School-aged children make up a steadily falling share of Wisconsin’s population, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
The share of the state population that is 5 to 19 years old was down to 18.18 percent in 2024. That is the lowest share recorded since the Census began publishing annual data from its American Community Survey in 2005, and it’s down about one-tenth from its peak.
The highest share was in 2006, with almost 20.2 percent of Wisconsin’s population in the 5-to-19 category.
On a county-by-county basis, Clark County topped the list for the highest percentage of school-aged children, at 23.9 percent, followed by Menominee at 23.6 percent and Trempealeau at 21.6 percent. The county with the smallest share of children was Iron, at 13.3 percent, followed by Florence at 13.28 percent and Adams at 12 percent.
In numeric terms, there were total of 1,083,975 school-aged children in Wisconsin in 2024. That is down by 5.6 percent from 2010, when the total reached its peak at 1,148,739 school-aged children, about 20.19 percent of the total population.
