| Abstract: | The age patterns of U.S. internal migration, while examined extensively at the national level, have not been fully explored at the regional scale. This study examines, using 1985 - 1990 census data, the state-level variations in two aspects of lifecycle mobility: the mobility level, or the average number of moves made over the lifecycle, and the mobility timing, or the age at which half the lifetime moves are completed. It further delineates typologies of states based upon their age structure of mobility. The study found that regional patterns in the mobility level showed some evidence of the Snowbelt-Sunbelt patterns that characterized economic restructuring in the 1980s. Geographic patterns of mobility timing were less clear; however states in the West and the South showed somewhat more young distributions than the other regions. Further, there was a statistically significant relationship between mobility levels and timing: states with higher mobility levels also exhibited older mobility profiles, as a consequence of disproportionately high elderly mobility rates. The study highlights the regional differences in mobility behavior, and the interplay between the “how much” and the “when” of mobility. |
