Immobility and Repeat Migration in the United States: Evidence From Linked IRS and Census Survey Records

Mark Ellis , University of Washington, Seattle
Thomas Foster, U.S. Census Bureau
Lee Fiorio, University of Washington, Seattle

This paper utilizes a novel dataset linking individual level IRS and SSA administrative records to decennial census and ACS microdata to examine interstate migration longitudinally. We make use of the these linked administrative and survey data to compare the socio-demographic characteristics of the immobile population (those who never move between 2000 and 2016) to those of the mobile population (those who move at least once), and then compare the characteristics of the mobile population by the frequency (moving once versus twice versus three times, etc.) and type (onward moves to new destinations, or return moves to prior locations - i.e. circulations) of moves made between 2000 and 2016. In addition, this project will also assess the relative contribution of changes in long-term immobility, as well as repeat migration frequency and type, to changes in annual migration rates.

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 Presented in Session 145. New Data Sources and Sampling Strategies for Identifying Migrants