New England is aging. Can immigration help with workforce woes?

In the nation’s oldest states, immigrants emerge as one solution to a persistent problem.

By Amanda Blanco, September 18, 2024. Published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Traffic was so rare on the road in Lewiston, Maine, where David Chittim and his wife bought an old farmhouse in the late 1970s, that they’d jump to look out the window every time a car passed by.

The newlyweds, both 27, moved to the house because it was something they could afford and fix up themselves. But even though it was just a few miles from the city’s downtown, Chittim said they were “essentially isolated.”

“When we moved here …  it was a dirt road, (and) we knew all four people who lived on it,” he said.

Lewiston had been an industrial center for decades starting in the 1800s, thanks to the textile mills that lined the Androscoggin River. But by the 1970s, the mills were largely shut down. The downtown area had a rough reputation, so the young couple rarely ventured there. Instead, they spent most of their time at home, cutting firewood for heat in the winter and enjoying the nature that surrounded them.

Nearly 50 years later, times have changed – and the traffic on Chittim’s road is just one sign of it.

“Now, our road has 50 or 60 houses on it,” said Chittim, now 74-years-old.

A retired engineer, Chittim is part of one of northern New England’s most important demographics. He is an older adult in one of the oldest regions in the country.

Chittim has also witnessed the growth of another demographic that has helped bring life to his city: immigrants and refugees. Immigrants make up a small percentage of the population in northern New England. But they have contributed substantially to its recent growth, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Around the region, immigrants and refugees are filling gaps in the workforce left as the native-born population ages out of it – or leaves for opportunities elsewhere. And some communities, once manufacturing centers, are evolving as longtime residents and newer arrivals forge a path for the future.

About 200 miles west of Lewiston in Winooski, Vermont, textile mills once powered by the Winooski River have been closed for decades, and many families who had lived there for generations have left. But the city of just 1.5 square miles has become known as a destination for refugees arriving in the U.S.

“There just aren’t a lot of people in my generation who stayed,” said Deac Decarreau, who’s lived in Winooski for all of her 65 years. “I really think that without realizing it, we’ve become increasingly dependent on refugee resettlement … for the last 15 years, maybe more.”

Such change is not always easy, even in places like Lewiston and Winooski, which became manufacturing centers in the mid-1800s by relying on the labor of immigrant workers.

In 2022, a report commissioned by Winooski officials concluded the city was “diverse but not inclusive” and stated that many “New Americans” feel excluded from the larger community. And Lewiston contended with rising tensions between some city leaders and the Somali community following a wave of arrivals in the early 2000s.

Still, some residents say the cities have ultimately benefitted from the change. In Lewiston, many of the city’s former mills have been converted into restaurants, offices, and museums.

And Chittim, president of the county’s historical society, said the seedy adult shops that once marked parts of downtown are now markets and stores owned by residents from Africa. He said he and his wife have become “enamored with Lewiston,” and they’ll never leave.

“We love the activity that a dynamic intermixing of cultures creates,” Chittim said. “There’s a tension there that helps people grow.”

Read the full article on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s website.