The drop was particularly acute in Aroostook County, where the number of youths fell from 22,352 to 16,720, a decline of more than 25 percent. Piscataquis and Washington counties also recorded double-digit declines, while Androscoggin, Franklin, Penobscot and Somerset counties saw their youth populations shrink by at least 7 percent.

The biggest increases were in the two most populous counties, Cumberland and York, where the number of residents 18 and younger was up 8.8 percent and 7.7 percent respectively.

Nationally, the number of youths increased by 13.7 percent from 1990, to 72.3 million in 2000.

If the trend in Maine persists, according to the Census Bureau, by 2025 Maine will have one of the smallest percentages of youths among all states and the District of Columbia, plunging from 42nd place in 1995 to 49th.

Youths are expected to make up barely 20 percent of Maine's population in 2025, according to Census Bureau projections, compared to nearly 24 percent nationally.

The slide in the number of youths could lead to school closings and consolidations in some regions. It also could translate into a future labor shortage that may dampen economic growth by making labor costly and crimping the pipeline of new ideas and enterprises.

As the baby boom generation ages beyond childbearing age, it has been predicted that the percentage of the nation's youth will become a smaller portion of the nation's population. In fact, according to census data, from 1990 to 2000, those younger than 18 grew from 25.6 percent of the nation's population to 25.7 percent.

Maine's elderly population – those 65 and older – is expected to burgeon, although 2000 Census figures breaking out the elderly from the general population will not be released for a few months.

''We're already facing the aging phenomenon,'' said Deirdre Mageean, a demographer and director of the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy at the University of Maine.

Using results of the 1990 Census and 1998 estimates, the Census Bureau reckoned that the rise in Maine's senior population has pushed the state's ranking from the 18th-highest proportion of elderly to 10th highest. Growth in the proportion of Maine's elderly is projected to outpace the elderly growth rate for the nation as a whole. The Census Bureau predicts that the elderly will have grown from 13.3 percent in 1990 to 21.4 percent of Maine's population by 2025.

Nationally, the percentage of the elderly is projected to grow from 12.6 percent to 18.5 percent over the same period.

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