Washington Post: Why are Americans moving less? Perhaps they don’t need to.
… But a recent paper (pdf) from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that none of these theories match the data. (For instance, the decline in migration is most pronounced among the young, not the old.) Instead, argue Greg Kaplan and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, Americans are moving less because they don’t need to move as much. “Low migration,” they write, “is good news.”
It all comes down to two things. First, the authors write, jobs in the United States are no longer quite as geography-specific as they used to be. Sure, if you want to work in finance, Wall Street is the most lucrative place for you. But for many other jobs, the wage boost that workers get from moving is shrinking. Possibly that’s due to the decline of manufacturing jobs — which are often location-specific — and the rise of the service sector, which is somewhat more uniform. Either way, this could help explain why “job-related moves” have been falling more rapidly than other types of moves.
But there’s another factor at work too, say the authors. It’s much easier nowadays for people to research and visit possible destinations before moving. And that may well be cutting down on pointless moves. …
… This, too, shows up in the numbers: Recent immigrants have become far less likely to move away from their original landing point. …
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