Retirement Migration Streams: Trends and Implications for North Carolina Communities

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Abstract
This article focuses on North Carolina, examining its emergence as a regional destination center for older migrants. It traces the indicators of this trend in the numbers, origins, and characteristics of its migrants. It also addresses the forces that produce diversity in the characteristics of North Carolina's older in-migrants, particularly the stream “traditions” from differing origin states coming to North Carolina and the changing pattern of in-migrant characteristics over 3 decades. Finally, the article discusses the impact of retirement migration on host communities. Retired migrants do not perpetuate themselves in the community. Lacking the ability to develop family alliances through marriage and business relationships, it is hypothesized that migrants float in a relatively rootless community, building their important social ties with other migrants in neighborhoods, churches, and voluntary associations, thus perpetuating their separateness.