"Home Grown" US States And Declining Inter-State Mobility
Summary:
- In 2015, the percentage of state residents who were born there varied significantly across the country from a high of 75% in Louisiana to a low of 12% in Nevada. Retention of native-born adults is greater for those who married a spouse also born in the state.
- Most states became less “home grown” from 1990 to 2015. Changes are complex and are driven both by how attractive a state is to its own young residents, and to retirees, US born workers, and immigrants.
- There is a similarly large range for the percentage of all adults born in a state who now no longer live there. Based on the 2015 Census, 66% of all the adults who were born in Wyoming now live in another state. At the other extreme, only 23% of all adults born in Texas live outside Texas. This range is partially driven by a state’s size in terms of population and geographic area.
- While one might expect inter-state mobility has increased for economic reasons, it has actually declined since the 1980s. Recent research indicates the decline is a result of a broader decrease in the rate of job changes across all age groups. Broadly this implies that the costs of changing jobs (and moving) have risen and that its benefits have decreased.
State Shares Of Native-born Residents
The map at the head of this essay illustrate each state’s percentage of native-born residents. Conceptually its share is an interplay between how well it retains its own young adults, and how attractive it is to those that were not born there. Forces at play include how pleasant the state is to live in and the number of attractive jobs created there. In addition to someone’s affection for where they grew up, family ties are also important as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates the increased likelihood that adults remain in their home state if their spouse was also born there.[1]
Figure 1: 2015 Census -- Retention of Native Born Married (Spouse Native vs. Overall)
North Dakota, for example, retains about 43% of all of its native born married. However, it retains about 72% of native born married individuals whose spouses were also native born.
A State’s Out-Of-State Residents
States have different levels of attractiveness to non-natives. Table 1 shows each state’s non-native percentage in 2015 and its decomposition into three non-overlapping groups: 1) those 65 and older (broadly “retirees”), 2) those younger than 65 born in the US (broadly “US-born workers”) and 3) those younger than 65 born outside the US (broadly “immigrants”).
Table 1: 2015 Census -- Decomposition of State Non-native Shares
| State | % Not Native Born | % Not Native 65+ Age | % Not Native < 65, Born US | % Not Native < 65, Foreign Born |
| Louisiana | 25% | 5% | 15% | 5% |
| Michigan | 27% | 7% | 13% | 7% |
| Ohio | 29% | 8% | 16% | 5% |
| Pennsylvania | 30% | 6% | 16% | 8% |
| Iowa | 32% | 6% | 20% | 6% |
| West Virginia | 32% | 6% | 24% | 2% |
| Mississippi | 32% | 6% | 23% | 3% |
| Wisconsin | 33% | 6% | 21% | 6% |
| Kentucky | 34% | 6% | 23% | 4% |
| Alabama | 34% | 7% | 23% | 4% |
| Indiana | 36% | 8% | 23% | 6% |
| Minnesota | 38% | 7% | 21% | 10% |
| North Dakota | 38% | 5% | 29% | 4% |
| Missouri | 39% | 9% | 26% | 5% |
| Illinois | 39% | 8% | 15% | 16% |
| Nebraska | 41% | 8% | 25% | 8% |
| South Dakota | 41% | 8% | 29% | 4% |
| Maine | 41% | 10% | 27% | 4% |
| Arkansas | 44% | 9% | 29% | 6% |
| New York | 44% | 9% | 10% | 25% |
| Massachusetts | 44% | 8% | 17% | 19% |
| Oklahoma | 46% | 9% | 30% | 7% |
| Tennessee | 47% | 9% | 31% | 6% |
| Utah | 47% | 7% | 29% | 11% |
| South Carolina | 48% | 11% | 31% | 6% |
| Rhode Island | 48% | 9% | 23% | 16% |
| Kansas | 49% | 9% | 30% | 9% |
| Texas | 50% | 8% | 21% | 21% |
| North Carolina | 50% | 9% | 31% | 10% |
| Connecticut | 52% | 12% | 22% | 18% |
| Montana | 53% | 14% | 36% | 3% |
| Hawaii | 54% | 10% | 24% | 19% |
| Georgia | 54% | 9% | 32% | 13% |
| New Mexico | 55% | 14% | 30% | 11% |
| Vermont | 56% | 13% | 37% | 5% |
| New Jersey | 56% | 12% | 19% | 25% |
| California | 57% | 13% | 14% | 30% |
| Virginia | 58% | 11% | 33% | 15% |
| Maryland | 61% | 12% | 31% | 17% |
| Idaho | 62% | 14% | 41% | 7% |
| Washington | 62% | 13% | 33% | 16% |
| Delaware | 63% | 17% | 35% | 11% |
| Oregon | 64% | 16% | 37% | 11% |
| New Hampshire | 65% | 15% | 44% | 6% |
| Wyoming | 67% | 14% | 49% | 4% |
| Colorado | 68% | 13% | 43% | 12% |
| Alaska | 70% | 11% | 48% | 11% |
| Arizona | 74% | 20% | 38% | 15% |
| Florida | 76% | 23% | 31% | 22% |
| Nevada | 88% | 19% | 46% | 23% |
Some states like Florida and Arizona are attractive to retirees. California, New York and New Jersey are examples of states that are relatively attractive to immigrants.
