This proposal describes the continuation of an interdisciplinary research program studying retirement migration decisions. The approach adopted for this project is to sample respondents from the preretirement age group; ask each respondent to evaluate a series of hypothetical migration sites described by experimentally designed combinations of geographic, economic, and sociological factors; and derive a migration decision model for each respondent. These models are then used to better understand the retirement migration decision process and to forecast retirement migration flows. Results to date concern the distribution of preferences for specific locational attributes among a sample of 327 Iowans aged 55-64. Current work is concentrating on using these results to derive simulation models for forecasting migration flows. These forecasts are to be compared with actual age-specific migration data when these data become available from the 1980 census. Primary goals of the proposal continuation include the following: 1) examine how retirement decisions preceding migration decisions are influenced by economic factors such as social security benefits; 2) examine how placespecific factors such as crime rate affect migration decisions; 3) examine the influences of socioeconomic factors on retirement migration decisions by including a more heterogenous (multi-state) sample than had been used in the earlier research phase; 4) compare the external validity of several alternative techniques for forecasting the migration flows of retired persons.
