Millennial Mobility Trends in 2017

In 2017, 34.9 million Americans moved to a new home, meaning the nation had a 10.9 percent household mobility rate. This new Census data marks the lowest mobility in the U.S. over the past 50 years.  

Millennials have been viewed as the generation hampering the nation's mobility. Trulia's latest analysis says the under 35 age group accounts for the largest proportion of moves, often moving for job-related reasons. While men in this cohort are still more likely to move for job-related reasons than women, that gap has narrowed. In 2000, the share of young males moving for jobs was at 24 percent, compared to women at 15 percent, but in 2017, the gap was reduced to 5 percentage points (24 percent for men, 19 percent for women).

Other than a spike in moves by young adults in the 1970s and 1980s – when the Baby Boomer generation started forming their own households — the proportion of moves made up by each age group has stayed relatively constant. This suggests that the reasons behind millennials’ recent low mobility are not generation-specific. Mobility rates have steadily declined in the last decades, proportionately across all age groups.

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