  Changes in U.S. migration trends during the COVID-19 pandemic show that many
moved to less populated cities from larger cities, deviating from previous
trends. In this study, building on prior work in the literature showing that
the abundance of family ties are inversely related to population size, we
analyze these migration changes with a focus on the crucial, yet overlooked
factor of extended family. Employing two large-scale data sets, census
microdata and mobile phone GPS relocation data, we show a collection of
empirical results that paint a picture of migration change affected by family.
Namely, we establish that people migrated closer to family at higher rates
after the COVID-19 pandemic started. Moreover, even controlling for factors
such as population density and costs of living, we find that changes in net
in-migration tended to be larger and positive in cities with larger proportions
of people who can be parents to adult children, our proxy for parental family
availability. Our study suggests an underexplored explanation for internal
migration patterns during a crisis and advances the demography-disaster nexus.

Social and Information Networks;Physics and Society