How Many Americans are Leaving Home?

Nearly one in three Americans (29%) still live in the town where they grew up, according to a survey published by All Star Home.

Choosing where you want to live is an important decision and it turns out many Americans favor the comfort and familiarity of their hometowns. The survey of 1,000 people found that in relation to their hometown, 30% live out of state, 29% live in their hometown, 27% live in the same state, 12% live in the same county and 2% live out of the country.

Of the people living in their hometown currently, 41% see themselves living there for the rest of their lives, while 52% are planning to move out within the next five years. The median distance that Americans live from their hometowns is 30 miles. The average time people living in their home state live from their hometown is 47 minutes.

Generationally, Baby Boomers enjoy living in their hometown the most out of any other age group at 79%, while 60% of Gen X, 59% of Millennials and 38% of Gen Z do. Of the people who did not expect to be living in their hometown at this stage of life, 47% were women and 38% were men.

There are plenty of reasons why people choose to stay in their hometowns. The top reasons found by All Star Home include comfort (60%), emotional attachment (53%), financial inability to leave (46%), job security (19%) and fear of the unknown (19%).

A significant factor in living where your roots are is the desire to be with or near family. Of Americans who still live in their hometown, 38% still live in their childhood home and 40% still live with their parents (86% of Gen Z and 28% of Millennials). Reasons for still living with parents include the ability to save money, convenience and unemployment or being in the job search process. Still, 30% of those living with their parents are embarrassed to be doing so.

However, younger Americans aren’t the only ones choosing to live with family. Parents also move to follow their adult children to be closer to them (44%), because they liked the state their children moved to (25%) and for caretaking reasons (21%).

Still, staying in your hometown isn’t for everyone and often has limitations. Of those who left home, 70% felt they had to leave in order to live the life they wanted. Reasons for leaving include the desire for different living environments (37%), wanting to follow family or a significant other (34%), job-related reasons (30%), school-related reasons (28%) and too few opportunities at home (19%).

Despite being away, though, 61% keep in touch with friends from home and 48% miss their hometown. Reasons for returning also include family (57%) and jobs (33%), as well as better costs of living (25%) and a feeling of missing their community (22%).