11 things to know about young children in Minnesota

Minnesota had 355,000 young children in 2010, and 346,000 in 2020. Lower birth rates are a main driver of that change, with the number of babies born in Minnesota peaking in 2007, falling during the financial crisis, and recovering only slightly before beginning a steady decline over the past decade. This drop has policy implications, particularly for school districts that are preparing for lower enrollment numbers in coming years.

Demographics of mothers are changing as well. Since 2018, more than half of babies (54% in 2024) are born to mothers in their 30s, compared to 44% in 2013, and 40% in 2003.

Nearly 76% of Minnesota families with young children are married-couple families. That share is up slightly from a decade ago, although down slightly from 79% in 2000.

As of 2025, more than two in five, or 42%, of Minnesota children under 5 are Black, Indigenous, or people of color, compared to 37% of children ages 5-19, 26% of working-age adults, and 9% of seniors.

Twenty percent of Minnesota children under 5 have at least one parent who is a first-generation immigrant, making immigration an important driver of growth of the state's youth population.

Over 7% of Minnesota babies born in 2024 were born at low birthweight, up from 6% a decade ago. What had seemed like a brief uptick due to lack of access to prenatal care during the pandemic is starting to look like a longer term, and concerning, trend.

Although 97% of Minnesota’s young children have health insurance, that still leaves nearly 12,000 Minnesota children without access to quality health care.

Since the pandemic, fewer young children are receiving Early Childhood Screening. Screening at age three or four is an important step in proactively addressing childhood developmental delays. Fewer than two-thirds of children are screened before age 5 and, in 2025, one in six children had not been screened by the end of Kindergarten. 

At 48%, the percentage of Minnesota’s preschool-age children enrolled in preschool has stayed about the same over the past decade.

For 79% of young children in Minnesota, all available parents are working (either both parents in a two-parent household, or the sole parent in a one-parent household). The other 21% have a parent at home, some of whom are stay-at-home parents by choice, others of whom are looking for work.

About 11% of young children are in poverty, compared to 9% of Minnesotans overall. The positive news is that poverty rates for young children have also fallen the fastest since the Great Recession, narrowing this gap with other age groups.