ARE WE BECOMING A SEDENTARY NATION?

Historically, the U.S. has been on the move. This is a metaphor for the fact that, since the nation's beginnings in Colonial times, Americans have picked up stakes after a while and moved to a different location. Initially it was the great westward migration; later a migration to the South seeking warmer climates. During the 50s and 60s we had the great migration to the suburbs. Later on,  the population has continued to move within the same county or even within a city for family or economic reasons.

But it appears that this tendency is slowly fading. The proportion of people who move continues to fall year after year, as shown in the chart to the left. While mobility hovered around 20% from the end of WWII through the late 60s, it started to fall since the 70s to its current rate of roughly 12%.
In the earlier periods, Americans used to move roughly once every five years; but today that is once every eight years.
The mobility rate has fallen roughly one percentage point every four years.

What is behind this trend?

A common assumption is that the aging of the U.S. population is driving this decline. That is, there is a greater proportion of older people in the U.S. population mix, and older people have significantly lower mobility rates (see the chart 'Trends in Mobility Rates- by Age".) This assumption is not far from the truth- a large portion of the decline in mobility can be attributed to people getting older.

Other factors driving mobility down
But we also find that, aside from the trend of a greater proportion of elderly in the population mix, mobility rates are actually falling down for all age groups. The largest declines are in the 18 to 24 years group, those who are traditionally starting to form households and may be moving from a rental unit to their own home. Mobility among this group has fallen by nearly 10 percentage points since 2000, to its current 22% mobility rate.
Similarly, the working mass of the country, those between 25 and 54 years, is also becoming less and less mobile. The rate among this group is down nearly four points since the year 2000.

Economic Impact
Gradually evolving trends such as this one also cause a gradual change in the economic structure and business of the nation. Businesses that depend on people moving to a different home are seeing and will continue to see their markets shrink. Fewer households moving means less business to moving companies, for instance. This is an industry that doesn't promise much growth in the future.
Also, the real estate industry (e.g., real estate agents) would be less busy given the fewer home sale/rental transactions taking place.
Finally, fewer home sales or rentals have well-known effects on the overall home improvement industry. People who move to a different residence, whether it's a new house or an existing one, tend to engage in remodeling or refreshing the house to fit their needs or preferences.

What's Next?
Here I focused mostly on demographic factors that are driving lower mobility rates. In a future post, I will address the economic and social factors underlying these demographic trends.