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Migration and Aging Across the Rural-Urban Continuum

  • by Justin B. Winikoff, Richelle L. Winkler, John Cromartie and Katherine J. Curtis
  • 9/1/2026
  • EIB-306

Overview

This report studies migration and aging patterns across U.S. counties from 1990 to 2020. This report finds that population aging in the 2010s was driven almost entirely by aging in place, rather than migration, like in previous decades. Counties to which older people moved tended to have better economic and health indicators than counties where younger people migrated away.

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