Oldest retirees bucking a trend

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Oldest retirees bucking a trend

By Frank D. Roylance

Baltimore Sun, August 6, 2003

As many older Americans flock south, some elders move home or near kids; 'A real phenomenon'; Census report suggests increasing frailty a factor.

It's a time-worn story: Mom and Pop finally reach retirement age, sell the old family home and head south to a blissful retirement under Florida palms.

But new reports on domestic migration from the 2000 census suggest that many of the oldest snowbirds are returning north near the end of their lives, perhaps to go "home" again, or to be closer, as they grow frailer, to their adult children.

Florida, still the nation's most popular retirement destination, with a net gain of 149,000 people age 65 and older during the last half of the 1990s, recorded a net "outmigration" of the very old -- people age 85 and older, the bureau said in a report released today.

At the same time, a number of Northern states with net losses of the "younger" elderly to warmer states, clocked a net gain in domestic migration among the very old. Included are Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and Minnesota.

"We can't say for sure those are the same people that moved to Florida and moved back," said Jason P. Schachter, co-author of the census report. The census data reflect migration in both directions during the same five-year period.

But "return migration is a real phenomenon" that other studies cited in the report have documented, Schachter said. And "if you look at the case of Florida, it would make sense that those people who came there 20 years [ago] decided as they got older to move back to their family and where they grew up."

The new migration statistics are drawn from questions asked on the 2000 census "long form," received by about one home in six across the country. The numbers are subject to some sampling error.

Maryland had a net loss of almost 20,000 people to domestic migration between 1995 and 2000. But births and foreign immigration helped boost the state's population by 273,000.

The report said that "older Americans" -- those age 55 and up -- are still more likely to stay put than their younger neighbors. But the census figures show that the most mobile among our elders are the "oldest old," age 85 and up.

Between 1995 and 2000, almost a third of the oldest Americans changed their residence, compared with barely one-fifth of those age 65 to 84.

More than half of the very elderly who moved during the last half of the 1990s moved within their county. Less than a fifth moved to another state.

Census forms didn't ask people to give reasons for their moves. But Schachter said the higher rates of migration among the very old suggest that increasing frailty might become a more powerful motivation for moving than simply retirement to milder climes.

Net migration patterns among Americans age 65 and older show a familiar pattern of movement away from the Northeast and the Midwest, and toward the South and West.

Between 1995 and 2000, about 437,000 older people moved to the South from other regions, far more than the numbers moving elsewhere. Most of the gain was from the "young old," those age 65 to 74. Older people moving out of the South totaled 203,000.

As a region, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania lost the largest number of elderly to interstate migration. About 224,000 older people moved out, while 70,000 moved in.

Florida gained the most older Americans -- 149,000 more than it lost -- followed by Arizona, with a net gain of 53,000, and Nevada, which gained 22,000.

When the elderly migrations are broken down by age groupings, the rates, and in some cases the direction, of the migratory flow change with advancing age.

For example, among states such as Arizona and Nevada with large net gains among the elderly, the rate of those gains dwindles with age. Florida experienced a net loss of people age 85 and older.

Correspondingly, Northern states such as Maryland, Alaska, Colorado and Washington that showed net losses among those 65 to 74 also saw those loss rates slow or reverse among people age 75 and older.

"At the oldest ages," the census report said, "many older people who moved away at retirement may have returned to their states of origin, perhaps to be closer to family or simply to return home."

Americans of all ages continued to be highly mobile late in the past decade, with millions on the move toward the suburbs, or to states with milder weather and healthier economies.

New York saw the nation's second-largest outflow of domestic migrants, 1.6 million moving out and 726,000 moving in. That gave it the nation's largest net loss to migration -- 874,000 people.

California, once the golden destination for millions, had the second-largest net loss to domestic migration, at 755,500 people. Illinois was third, with a net loss of 343,000.

As big as they were, the losses in New York and California to domestic migration were more than made up by births and foreign immigration. New York gained nearly a million people in the 1990s; California grew by more than 4 million.

States with the largest net population gains from domestic migration, according to the census, were Florida (607,000); Georgia (341,000); North Carolina (338,000); Arizona (316,000); and Nevada (234,000).