Our increasingly immobile society

My wife and I are currently getting ready for a 10-day trip to Italy (oh yeah, note on that, the blog will be going on partial hiatus from Nov. 20 to Nov. 30...I'm trying to teach Blogger to auto-post a few pre-written blog posts, but given my semi-retardation when it comes to site administration, I can't guarantee anything), which reminded me once again how difficult it can be to shut life down for a bit and prepare to leave your home. Clear the food out of the fridge, board the cat at the vet, cancel the mail, call the bank to make sure our cards will work in Europe, tie up loose ends at work, do endless research (and run around in circles) trying to figure out how to avoid massive cell phone charges, make sure we've prepaid any bills that are due, I'm already getting exhausted just typing it all.

When it can be this complicated to leave on a vacation, it's easy to understand why so many people are reluctant to move from their homes. Our decreasing mobility is, in my opinion, one of the more unspoken but important factors behind our persistent unemployment. As Americans, we've become increasingly tied to our homes, partially as a result of government policies which promoted home ownership over renting. Only about 22% of Americans have passports, as compared to 71% in the U.K. (granted, it's not nearly as far a trip for someone to go abroad from London as it is for someone to leave, say, Tulsa, but that's still a huge gap), which only further indicates how little most Americans move around (I don't mean exercise, but that too).

This dynamic may be considered benign, but I believe that it's a contributing factor to our continued recession and stubborn unemployment rate. An article this summer in the Christian Science Monitor wrote that:

Geographic mobility was once an effective way for Americans to fight high unemployment and bring about a quick recovery. It helped employers better match their available jobs to the most qualified applicants. And it gave the nation an edge in global competition.

But now policymakers are stumped in how to reignite that old get-up-and-go spirit among workers and the jobless...

The reasons for a general American reluctance to relocate are many.

For one, with about half of the jobless now unemployed for more than six months, many have given up looking for work far from home or can’t afford a move.

Two, homeowners seeking another job don’t want to take a big hit on the sale of their houses in the current market even if they might be able to find a job in another state. In the last big economic downturn during the early 1990s, lower housing prices dampened labor mobility by 10 to 24 percent, according to one study.

Three, many of the jobless are staying put because of regular extensions of unemployment insurance by Congress and because of a hope that their jobs will come back soon. Meanwhile, government efforts to assist homeowners in avoiding a foreclosure – while humane in many cases – only add to the forces against greater labor mobility.

And then there is the demographic trend of aging baby boomers less willing to pull up roots, just one more fact that helps explain why the percentage of people moving between states is at its lowest rate in six decades.

Lowest rate in six decades. That's astounding, and it goes a long way toward explaining the inability of our labor market to bounce back. There's a significant body of research that indicates that worker mobility--not just across state borders but across international borders--is a key driver of global economic growth. But as Americans, we are becoming less mobile, not more mobile, even as technology enables us to work essentially from anywhere.

If our economy is to recover fully, I think that we will require a significant reconsideration of where we live and why. The onus is not only on individuals, but also on corporations, who can encourage and embrace the efficiencies that technology has offered us (telecommuting, e-conferences, desktop sharing, video chat, etc.). We don't all need to live in the same place any more, and we certainly don't need to stay there forever. But for now, that's exactly what we're doing. It's a tough cycle to break.

[Christian Science Monitor]