A Profile of Youth and Young Adults in Albuquerque
Updated September 15, 2024 | Posted March 21, 2023
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
The age span from 14 to 24 marks a critical stage of development. During this phase, young people experience profound physiological changes and must navigate increasing autonomy while forming their identity, expanding their socioemotional and life skills, advancing their education, acquiring job training and more. This period of time is also a window of opportunity for parents, caregivers and caring adults — as well as for programs and policies — to support young people and their future.
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® Data Center, in collaboration with local partners, provides data on the well-being of youth and young adults in Albuquerque. This data is wide-ranging and explores demographics, poverty, education, employment, health, teen births and more. This post highlights some of these findings as well as select data from the New Mexico Public Education Department and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
Key Findings on Albuquerque’s Youth
Issues such as poverty, mental health, overweight and student absenteeism remain serious challenges for many young people in Albuquerque. Although poverty and chronic student absenteeism rates showed progress in recent years, too many local youth continue to experience these challenges. Other education data revealed mixed findings. For instance, the latest annual dropout rates improved modestly while other measures did not, including rates of timely high school graduation and teens who are not in school or finished with high school. In addition, Albuquerque high schoolers increasingly report feeling unsafe at school — and at higher rates than students nationwide. At the same time, the city consistently outperforms the state of New Mexico on multiple measures, including college enrollment or completion and youth disconnection from school and work. Albuquerque has also made meaningful improvements in other areas, such as access to health insurance and reducing youth use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.
Looking across areas of health and well-being, certain groups of youth disproportionately face challenges in becoming thriving adults. Regarding mental health, for example, the data underscore particular concerns for LGBTQ youth, females, American Indian and Alaska Native youth and other young people of color. Below is a selection of some key findings by topic.
Demographics
- Albuquerque is the most populous city in the state of New Mexico. In 2022, almost 76,000 young people between the ages of 15 to 24 called the city home, including more than 36,000 teens ages 15 to 19 and over 39,000 adults ages 20 to 24. The Albuquerque Public Schools — the largest of New Mexico’s 89 school districts — educates about 1 in every 4 public school students statewide. See youth population sizes in tribal areas near Albuquerque.
Poverty
- About 1 in 5 school-age kids in Albuquerque lived in poverty in 2023. Citywide, the poverty rate for children and youth ages 6 to 17 has fluctuated from year to year but most recently increased from 18% in 2022 to 21% in 2023. Compared to a decade ago in 2013, however, this rate has improved from 27%. The latest city rate was also below the rest of the state (25% in 2023) but continues to exceed the national poverty rate for school-age kids (16%).
- Poverty among young adults declined in 2022, but at least 1 in 5 were still affected. The city’s young people, ages 18 to 24, have experienced high poverty rates in the past decade, peaking at one-third living in poverty in 2011, followed by a steady decline to about one-fifth by 2018. Since then, rates jumped to 26% in 2019 and then declined to 21% in 2022 — equivalent to 11,000 young adults living below the federal poverty level. Similar to figures for children, Albuquerque’s young adult poverty rate falls between the state (24% in 2022) and national (19%) rates.
Education
- Almost 1 in 3 high schoolers are chronically absent from Albuquerque Public Schools, an improvement from prior years. A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the days enrolled in school. Among high schoolers in the Albuquerque Public Schools district, the chronic absenteeism rate more than doubled between 2020–21 and 2021–22, from 19% to 41%. Since that point, however, it has declined to 32% in 2023–24 — still high but moving in a positive direction.
- The annual dropout rate fell by two percentage points across Albuquerque Public Schools. Among students in grades 9–12, the district’s annual dropout rate dipped from 6% in 2021–22 to 4% in 2022–23. Students in all racial and ethnic groups saw improvements this year, as well, although large disparities remain. Notably, dropout rates also declined for students with disabilities, those classified as English Learners and those receiving free or reduced-price lunches (i.e., socioeconomically disadvantaged).
- The high school graduation rate worsened in 2022, with just over 2 in 3 students graduating on time. After steadily improving from 62% in 2014–15, the Albuquerque Public Schools four-year cohort high school graduation rate fell from 76% in 2020–21 to 70% in 2021–22, the most recent data reported. By comparison, the statewide rate (76% in 2021–22) fell only slightly that year and remains above the district rate.
- The share of Albuquerque teens ages 16 to 19 who were out of school and without a high school degree rose by 6 percentage points in 2022. While this estimate has fluctuated over the past decade, it was improving for several years — dropping from 10% in 2018 to 3% in 2021 — before jumping to 9% in 2022. The city’s latest figure is similar to the statewide average (8% in 2022) but more than twice the U.S. average (4%).
The Transition to Adulthood
- Nearly 1 in 10 of the city’s older teenagers were not in school or employed in 2021. The share of Albuquerque youth ages 16 to 19 who were not in school (full- or part-time) or working (full- or part-time) has also fluctuated over the last decade. This rate hovered at 10% or 11% from 2010 to 2012, then fell below 10% for the next five years and subsequently returned to 10% in 2018. The rate has since dropped one percentage point — to 9% — in 2021, the latest figure available. Despite this variation, the city’s rate bested the state average (12% in 2021) in nearly every year of the previous decade.
