In the wake of news that the U.S. birth rate continues to decline, a Zillow analysis found that birth rates dropped the most in counties where home values grew the most. A fresh look at U.S. Census and Zillow data shows that for many people, the decisions to move and to have kids are intertwined. It also shows that many families move toward lower-cost housing markets when they have children.
While people in general move less these days, women who have had a baby in the past year are a quarter more likely than women aged 15 to 50 without newborns to have moved during that year.
Baby-related reasons for moving could include:
Not only do women with newborns move more: They also tend to move to areas with lower housing costs. In 26 of the 35 largest U.S. metro areas, women who moved and had a newborn tended to move to areas with less expensive homes than where they came from. That may not have been their only, or even their primary, aim. But when it’s happening in that many metro areas, it seems likely that some growing families are shopping for lower-priced homes or bigger homes at a similar price point.
Nationwide, most women who moved and had babies relocated to a neighborhood in the same metro area. They also typically landed in a part of town where homes are valued $11,500 less than where they moved from. Similar-aged women without newborns moved to areas where home values were only about $9,000 less than where they moved from.
The phenomenon was especially pronounced in the largest 35 metro areas, where women with newborns typically ended up in areas that were $20,100 cheaper than where they moved from, while women without newborns moved to areas with home values only about $6,300 cheaper.
See how the largest 35 metros stack up:
| Metropolitan Statistical Area | Median Change in ZHVI After Move With New Baby* | Median Change in ZHVI After Move Without New Baby* | Difference for Movers With Baby | % of Women Who Moved Who Also Had a Newborn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | -$13,345 | $12,315 | -$25,660 | 5% |
| Los Angeles, CA | -$165,810 | -$40,293 | -$125,517 | 5% |
| Chicago, IL | -$31,974 | -$6,293 | -$25,681 | 6% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth, TX | -$14,397 | -$6,806 | -$7,591 | 7% |
| Philadelphia, PA | -$29,254 | -$12,442 | -$16,811 | 4% |
| Houston, TX | -$12,923 | -$5,610 | -$7,313 | 7% |
| Washington, DC | $5,387 | $7,069 | -$1,682 | 5% |
| Miami, FL | -$48,186 | -$37,885 | -$10,302 | 5% |
| Atlanta, GA | -$10,182 | -$10,182 | $0 | 5% |
| Boston, MA | $23,699 | $23,699 | $0 | 5% |
| San Francisco, CA | -$129,025 | $150,736 | -$279,760 | 3% |
| Detroit, MI | -$27,975 | -$9,082 | -$18,894 | 5% |
| Riverside, CA | -$37,627 | -$37,627 | $0 | 6% |
| Phoenix, AZ | -$47,194 | -$40,672 | -$6,522 | 5% |
| Seattle, WA | $34,309 | $33,414 | $894 | 4% |
| Minneapolis, MN | -$23,350 | $12,826 | -$36,177 | 4% |
| San Diego, CA | -$55,763 | -$55,763 | $0 | 5% |
| St. Louis, MO | -$8,525 | $2,258 | -$10,783 | 6% |
| Tampa, FL | $10,806 | -$10,367 | $21,173 | 4% |
| Baltimore, MD | $85 | $85 | $0 | 4% |
| Denver, CO | -$16,433 | -$16,433 | $0 | 5% |
| Pittsburgh, PA | -$20,723 | $4,569 | -$25,292 | 4% |
| Portland, OR | -$37,580 | -$48 | -$37,533 | 4% |
| Charlotte, NC | $845 | -$9,904 | $10,748 | 6% |
| Sacramento, CA | -$70,510 | -$20,863 | -$49,646 | 5% |
| San Antonio, TX | -$12,867 | -$8,555 | -$4,312 | 7% |
| Orlando, FL | -$28,797 | -$2,420 | -$26,377 | 5% |
| Cincinnati, OH | $879 | -$3,201 | $4,079 | 6% |
| Cleveland, OH | -$35,442 | -$35,442 | $0 | 6% |
| Kansas City, MO | $10,091 | $4,573 | $5,518 | 4% |
| Las Vegas, NV | -$48,133 | -$23,130 | -$25,003 | 5% |
| Columbus, OH | -$8,991 | $4,396 | -$13,387 | 4% |
| Indianapolis, IN | $6,925 | -$10,121 | $17,047 | 3% |
| San Jose, CA | -$138,139 | -$32,907 | -$105,233 | 5% |
| Austin, TX | -$6,607 | $19,107 | -$25,714 | 4% |
*ZHVI is the Zillow Home Value Index, a measure for the median home value, in this case for the areas where people moved from and to.
Methodology: Analysis was conducted on the 1 percent sample from the 2016 American Community Survey, obtained from IPUMS-USA, University of Minnesota, www.ipums.org. Households were classified as having had a baby in the past year based on the FERTYR and YNGCHL variables, and migration was based on the MIGRATE1 variable. Home values were based on January 2016 ZHVI drawn from the ZIP code level and summarized to the Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA)-level based on a households-weighted average across the ZIP codes contained in each PUMA, separately for current PUMA and the broader aggregation of Migration PUMAs indicating where households migrated from in the past year.