El Paso County will continue to see little to moderate population growth over the next 35 years, according to population estimates released Tuesday from the Texas Demographic Center.
The county’s population is projected to grow by an average of one-tenth to half a percentage point annually between 2020 and 2060, the projections show. That would be by far the slowest population growth in the county in the 20th or 21st centuries.
Three factors are shaping El Paso’s population future, said Helen You, the associate director of the Texas Demographic Center. She said those factors are a slowdown in immigration, continued migration of El Pasoans to other U.S. communities, and a decrease in natural population growth, or the difference between births and deaths.
As recently as 2015, El Paso County had 2.5 births for every person who died. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, El Paso had 1.5 births for every death. In 2024, that ratio was 1.7 births for every death. But that ratio will continue to shrink in the coming years, and eventually will reverse as El Paso’s population ages, she said.
“Sometime before 2050, El Paso will have more births than deaths,” You said.
The Texas Demographic Center, based at the University of Texas at San Antonio, provided three growth scenarios for the state and each county – low, mid and high – that differ based on the assumed level of immigration in coming years.
Immigration, primarily from Mexico, has been a key driver of population growth in El Paso since the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. But immigration levels to El Paso have dropped sharply over the past two decades as the Mexican economy has improved and fertility rates have declined, creating less pressure for Mexicans to immigrate.
The Texas Demographic Center projects that the state’s population will grow three to nine times faster than El Paso County through 2060, depending on immigration assumptions.
The projections are based on immigration trends of the past decade and don’t take into account the possible continuation of the current sharp decline in immigration caused by Trump administration policies, You said. If immigration trends continue at their 2025 level into the future, the population of El Paso County and Texas likely will be much lower than what is shown in the projections, You said.
Slowing population growth – or even declining population – has pluses and minuses for El Paso. Lower population places less strain on finite natural resources, especially water and reduces environmental harm.
But fewer people can make the region less attractive to employers, resulting in fewer jobs and decreased wages. And El Paso’s demographic trend for the past 15 years – a combination of low population growth and urban sprawl – can increase the cost of public services and drive up property taxes, while also causing environmental degradation.
From 1900 to 2010, El Paso saw double-digit population growth each decade, with the exception of 1930-40, when the Great Depression disrupted most of the world.
But between 2010 and 2020, El Paso’s population grew by just over 8%. Even the highest growth projection from the Texas Demographics Center shows El Paso County’s population growing by 6.3% between 2020 and 2030, 6.6% between 2030 and 2040, 3.9% between 2040 and 2050, and 2.9% between 2050 and 2060.
The lowest growth projection for El Paso County puts the population at just over 900,000, about 2% above the current population.
Here’s how El Paso’s population growth in coming decades would compare with previous decades, using the Texas Demographic Center’s middle estimate through 2060.
In addition to slowing immigration from Mexico, other factors have slowed El Paso’s population growth – rapidly declining birth rates, increasing numbers of deaths in the wake of the pandemic and as the population ages, and continuing outmigration of young adults in search of better economic opportunities.
Births have been declining nationally for a number of years, but over the past decade, El Paso’s birth rate has declined at twice the national rate. That’s likely related to El Paso’s longstanding challenge in net domestic migration, or people moving between U.S. counties.
El Paso has long been a net loser in domestic migration, meaning more people move away from El Paso to other counties than move in. People ages 20-45 are the ones most likely to move, and those also are the group most likely to have children.
The average private sector weekly wage in El Paso County has generally been less than 60% of the state and national averages over the past 20 years, creating an impetus for people to leave El Paso in search of other jobs. The lower wages also make it difficult for El Paso to attract people from other U.S. communities.
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