- In 2022, about 1 in 6 7 young adults across Albuquerque were not in school, not employed and had only a high schooldegree. This statistic helps to gauge if young people ages 18 to 24 are struggling to transition to adulthood. It has bounced around in recent years, rising from 10% in 2019 to 16% in 2021 and then declining to 14% in 2022. Consistent with the rate of youth disconnection from school and work above, Albuquerque has maintained a lower rate for this measure compared to the state as a whole (17% in 2022).
- The share of young people in Albuquerque who had completed or were enrolled in college dropped by almost 20% in the last decade. The percentage of young residents ages 18 to 24 who fit this statistic fell from 51% in 2011 to 42% in 2022, though the figure has fluctuated somewhat from year to year. While the city’s 42% rate is up one percentage point from 2021 and exceeds the state’s rate of 36% for 2022, it still sits below the national average of 48%.
Safety
- About 1 in 12 high schoolers in Albuquerque experienced physical dating violence in 2021.Citywide, 8% of high school students reported being physically hurt on purpose by someone they were dating in the past year, according to the CDC’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Among LGB students who identified as gay or lesbian, the rate of dating violence more than doubled (18%).
- The city’s high schoolers are increasingly likely to skip school because they feel unsafe at or near school—and more likely than students nationwide. The same 2021 CDC survey found that approximately 1 in 6 (16%) Albuquerque high schoolers did not go to school in the past month because they felt unsafe at school or going to and from school, a statistically significant rise from 13% in 2019. The city’s students are more likely to report this than their peers nationally (9% in 2021).
- Across Albuquerque, 51 young people ages 15 to 19 died in 2022, the highest number since 2005. While the city’s annual number of teen deaths due to all causes varies from year to year, it has generally hovered between 20 and 40 per year over the nearly two decades available on the KIDS COUNT® Data Center. In the last 10 years, though, it has largely trended upward and, in 2022, exceeded 50 deaths for the first time since 2005.
Health
- The share of Albuquerque high schoolers who were overweight surged by about 40% from 2019 to 2021.Citywide, 20% of high school students were overweight in 2021, up from 14% in 2019, according to the CDC’s survey. The share who had obesity (16% in 2021) did not change substantially during this period. Among the racial and ethnic groups with available data, American Indian or Alaska Native students experienced the highest overweight (29%) and obesity (27%) rates in 2021.
- Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use significantly decreased among the city’s high schoolers between 2019 and 2021. About 1 in 4 (26%) Albuquerque high school students reported currently using cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco or electronic vapor products in 2021, a drop from 34% in 2019. Current alcohol use also plummeted from 26% to 19% during this period, and marijuana use followed a similar pattern, from 29% to 20%. At the same time, compared to their peers nationally, Albuquerque students were more likely to try cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana before age 13. They were also more likely to be offered or sold an illegal drug on school property.
- The share of Albuquerque youth ages 6 to 18 without health insurance was reduced by more than half in 2022. The rate of uninsured youth had previously risen from 4% in 2019 to 8% in 2021, but then it fell to just 3% in 2022. The city’s 2022 uninsured rate — representing 2,000 young people who lack health coverage — was lower than the statewide rate (4%) or the national rate (5%) that year.
Mental Health
- Among Albuquerque high schoolers, more than 2 in 5 reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021. Citywide, 43% of high schoolers reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks that they stopped doing usual activities, per the CDC’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This represented a statistically significant increase from 40% in 2019. Certain Albuquerque students were more likely to report this than others, including LGBQ youth (63%–67% in 2021), females (56%), American Indian or Alaska Native youth (54%) and multiracial students (50%).
- About 1 in 5 of the city’s high school students said they had seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021. Across Albuquerque, 19% of all high schoolers and 38%–40% of LGBQ high schoolers said that they had seriously considered a suicide attempt in the last year, according to the CDC survey. The same was true for 25% of females, Black youth and American Indian or Alaska Native students.
- At least 1 in 3 local high schoolers said their mental health was not good,either always or most of the time. In 2021, 34% of the city’s students in grades 9 to 12 reported this about their mental health. The CDC survey says poor mental health includes stress, anxiety or depression during the past 30 days. Among the students most likely to report their mental health as poor: LGBQ youth (58%–60%), females (46%) and multiracial youth (46%). Albuquerque high schoolers are also more likely to report this than U.S. high schoolers as a whole (29%).
Teen Births
- The number of teen births across Albuquerque increased slightly in 2022 after a 15-year decline. The number of births to teenagers ages 15 to 19 dropped by 76% between 2007 and 2021 — from 1,199 to 285 in 2020 — and then inched up to 296 in 2022, the first increase in a decade and a half. See births for younger teens compared to older teens.
- In 2022, more than 1 in 10 teen births were to women who were already moms. After hitting a 30-year low of 10% in 2020, the city’s share of births to teens under age 20 who were already mothers increased to 15% in 2021, then dipped to 12% in 2022. This rate now sits below the state (15% in 2022) and national (14%) averages.
More Data and Resources on Youth and Young Adults
- Go to the KIDS COUNT® Data Center for more data on how youth and young adults are faring in Albuquerque, New Mexico and nationally. Learn more about the challenges youth face, as well as opportunities to support them, in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Thrive by 25® announcement.
