Population Aging and Retirement Migration

KPC Research

Population Aging and Retirement Migration

Background

Population aging, defined as an increasing proportion of people age 65 and above, is a general and inevitable demographic trend in postindustrial societies caused by declining mortality, increased longevity and in many cases declining fertility. In the United States, the aging of the Baby Boom cohort (those born between 1946 and 1964) makes this issue even more important. Aging has a number of socioeconomic implications both at the national and local levels of social organization, including its impact on further demographic change, elderly well-being and poverty, community development and economic growth.

Similarly to most demographic phenomena, aging also occurs unevenly in space, and it is interlinked with other forms of spatial inequalities. Aging has been an especially profound change in rural America. Within a generation, between 1970 and 2000, the median age of the nonmetropolitan population increased from 27.9 to 37.2 years. The metro change during the same period was from 28.1 to 34.9 years. Moreover, aging is not evenly distributed across rural areas either, and in the rural Midwest population decline and aging has long been experienced (Rathge and Highman, 1996).

Population aging has two main components. One is aging in place, which means that more and more people survive to ages 65 and above due to increased longevity, and the other is retirement migration when recent retirees move to particular regions and places based on residential preferences. Research showed that while both components had an impact on nonmetropolitan aging in the US (Fuguitt et al, 1989), retirement destinations are not evenly spread out in rural America, but rather concentrate in high amenity regions (Johnson and Beale, 2002). Also, retirement migration often induces more general migration because the demand from high-income retirees for particular services creates a magnet for employment-driven inmigration (Glasgow and Brown, 2005). This is the great paradox of geographic heterogeneity: states with aging population do not necessarily match with those that serve as retirement destinations.

The Midwest is not among the main retirement migration destinations, thus population aging here is a function of aging in place. In 2000, of the 1,055 counties in the Midwest, 869 (82%) exceeded the US proportion of population 65 and above (Hetzel and Smith, 2001). Perpetuated by age-selective outmigration from the region, this process poses a significant development challenge for rural communities in the Midwest (Adamchak et al, 1998).

Program information

This research program is conducted in three distinct phases between March 2006 and March 2007. Phase 1 and Phase 3 are supported by the K-State University Small Research Grant Program and the Gerontology Faculty Research Award Program. Material for Phase 2 is provided by Cornell University.

In Phase 1 (March 2006 – November 2006) the research focused on aging in aging in place in the rural Midwest in the context of the general trends of aging in the US. The product of this phase was a journal article:

László J. Kulcsár and Benjamin C. Bolender (2006): "Home on the Range: Aging in Place in Rural Kansas", Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy, Issue 2006.3

Phase 2 (March 2006 – March 2007) focused on retirement migration in the United States. The goal was to investigate how nonmetropolitan retirement migration destination counties change over time. The product of this phase is a book chapter in a volume about retirement migration edited by David Brown and Nina Glasgow at Cornell University (forthcoming 2008).

In Phase 3 (August 2006 – December 2007) the research concentrates on Kansas, addressing the community development challenges of aging. Three case study sites were selected based on population composition and aging patterns: Smith Center (Smith County), Yates Center (Woodson County) and Sabetha and Seneca in Nemaha County, the only retirement migration destination of Kansas.

A preliminary research report has been published together with the Center on Aging. The report can be downloaded here.

NEW The research report on Nemaha County can be downloaded here.

References

Adamchak, Donald, Len Bloomquist, Kent Bausman, Rashida Qureshi (1998) Retail/Wholesale Trade Employment Directly Related to Population Change in the Nonmetro Great Plains. Rural Development Perspectives 13/1, pp. 46-51.

Fuguitt, Glenn, David L. Brown, and Calvin Beale (1989) Rural and Small Town America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Glasgow, Nina and David L. Brown (2005) “Social Integration Among Older Inmigrants.” Pp. 177-196 in W. Kandel and D.L. Brown (eds.) Population Change and Rural Society. Dordrecht: Springer.

Johnson, Kenneth and Calvin Beale (2002) Nonmetro Recreation Counties. Their Identification and Rapid Growth. Rural America, Vol. 17, no. 4.

Hetzel, Lisa and Anetta Smith (2001) The 65 Years and Over Population: 2000. Census 2000 Brief, US Census Bureau

Rathge, Richard and Paula Highman (1996) Population Change in the Great Plains. A History of Prolonged Decline. Rural Development Perspectives , Vol. 13, no. 1.

Kansas Population Center, February 2007

Kansas State University

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work