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Elder Law Prof Blog
Katherine C. Pearson, Editor, and a Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network on LexBlog.com

Another Good Source for Data and Reports

By rmorgan

The Population Reference Bureau is a good source of information, statistics and reports.  You can search by region of the world and by topic, one of which is aging. You can access articles, reports, data and lesson plans. The graphics bank for aging has some great charts that open as PowerPoint slides.  Search results can be filtered by subject or area. And just in case you were wondering how many people there are in the world, the website offers a world population clock on the home page (if you were wondering, let’s just say lots…).

One report I found interesting was a 2013 report about Baby Boomers (yes them again).  Living as I do in a sunbelt state, we are always interested in migration patterns, especially those who retire to a sunbelt state.  The June 2013 report, More U.S. Baby Boomers Staying Put, by Mark Mather and Beth Jarosz examined recent “mobility rates” noting that before the recession of a few years ago, many were moving to “retirement destinations” but now more are staying near their homes.  The PRB report was based on their analysis of data from the Census Bureau. 

Of course, being from Florida, I particularly focused on their assessment that Florida was one of the top three states that drew boomers from 2000-2007 but since the recession, the three states have experienced a significant “slowdown” in the growth of boomers retiring there.  The number of boomers coming to Florida dropped to  1/2 of 1 percent increase between 2007-2012 annually, from the previous level of 1.4% increase annually 2000-2007. 

The report notes that this trend is contrary to what was anticipated a few years back.  The USDA had issued a report in August of 2009,  Baby Boom Migration and its Impact on Rural America, authored by John Cromartie and Peter Nelson. The summary for that report indicated that the boomers were expected to migrate to more rural areas or to small towns from more urban areas.  This PRB report indicates that trend isn’t happening and that rural areas have been experiencing declining populations for some years now.  Had the Baby Boomers “moved in” as anticipated in the USDA report, they likely would have given the area a significant economic boost the PRB report notes.

Becky Morgan