Why are there so many men in Colorado?

[lurtsman]

Is the U.S. less mobile? It feels more mobile to me, but that may have more to do with my perspective. If employment was high enough to find jobs, moving across the country wouldn't that be difficult for people that don't have huge tie downs to a local area (IE owning a business).

Thanks for the links.

[oldtrader]

.4% more females than males, is not a huge difference with lots of males in the state compared to females. Colorado is 1% lower in females than the national average.

In simple to understand terms, there are more women than men in Colorado according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In some towns like Colorado Springs where there is a large military base, it may give you the impression there is a surplus of men, but overall this is not the case in Colorado.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by lurtsman

Is the U.S. less mobile? It feels more mobile to me, but that may have more to do with my perspective. If employment was high enough to find jobs, moving across the country wouldn't that be difficult for people that don't have huge tie downs to a local area (IE owning a business).

Thanks for the links.

It's about half what it used to be according to the article linked below. My guess is that a higher proportion of people now live in metro areas than in the past so don't necessarily have to relocate to find a new job. Think of the factory towns back in the day that turned into ghost towns when the plant closed.

Labour mobility: America settles down | The Economist

[lurtsman]

Interesting article. I love reading the economist. One of the few magazines still worth reading.

Good research. The original premise of the mobility decreasing is twisted through the article to recognize that it isn't people being less capable of moving but having less need to move because of the combination of better research and more jobs in non-trade-able fields.

I can certainly see that. I've moved across state lines twice, and I don't expect to do it again for a few decades. High information was an enormous factor in making the right move with less attempts. Of course, like they said, we also ranked housing as more important than unemployment rates. However, if most people are moving with a job in hand, then they probably should rank housing as more important than the unemployment rate. Unemployment is much more important if you want to be able to move before finding work. They pointed out the ease of transportation, but I think it understates the reduced difficulty of finding a job before the move. If more people are moving with jobs because it is easier to land the job from a distance (at least relative to finding the job in your previous area) then more people will be moving with unemployment being a distant concern and prioritizing things like cost of living.

This doesn't surprise me too much since I've found high COL places to rarely be able to justify their costs. It appears more people are noticing, and of course, the trend of moving to the sunbelt continues. Technically we are not considered part of the sun belt, but with so many days of sunshine it sure feels like it to me.

Note: This is the quote I'm referencing: "The trend nonetheless suggests that cheap housing continues to trump other economic signals (like low unemployment rates) in generating net migration trends. That's a little worrying. It is disconcerting to observe households passing up on high-productivity, low-unemployment markets because the high cost of housing in such places makes life there a bad deal." - I just don't see it as that worrying if it is a result of people being able to effectively apply to several markets and then move to the one where they have already found work. High productivity is not how I would describe Washington D.C., but it does have low unemployment and high cost of living.