Urban–Rural Residential Mobility Associated With Political Party Affiliation: The U.S. National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and Young Adults

Abstract

The current study used longitudinal panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79; n = 7,064) and National Longitudinal Survey of Young Adults (NLSY-YA; n = 2,985) to examine whether political party affiliation was related to residential mobility between rural regions, urban regions, and major cities in the United States. Over a follow-up of 4–6 years, stronger Republican affiliation was associated with lower probability of moving from rural regions to major cities (relative risk [RR] = 0.71, confidence interval [CI] = [0.54, 0.93]) and higher probability of moving away from major cities to urban or rural regions (RR = 1.17, CI = [1.03, 1.33]). The empirical correlation between party affiliation and urban–rural residence was r = −0.15 [−0.17, −0.13]. Simulated data based on the regression models produced a correlation of r = −0.06 [−0.10, −0.03], suggesting that selective residential mobility could account almost half of the empirically observed association between party affiliation and urban–rural residence.