Most States Becoming Less “Home Grown”
Table 2 shows most states became less home grown from 1990 to 2015. Again, I decompose the absolute change in out-of-state share into the three non-overlapping absolute changes in non-native retirees, out-of-state US-born workers, and immigrants. The yellow highlighted columns sum to the green column. The rose colored column is only included to show directionally how a state is doing in retaining its own young native born residents (the darker the rose shading, the more improvement the state has shown in retaining young natives).
Table 2: 2015 vs 1990 Census -- Decomposition of Change in State Non-native Shares
| State | Change In Non-Native Share | Change 65+ | Change Not Native <65 Born US | Change Not Native <65, Foreign Born | Change In Native Share Of < 35 yr Olds |
| Alaska | -10% | 6% | -21% | 5% | 19% |
| California | -9% | 1% | -16% | 7% | 17% |
| Arizona | -6% | 3% | -16% | 7% | 15% |
| Florida | -5% | 0% | -14% | 9% | 12% |
| Michigan | -3% | 0% | -6% | 3% | -2% |
| Ohio | -3% | 1% | -6% | 2% | -3% |
| New Mexico | -2% | 3% | -11% | 5% | 6% |
| Nevada | -2% | 5% | -20% | 13% | 7% |
| Louisiana | 0% | 1% | -3% | 2% | 0% |
| Wyoming | 0% | 2% | -4% | 2% | -2% |
| Oregon | 0% | 1% | -7% | 6% | 0% |
| Colorado | 1% | 3% | -9% | 7% | 3% |
| Washington | 1% | 1% | -9% | 9% | -1% |
| Indiana | 2% | 1% | -3% | 4% | -7% |
| Illinois | 2% | 1% | -6% | 6% | -3% |
| Connecticut | 2% | 3% | -7% | 7% | -1% |
| New Hampshire | 2% | 6% | -6% | 2% | 10% |
| Idaho | 3% | 2% | -3% | 4% | 3% |
| New Jersey | 3% | 2% | -8% | 10% | -1% |
| Hawaii | 3% | 4% | -2% | 2% | 3% |
| Delaware | 4% | 6% | -8% | 6% | 1% |
| Maryland | 4% | 4% | -10% | 10% | 0% |
| Missouri | 4% | 2% | 0% | 3% | -4% |
| Oklahoma | 4% | 1% | -1% | 5% | 4% |
| Montana | 5% | 3% | 1% | 1% | -5% |
| Utah | 5% | 2% | -3% | 7% | 1% |
| New York | 6% | 2% | -2% | 6% | -7% |
| Kansas | 6% | 2% | -2% | 6% | -2% |
| Wisconsin | 6% | 1% | 2% | 3% | -9% |
| Nebraska | 6% | 2% | -2% | 6% | -6% |
| Maine | 7% | 4% | 2% | 1% | -1% |
| Iowa | 7% | 1% | 2% | 4% | -9% |
| Texas | 7% | 3% | -6% | 10% | 2% |
| Minnesota | 7% | 1% | -1% | 7% | -9% |
| Virginia | 7% | 5% | -6% | 8% | 0% |
| Arkansas | 7% | 2% | 1% | 4% | -3% |
| Mississippi | 7% | 2% | 3% | 2% | -3% |
| South Dakota | 7% | 1% | 4% | 2% | -8% |
| Vermont | 8% | 6% | -1% | 2% | -1% |
| Pennsylvania | 8% | 1% | 2% | 4% | -9% |
| Rhode Island | 8% | 1% | 0% | 6% | -6% |
| North Dakota | 8% | 0% | 6% | 2% | -10% |
| Alabama | 8% | 3% | 2% | 3% | -3% |
| Massachusetts | 9% | 2% | -2% | 8% | -8% |
| West Virginia | 9% | 1% | 7% | 1% | -9% |
| Kentucky | 10% | 3% | 4% | 3% | -7% |
| Tennessee | 12% | 4% | 4% | 5% | -8% |
| South Carolina | 13% | 6% | 3% | 4% | -6% |
| Georgia | 13% | 5% | -1% | 9% | -5% |
| North Carolina | 17% | 4% | 5% | 7% | -12% |
The Table reveals two key reasons a handful of states like California, Arizona, Michigan and Ohio became more native. California and Arizona retained more of their young native-born residents. However, Michigan and Ohio lost out-of-state US born workers due to sluggish economic growth.
