Internal Migration and Immobility in Early Adulthood

How do life-course events and roles affect internal migration in young adulthood in the United States? Building on and extending existing explanations, the authors proposes that life-course events typically disrupt lives, increasing mobility, whereas the roles that subsequently follow tend to tie people to place. Using monthly data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the authors empirically distinguish between life-course events and roles in young adulthood across work, education, marital, and parental domains and assess the effects of each on interstate moves. The findings show that events and roles have opposing effects within life-course domains and in a similar pattern across domains, indicating that their effects not only are due to domain-specific factors but also reflect a set of larger principles across domains. The findings also demonstrate the importance of accounting for events and roles in combination rather than in isolation of each other.