Growing up in mid-sized Virginia Beach, Andrew Waldholz wanted to live in a big city, so he moved to D.C. for college. After four years in the relatively expensive city, he realized he wanted a place to live that was more affordable.
Waldholz, 35, eventually found a happy compromise in St. Louis, whose Midwestern accessibility and opportunities to build his career in corporate compliance had the added bonus of his sister and brother-in-law living there.
Now living 940 miles (1,513 kilometers) from Virginia Beach, Waldholz is in a distinct minority among others who reached adulthood in the 21st century because he lives half a continent away from where he grew up, according to a new study by U.S. Researchers from the Census Bureau and Harvard University published Monday.
The study found that by age 26, more than two-thirds of young adults in the U.S. lived in the same area where they grew up, 80% had moved less than 100 miles (161 kilometers), and 90% resided within less than 500 miles (804 kilometers). Migration distances were shorter for blacks and Hispanics compared to white and Asian young adults, and children of higher-income parents traveled farther from their hometowns than those of less affluent parents, according to the study .
“For many people, the ‘radius of economic opportunity’ is quite narrow,” the report said.
Young adulthood is a period of life when migration is highest in the US. The study looked at the likelihood that people born mostly between 1984 and 1992 would move away from the commuting area in which they grew up. Commute zones are made up of one or more counties, reflect the local labor market, and there are more than 700 commuter zones in the US. The birth range in the study overlaps with the generation commonly referred to as millennials.
The most common destinations for young adults appear to be concentrated near where they grew up, said the study, which used a decade of census, survey and tax data.
For example, three-quarters of people who grew up in the Chicago area have stayed there. Rockford was the most popular destination for people who moved to and stayed in Illinois, but accounted for less than 1 percent of Chicago’s young adults. Los Angeles was the most popular destination for those who moved out of state, but that represented just 1.1 percent of Chicago’s young adults, according to an interactive data tool that accompanied the survey.
The place of relocation of young adults varies by race.
Atlanta is the most popular destination for young blacks moving away from their hometowns, followed by Houston and Washington. Young black adults who grew up in high-income households are many times more likely to move to these cities in the “New Great Migration” than those from low-income families, according to the study.
For white adults leaving their hometowns, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Denver are the most populous destinations. Los Angeles and New York were the top two destinations for Asian and Hispanic youth. San Antonio and Phoenix were also popular with Hispanics, while San Francisco also appealed to young Asians.
Despite the region’s economic woes and the prospect of job opportunities elsewhere, young adults in Appalachia are less likely to move away from their hometowns than those with similar incomes living elsewhere, the report said.
Millennials’ reluctance to move far is supported by recent studies showing a decline in US mobility for the entire population. In the middle of the last century, about one-fifth of US residents, not just young people, moved each year. That figure has fallen steadily since the 1950s, falling from about 20 percent to 8.4 percent last year, due to an aging population, dual-income households that make it harder to start and move, and more recently the pandemic, according to a recent report from Brookings.
A Pew Research Center study released last week found that a quarter of U.S. adults ages 25 to 34 lived in a multigenerational household in 2021, up from 9 percent in 1971. The age groups in the study by The Pew and the Census Bureau and Harvard University researchers overlap to some extent.
When there were wage increases in the local labor market, most of the benefits went to residents who grew up within 100 miles (161 kilometers), not to people who migrated to the area. The effect of wage increases on migration to an area is quite small, and migrants would likely move there regardless of wage increases. Young black adults are less likely to relocate due to rising wages than white and Hispanic millennials, according to the survey released Monday.
Waldholz, who is white, graduated from the recession in 2008 and returned to Virginia Beach for work. “Probably the worst time to be looking for a job,” he said. He eventually graduated from law school in Ohio and prioritized job opportunities when deciding where to live after graduation three years later.
“We all need a job to pay our bills,” Waldholz said. “That factor should be the most important factor.”
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