They are the freest generation ever, untethered by family or mortgages, but millennials appear stuck in place and not following others in a mass, job-seeking migration around the country, according to a new survey.
Pew Research Center on Monday revealed that the most-talked-about generation since the Baby Boomers are hardly moving, bringing the overall U.S. moving rate down to the lowest rate on record.
Only 20 percent of those aged 25 to 35 reported moving, down from 27 percent for Boomers and 26 percent for Generation X, which came before Millennials.
But Pew was stumped to figure out why.
Sure, the high-paying jobs market hasn’t revived heartily, but Pew found that the generation has far fewer life responsibilities than others. Where other generations had moved quicker to marry, have kids and buy a house, Millennials are on hold.
From Pew:
— A spouse. Millennials are less likely than previous generations of young adults to be married, so that should give them more flexibility than earlier generations. Married young adults are less likely to move than unmarried ones, in part because a married couple’s move may entail two people lining up new employment. Only 42% of Millennial 25- to 35-year-olds were married and living with their spouse in 2016. By comparison, 82% of Silent 25- to 35-year-olds were married and living with their spouse in 1963.
In 2016, only 20% of Millennial 25- to 35-year-olds reported having lived at a different address one year earlier https://t.co/mLyXFfpwfS pic.twitter.com/Bh1DJjFIVa
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) February 13, 2017
— A house. Today’s Millennials are less likely to be tied down by owning a house. It is presumably less disruptive and potentially less costly to move from a rental unit than it is to sell a house, so one would expect renters to be more mobile than homeowners. Older generations appear to be significantly more likely to have been tied down with a house when they were young adults than Millennials are today. For example, 56% of early Baby Boomer 25- to 35-year-olds lived in owner-occupied housing (not owned by their parents) in 1981, whereas only 37% of Millennials lived in such housing in 2016.
— A child. Young adults also are more likely to migrate if there are no children present in the household. In 2016, a majority (56%) of Millennial 25- to 35-year-olds were childless (in terms of not having a child of their own living with them). Fewer than half of Gen Xers and Boomers were childless at a similar stage of life.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
