Internal Migration in the United States

Abstract

This paper examines the history of internal migration in the United States since the 1980s. By most measures, internal migration in the United States is at a 30-year low. The widespread decline in migration rates across a large number of subpopulations suggests that broad-based economic forces are likely responsible for the decrease. An obvious question is the extent to which the recent housing market contraction and the recession may have caused this downward trend in migration: after all, relocation activity often involves both housing market activity and changes in employment. However, we find relatively small roles for both of these cyclical factors. While we will suggest a few other possible explanations for the recent decrease in migration, the puzzle remains. Finally, we compare U.S. migration to other developed countries. Despite the steady decline in U.S. migration, the commonly held belief that Americans are more mobile than their European counterparts still appears to hold true.

Migration, housing market, and labor market responses to employment shocks

“…One can see that there is a downward trend in out-migration until 2002, then an increase until 2005, and a decline in 2006. So these data are generally consistent with the results from Partridge (2010) and Molloy et al (2011).…”

Recessions, healthy no more?

“…Mortality might therefore have become less procyclical if migration rates were increasing over time. However, migration rates instead peaked around 1980 and have fallen sharply since then (Malloy et al, 2011). 25 For example, in Fig.…”

Pioneer settlement of U.S. immigrants

“…That case loss would complicate the study of pioneer settlement. Although some research suggests that internal migration may have declined since 2000 (Molloy, Smith, and Wozniak 2011) and that foreign-and native-born migration flows may now be diverging (Ellis, Wright, and Townley 2014), we think our findings for pioneer places and migrants would be similar in a study focused on patterns since 2000 because immigrant dispersion is continuing (Kritz and Gurak 2015).…”