States like South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina that saw increasing non-native shares were generally beneficiaries of immigration and/or retiree migration.
Differences In Native Mobility By State
Historically Ireland was an example of a place where most people who lived there were also born there, but a large percentage of those born there emigrated to live in another country. In a similar context, North Dakota is a state where most people who live there are natives, but most people born there live outside the state. Texans occupy the other end of the spectrum. In 2015, only 23% of all those born in Texas lived outside the state.
Figure 2: 2015 Census -- State “Ex-Pats” versus State Population
As shown in Figure 2, it is obviously easier to change jobs and even move long distances while remaining within the state if you were born in a large state with a large population. Conversely, in small Northeast states like New York and New Jersey, it is not uncommon to live in one state and work in another.
The Decline in Inter-State Mobility
Affection for one’s native state as well as family and spousal ties can tie someone to their birthplace. However, historically Americans would move out-of-state if the quantity and quality of jobs in their home state was poor. Recently that has become less common and economists don’t fully understand why.
It is easy to come up with possible reasons for the decline: an increasing share of two-earner couples, more people trapped in negative home equity, an aging workforce and so on. Table 3 reproduce tables from an excellent 2016 paper titled Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the US by Molloy, Smith and Wozniak. They show that none of these single explanations seem to work because inter-state migration declined relatively uniformly for nearly every socioeconomic characteristic.
Table 3: Tables From “Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the US”
The authors posit that the decline is related to the fact that employees change jobs less frequently as shown in their Figure 3. Yes, you read that correctly: the popular belief that employees change employers more frequently than they did in the past is false.
Figure 3: Declines In Employer, Occupation And Industry Transitions From “Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the US”
The authors illustrate the correlation between these two trends of declining inter-state migration and declining job changes by state in their chart reproduced as Figure 4.
Figure 4: Declining Inter-state Migration and Declining Job Changes By State From “Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the US”
Molloy, Smith and Wozniak suggest causality is running from declining job changing to declining inter-state mobility. They cite the need for further research to explain the broader decline in job changes:
In a very general sense, explanations for the decline in labor market transitions (and consequently the decline in interstate migration as well) can be categorized into factors that have raised the cost of making such transitions, and factors that have reduced the benefit of making such transitions.
On the cost side, possibilities include changes in job search or the hiring practices of firms, a rise in the importance of soft information—which is more difficult to obtain and assess—in the hiring process, and an increase in the importance of on-the-job training and accumulation of firm specific human capital, which would be lost in a transition between employers. In fact, some research finds that employer investments in workers in the form of training and on-the-job skill development has risen over time (Cairo 2013; Corrado, Hulten and Sichel 2009). Fujita (2012) proposes a model in which there is a secular increase in the risk of experience depreciation during an unemployment spell for all workers in an economy. Workers therefore become increasingly reluctant to separate from their firms and risk the loss of skill that would result from a failed transition to a new job. He argues that such a model can reconcile declining labor market turnover with stagnant wages and rising public anxiety about job security. Higher costs imply a less fluid labor market, which has the potential to reduce aggregate economic efficiency and ultimately household welfare. For example, Davis and Haltiwanger (2014) argue that the secular decline in labor market fluidity may be suppressing job creation and human capital accumulation.
On the benefit side, it could be that returns to making a transition in the labor market are smaller because wages are more similar across employers or locations than in the past. Also, it is possible that initial matches between firms and workers are of higher quality than in the past, for example because more information is available prior to the match or because the pool of potential matches from which workers and firms draw is larger or more diverse.
On the “cost side”, one of the notable features of states with a high percentage of natives is that they tend to be low cost-of-living states as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: 2015 % Native Resident Share vs. Cost of Living
In some sense, natives of low cost of living states are trapped there unless they can secure significant wage increases by moving out-of-state.
[1] US Census data provided by IPUMS-CPS, University of Minnesota, www.ipums.org. The data is provided freely but is subject to their licensing restrictions. I used an age cutoff of 21 years or older. Presumably native retention is also higher for those whose parents also reside their home state, but US Census data is not collected in a way that allows us to prove that.
Transparent and reproducible: Tables 1 and 2 and Figures 1, 2 and 5 can be generated by using the free, publicly-available R program, the data links in this article and in the R code available in “homeGrown.r" on github.
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