Making the Return Trip: Elderly Head Back North

February 26, 2007
Making the Return Trip: Elderly Head Back North
By SAM ROBERTS

For the first time since the Depression, more Americans ages 75 and older have been leaving the South than moving there, according to a New York Times analysis of Census Bureau data. The reversal appears to be driven in part by older people who retired to the South in their 60s, but decided to return home to their children and grandchildren in the Northeast, Midwest and West after losing spouses or becoming less mobile.

A stream of elderly transplants leaving Florida was detected by sociologists two decades ago, including so-called half-backs, who stopped short of returning to their home states and settled elsewhere in the South. What is new is the growth in the number of people leaving the region entirely and the dimension of the migration. “As the numbers increase of people in their early to mid-60s that move from the North to the South, we would also expect the numbers of people 75 and older that move from the South to the North to subsequently increase as well,” said Grant I. Thrall, a geography professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville...

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said, “The South, and Florida especially, has been a magnet for yuppie elderly: younger seniors with spouse present and in good health. “These are a catch for communities that receive them, because they have ample disposable incomes and make few demands on public services,” he continued. “The older senior population, especially after 80, are more likely to be widowed, less well off and more in need of social and economic support.” “Many northern states seem to have better senior services than Florida,” Dr. Frey added.

The Census Bureau defines the South as the 16 states that stretch from Texas to Florida, including Maryland, Kentucky and Oklahoma. Census Bureau surveys ask where people were living one year and five years earlier, not whether they have returned to their home state. But the anecdotal evidence seems compelling... Sharon Cofar, who runs a Coral Springs, Fla., company called A Move Made Easy, a relocation service that caters to older movers, said the migration had accelerated since Hurricane Wilma struck in 2005. “It was very difficult for the adult children to cope with the hurricanes and their inability to help their parents at this difficult time,” Ms. Cofar said, “and many do not want the parents to go through it again, nor do they want to care-give long distance any more.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/us/26seniors.html

and if their children cannot afford to drop everything and move south, they almost have to move north..

Someone who is very old, probably moved there when they were healthier and things were cheaper there. Florida of the 60's & 70's was a pretty cheap place.. It's not hard to imagine that well-to-do 40 & 50 somethings moving there to retire early..

Social services down in red state land aren't up to par with those north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Oh wait, that's not a shocker.

part of the year in Florida. They are 81 and 77.

They do not go there any more. They have told me that Florida is one of the worst places in the country to be old or to get sick. They decided that they will still travel when they can, but they will live year-round in Wisconsin.

all the crap about "family" and stuff is bogus, they went to florida in the first place to get away from family and get some space

it's the effing storms

storm insurance is through the roof the last few years

just moved from East Texas up here to Alaska. That's about as south to north as you can get. :)

and in his late 70s, now that his wife has passed.

Made for fun and inexpensive vacations for us and their other children/grandchildren, but it just didn't make any sense to stay down there away from all his family.

He had a hell of a time selling the property, but its best for him to be back.