Abstract
Interviews with recent migrants to several small non-metropolitan places elicited attributes of ideal, origin and chosen settlements. Their responses permitted construction of simple measures or valuations of economic, social, individual and environmental aspects of ideal, origin and destination. From these it was possible to evaluate the critical components of the migration decision, to estimate tradeoffs between economic and non-economic benefits, and to distinguish between probable movers and non-movers.
Methods used included content analysis of lengthy recorded interviews, variance-covariance analysis of responses and logit analysis to distinguish movers and non-movers. The majority of respondents were characterized as very negative about life in the cities, where most had moved from, and as positive about both the social and environmental characteristics of their new communities. Economic concerns were of lesser significance to the migrants than expected.
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This research was supported by the National Science Foundation. The analyses reported herein were based on the data as compiled by Jeanne Downing [10] and William Leon [16].
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Morrill, R., Downing, J. & Leon, W. Attribute preferences and the non-metropolitan migration decision. Ann Reg Sci 20, 33–53 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01283622
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01283622