Percentage of Population 25 Years and Older Living in the State Where They Were Born
If a state hangs on to the people born there, generally it may be more insulated from the Big Sort than other places. Overall, in 2000, about 61 percent of the nation’s adult population born in a state continued to live there. Some states were extraordinarily “sticky”—75 percent of those born in Texas before 1975 were still living in the state in 2000, as were 70 percent of those born in North Carolina. The lowest rates of “stickiness” were recorded by Wyoming (34 percent) and North Dakota (39 percent).
This statistic is computed by dividing the number of persons 25 years old and older in each state who were born in that state and are still living in it by the total number of persons 25 years old and older born in that state. This statistic measures the relative insularity of a state’s population—the extent to which people born in that state remain there. These data were taken from Census 2000 public use microdata obtained from Ruggles, S. and M. Sobek, "Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0.," located online at http://www.ipums.org. Joseph Cortright, vice president/economist of Impresa Consulting, provided consulting support on developing and analyzing these data.
