Is Growth in the Health Sector Correlated with Later-Life Migration?

The aging population of the United States has long been a subject of debate and inquiry for development planners, policy makers, and researchers. The doubling of the population of Americans older than 65 since 1960 (while the population younger than 65 has grown by only one half) (Fuguitt et al. 2002), has prompted interest in their effect on the economies in which they live (Serow 2003) and their potential as a resource for rural economic development (Fagan 1988; Fagan and Longino 1993; Reeder 1998). Interest in these issues intensified as the baby boomer generation approached retirement age. The retirement of this age cohort is likely to have profound effects on the nation and its economy as this cohort is not only much larger than previous age cohorts, but also healthier and wealthier due to economic growth and advances in the quality of healthcare. Older Americans increasingly have the means and the motivation to migrate to a different area upon retirement. For example, it is estimated that over the next 18 years, approximately 400,000 retirees each year – with an average of $320,000 to spend on a new home – will choose to relocate beyond their state borders (Vestal 2006). The South and West have been and continue to be popular destinations for these migrants (Serow 2001; He and Schachter 2003), although more are choosing to locate outside of the traditional retirement areas of Florida and Arizona (Vestal 2006). One driving force of this shift is the “halfback” phenomenon in the Southeast where retirees who had previously migrated to the coast are returning halfway back to their ancestral homes by relocating to areas such as the Southern Appalachian mountain regions of eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and northern Georgia (Park et al. 2007). Further, later-life migrants are frequently settling in rural places or small towns (Fuguitt et al. 2002). For example, in 2000 a half million more persons above 60 moved into non-metro counties than out of them (Beale 2005). These trends beg the question of how the recent in-migration of older Americans is affecting local economies, particularly in rural areas where the marginal effect of in-migration may be proportionally greater than in more populous urban areas.