New Estimates of Geographic Mobility and the Returns to Migration from Individual Level Tax Records, Linked Administrative and Census Data (1969-1989)

John Sullivan, Census Bureau

Geographic mobility in the United States has been declining since the late 1960s. In this paper, we focus on the years around the decline and create a longitudinal panel built on the universe of IRS Form 1040 tax returns from 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984 and 1989 and supplemented with information from additional administrative records and the 2000 decennial census. We present estimates of 5-year mobility rates for both short and long-distance moves, compare our estimates to those from other sources and disaggregate mobility rates by age, race, and income. We also estimate short and long-term economic returns to domestic migration using earnings from the tax data and home values from the 2000 census. We compare these outcomes for inter-county and inter-state moves, as well as moves from county and state of birth. We consider selection issues in our data sources and in our analysis of the effects of migration on economic outcomes. Specifically, we recognize the omission of the non-tax filing population and residents without a social security number from our sample and consider the conditions that result in some people choosing to migrate and others choosing to remain.

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 Presented in Session 45. New Developments in Linked Data Infrastructure