Motive and the geographic mobility of very old Americans.

The proposition that motives for migration are important in explaining geographic mobility of very old persons was explored in this study. Data from the biennial 1984 through 1990 rounds of the Longitudinal Study on Aging were used to predict the move/not-move behavior of a nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized respondents aged 70 years and over in 1984. Six motives for elderly migration were identified: health, affiliation, economic security, comfort, functional independence, and getting on with life after family crisis. When incorporated within this motivational framework, reason-for-move data showed that health was not the dominant motive; responses were divided among the five other motive categories. The logistic regression analysis showed that increasing disability was positively related to mobility for respondents in only one of six motive categories. The results suggest that a motive-for-migration perspective broadens the debate on types of, and explanations for, migration behavior of noninstitutionalized very old Americans.