  Changes in U.S. migration 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 is 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 paints a picture of migration change affected by kin. Namely, we find 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
cost 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, which is also
inversely related to population size). Our study advances the
demography-disaster nexus and amplifies ongoing literature highlighting the
role of broader kinship systems in large-scale socioeconomic phenomena.
