Changing aged nonmetropolitan migration patterns, 1955 to 1960 and 1965 to 1970

One type of population redistribution is discussed in this paper. It is the migration of older people between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations as it has occurred over two decades. Net migration studies have documented the metropolitan-to-nonmetropolitan turnaround but have not been able to connect the origin with the destination of the individual migrants. Neither have they been able to examine the differences between interstate and intrastate migrants in this pattern. The dynamics of the process, therefore, has been left unexplored. The data used in this analysis came from the two most recent, available, 1-in-100 public use samples, one from the 1960 census and the other from the 1970 census. Only the records of persons aged 60 years and over in these samples were examined. The turnaround was again documented. It became clear, however, that interstate migration over the two decades came to dominate the pattern. What appeared from the marginals to be a turnaround among intrastate migrants resulted from decreased migration into metropolitan areas from nonmetropolitan locations. The metropolitan outflow did not change.