now 83.1 million millennials in the United States, exceeding the baby boomer population by 7.7 million, according to new population estimates issued Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

While Sonoma County baby boomers still outnumber local millennials, a Press Democrat analysis of the census data found that the number of local boomers has decreased by 1,702 residents since 2010, while the number of millennials has increased by 1,464 people during that period.

Over time, the boomer share of the local population is expected to continue to decline, according to an forecast by Moody’s Analytics.

In time, millennials in Sonoma County will outnumber boomers, just as they have in the country as a whole, a demographic shift that will begin to recast local culture and society.

“Nationwide, the number of millennials is larger than boomers. We’re edging toward that, following national trends,” said Tim Ricard, program manager for the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.

In 2010, there were 126,744 Sonoma County residents who roughly fell into the census bureau’s millennial category, those born between 1982 and 2000. By 2014, that number grew to 128,208, an increase of about 1 percent.

Ben Stone, director of the Economic Development Board, said there is evidence that younger millennials are coming to Sonoma County from the Bay Area in search of jobs and more affordable housing.

That’s partly why Erin Rose Opperman, 32, chose Sonoma County over San Francisco as the place to live and work.

Opperman, art director at The Engine is Red, a Santa Rosa creative marketing agency, graduated from San Francisco’s Fashion Institute of Design Merchandising in 2012. She was renting a room in San Francisco’s Mission District, but commuted frequently to Sonoma County, where she worked as a bartender.

It was about that time that housing costs “started climbing out of control,” she said. The Engine is Red had just the sort of millennial-friendly work environment she was looking for.

“It’s fresh and young and unlike anything else that Santa Rosa has to offer and I just wanted to be part of that,” Opperman said.

Chris Denny, 33, president and co-founder of The Engine is Red, said the agency tries to cater to the particular needs of millennials, who he said tend to be very ambitious, self-driven and entrepreneurial. Many of the 17 full-time staff have their own projects or freelance gigs. The company encourages such endeavors, even if it results in an employee striking out on his or her own.

“Entrepreneurs make great creatives,” Denny said.

Baby boomers, who in the past few years have begun entering retirement age, are seeing their share of the local population decline.

In 2010, there were 142,385 baby boomers in the county. But by 2014, that number had declined by about 1 percent, to 140,683.

Diane Kaljian, director of Adult and Aging Services for the county, said the decline in the number of baby boomers has more to do with residential movement than longevity.

The oldest boomers are 69, according the Census Bureau’s age range for boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964. Kaljian said there is no anecdotal evidence suggesting that a significant share of local residents are dying at age 69.

“It’s not that we’re seeing a sudden decline in longevity, it’s a change in who lives in the county,” Kaljian said.

Some boomers, she said, are retiring and are leaving the area for communities with a lower cost of living.

Stone agreed that the decline in baby boomers is likely caused by residents retiring and leaving Sonoma County for areas where it costs less to live, such as Medford, Ore.

For decades, since members of the massive baby-boom generation began coming of age in the 1950s, this cohort greatly influenced American society and culture.

Likewise, the millennial generation - the children of baby boomers - is influencing American society with its own values, priorities and interests, Stone said.

“Millennials aren’t buying cars like boomers, millennials want to be living in urban spaces,” said Stone, a baby boomer. “My generation wants to go back to the land.”

Kelly Bass Seibel, vice president of public policy for the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, said millennials are itching to take the reins of the local business scene. Seibel, who is a founding staff member of the chamber’s Young Professionals Network, or YPN, echoed Denny’s characterization of millennials as entrepreneurial and self-driven.

When YPN was started in 2008, the chamber had set a goal of attracting 50 members, but it got more than 300.

“Young professionals are people who were raised with the idea that they have the capacity to be entrepreneurial,” Seibel said. “I do think we’re moving toward more entrepreneurs. Some millennials were raised in a way that they approach the world of work differently than their parents. They don’t stay in the same job for years and years.”

The largest millennial cohort turned 25 this year, said Ricard, adding that many in this group just graduated from college and are looking for jobs and a place to live.

Kerry Dorado, a 23-year-old account manager at The Engine is Red, recently chose to settle down in her native Sonoma County. Dorado, who recently graduated from California State University, Sacramento, with a degree in communication studies, said she never thought she’d end up back here.

Dorado said she thought she would end up in San Francisco, but after she moved back to Sonoma County she started to “appreciate things more and realized what we had was special.”

Dorado and her co-worker Opperman both acknowledge the apparent generation gap that exists between San Francisco and Sonoma County.

But they said they have their “fingers crossed” that as millennials become a more dominant population cohort, Sonoma County will attract more of what San Francisco has without losing the quality of life it is known for.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.