Stability and Change in Individual Determinants of Migration: Evidence from 1985-1990 and 1995 to 2000

Charles Tolbert, Troy Blanchard and Michael Irwin

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: In this paper, we compare the reliability of migration estimates from two rather different macroeconomic periods in recent U.S. history. One of these periods, 1985-1990 coincides with the culmination of a vast industrial restructuring which saw a significant decline in manufacturing employment. The other period, 1995-2000, encompasses a time of robust economic growth and tight labor markets driven by productivity gains associated with new technologies. Our interest here is in the stability of common individual-level predictors of migration in these rather disparate macroeconomic contexts. Using confidential internal versions of the 1990 and 2000 Census long-form data, we estimate logistic models of the likelihood that individuals will migrate. The geographic detail in the internal Census data permits us to measure migration in ways that are not possible with public-domain Census data on persons. We develop migration definitions that distinguish between local residential mobility likely associated with life course transitions from migration out of the labor market area that may be driven more by employment and other socioeconomic considerations. Using logistic modeling, we find that the same individual attributes predict migration reasonably well during both periods. We also compute some illustrative probabilities of migration that show temporal stability in migration predictors could be lessened by certain changes in population composition.

Keywords: Migration; United States Census (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2006-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2006/CES-WP-06-27.pdf First version, 2006 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:06-27

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dawn Anderson ().