01 Jun 10 MIGRATION AND REVERSE MIGRATION

Who does migrate? Charles Longino offers some clues by charting the flow of older people into and out of particular states over the past few decades. This University of Miami demographer calls Florida a migration “winner” because older people who move there from other parts of the country are mainly younger (in their sixties), more affluent, and healthy. Migrants from Florida to other states (usually northern or mid-western ones) are likely to be older (over age seventy-five), poorer, and more in need of nursing-home care or help with living independently.

California is a “winner” or “loser” depending on the state it is being compared with. It gains in exchange with Illinois, because older migrants from Illinois to California are better off than people who migrate in the opposite direction. But because Arizona has replaced California as a destination for young, well-off retirees, California now “loses” in comparison with its neighbor to the southwest.

The comparisons made by Longino and his colleagues show there are fashions in retirement locations. By analyzing migration patterns from 1960 to 1980, they find that Florida, Arizona, and Texas are becoming more attractive as retirement destinations, while the lure of once very desirable California and New Jersey has waned. More important, their figures show that today there are two types of retirement moves: the well-known exodus to the “hot” (literally and figuratively) retirement states made by more youthful, fairly well-off people just after retirement, and a smaller, less-noticed reverse migration years later. Some retirees who moved “forever” to a Sunbelt state in their sixties are forced to return to their home states in their eighties when they become physically frail, have trouble living by themselves, and need their families near. There can come a time when people are “too old” to stay in their retirement homes.

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GENERAL HEALTH