You would think that young adults would be the last bastion of mobility in the United States. Because most are renters, they are free to pick up and go where they like. The latest mobility statistics show, in fact, that young adults are still the ones most like to move. Between March 2010 and March 2011, a substantial 21.1 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds moved--much higher than the 11.6 percent rate for the population as a whole and the highest of any age group.
But the mobility rate of 18-to-24-year-olds has fallen more steeply than that of any other age group over the past five years. In 2005-06, fully 26.1 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds moved. The 5 percentage point (19 percent) decline in their mobility rate was greater than the mobility rate decline of any other age group during the time period.
This article in the New York Times might explain it: As New Graduates Return to Nest, Economy Also Feels the Pain. Rather than moving into their own apartment, many young adults are moving from college back home to mom and dad. If they had been living in college housing at school, then the Census Bureau's mobility statistics would record them as not having moved, because students in college housing are counted as living in their parents' home.
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