Assessing changes in interstate migration patterns of the United States elderly population, 1965-1990

Abstract

This study examines temporal changes in elderly interstate migration in the United States. All of the interstate movers who were 60 and over are selected from the Public Use Micro-Samples (PUMS) of the 1970, 1980 and 1990 censuses, and three interstate mobility tables are constructed. A triply-constrained gravity model is used to compare the propensities of moving to southern destinations while controlling population sizes for origins, destinations and sample years. The results show that the propensity for moving from cold regions to warm regions has declined by 2.5% since 1980. Elderly migrants from the major retiree-sending regions have begun to lose their ties to the popular southern migration destinations (e.g. Florida, Arizona, California), and, for the most part, this process started in the late 1980s. However, unlike the temporal pattern of the United Kingdom, where elderly migrants have started to move to various inland destinations, US states that registered a persistent gain in the share of elderly migrants are still in the south or southwest, and they are the new competitors to the traditionally established retirement destinations. Newly emergent interstate elderly migration trends can be characterised as geographically focused decline and focused growth. Even though this trend has not caused a reduction in the number of elderly movers to the traditional retirement magnet states, it may result in the saturation of long-term care facilities in the traditional retirement states while causing shortages in new retirement states. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.