Older Adult Migration to the Sunbelt: Assessing Income and Related Characteristics of Recent Migrants

Previous research has documented that, in the aggregate, older adult migrants to the Sunbelt tend to have higher average incomes than age-peer native residents. Using individual-level data on older Florida residents, the present study examines the extent to which this difference is due to compositional differences in factors that correlate with income, rather than to differences in income, per se. To compare specifically the income characteristics of the in-migrant and native portions of a place's older population, it is necessary to standardize the two groups on other relevant characteristics. The analyses suggest that the income advantage of migrants occurs principally among those older adults who migrate in conjunction with the retirement decision, and that it results mainly from a self-selection process.