Residential preferences,community satisfaction,and the intention to move

This paper explores the role of size of place residential preference in the evolution of the intention to move out of the present community using data from the March 1974 NORC Amalgam Survey. People who prefer to live in a community having different size or location characteristics than their present residence are five times more likely to intend to move than those who have attained their preferred type of residence. Within these two groups, however, the particular configuration of current and preferred residence has no significant effect on the likelihood of intending to move. This finding justifies the creation of a simple dichotomous variable, preference status, contrasting these two groups. Community satisfaction and preference status are highly interrelated and each has an independent effect on intentions to move. Moreover, the effect of preference status on mobility intentions is somewhat larger than that for community satisfaction, indicating that residential preference plays a significant role in the decision-making process regarding migration.     

Climate change and internal migration intentions in the forest-savannah transition zone of Ghana

Migration is at the centre of demographic research on the population–environment nexus. Increasing concerns about the impacts of environmental events on human population are fuelling interest on the relationship between migration and environmental change. Using data from the Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network Ghana project, we employ binary logistic regression to examine migration intentions of households in response to major community stressors including climate-related ones. The results indicate that the type of community stressor that affects households most does not differentiate migration intentions in Ghana’s forest-savannah transition zone: Even though the majority of the respondents mentioned climate-related events as the stressor that affects them the most, such events do not appear to directly explain migration intentions. However, socio-demographic factors such as age, household size and current migration status are significant predictors of migration intentions, with younger household heads, heads of migrant households and heads of smaller households being relatively more likely to have migration intentions than other household heads. We conclude that migration drivers are multifaceted and deserve further research because even in areas with perceived environmental stress, climate-related events may not be the primary motivation for migration intentions.     

Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India

This paper argues that expectations - the process of evaluating the chances for future attainment of valued goals in the home community (stay decision) vs. alternative locations (move decision) - along with family norms about migration are major predictors of intention to move, which in turn is a proximate determinant of migration behaviour. Utilizing longitudinal data from the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Thailand National Migration Survey, logistic regression models show that a strikingly different set of expectations, household demographic indicators, and migrant capital factors were significant determinants of migration intentions for men and women; reflecting Thai gender roles. Migration intentions, in turn, predicted more permanent, but not temporary, survival strategy migration behaviour, while low household income predicted temporary but not more permanent migration behaviour. The measure of perceived family migration norms was a powerful determinant of migration behaviour, but the size of migrant networks was not a statistically significant determinant of either migration intentions or behaviour.     

Migration intentions and behavior: Decision making in a rural Philippine province

The relationship between intentions and behavior is basic to micro-level migration decision research. This study, set in the rural Philippine province of Ilocos Norte, provides evidence on personal and structural background factors and value-expectancy perceptions of place utility that predict migration intentions and behavior. Separate analyses are conducted for general intentions to move and for destination-specific migration intentions, the latter pertaining to both internal migration (Manila) and international migration (Hawaii). Logistic regression analyses applied to the data from a 1980–82 longitudinal survey show that the empirical models are highly efficient in explaining migration intentions but less efficient in explaining actual migration behavior in this Third World setting. Important explanatory variables for both intentions and behavior include family pressure to move or stay, family auspices at alternative destinations, money to move, prior migration experience, and the life cycle stage (marital status and age). However, the determinants of internal and international migration behavior are not the same. The data only partially support the Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) position that intentions are the dominant determinant of behavior. Personal and structural background factors are shown to exert independent direct effects on migration behavior.Revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 2–5, 1984. Research for this paper was supported by NIH Grant No. R01-HD13115, the Population Center Foundation, The Philippines, the East-West Population Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Population Issues Research Center, University Park, PA. The other coinvestigators for this project are Fred Arnold, East-West Population Institute, and Benjamin V. Carino, University of the Philippines.     

Residential preferences in a model of migration intentions

The congruence of stated residential preferences and observed migration behavior suggests that preferences may be important in the migration decision-making process. Using data from the March 1974 NORC Amalgam Survey, this analysis incorporates a measure of residential preference into a model of migration intentions similar to that developed by Speare (1974) for residential movement. Our results indicate that preferences and community satisfaction are interrelated and each has an independent effect on migration. We also find that the decision to migrate may be more directly influenced by ties to the community than is a residential move. Thus home ownership, age, and length of residence directly affect migration plans net of preferences and satisfaction, whereas only home ownership directly influenced the decision to move residentially in Speare's (1974) analysis.This research has been supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (Journal Article #10,961), and by the Economic Development Division, Economic Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture through a cooperative agreement with the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Additional support was provided by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, the College of Social Sciences, Michigan State University, and by the Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems, NIMH. Computer analysis was aided by a "Center for Population Research" grant, No. HDO5876, to the Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, from the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We wish to thank Dennis Hogan and Joel Nelson for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. James Zuiches is currently on leave from Michigan State University.     

The Internetization of International Migration

The Internet has revolutionized our economies, societies, and everyday lives. Many social phenomena are no longer the same as they were in the pre‐Internet era: they have been “Internetized.” We define the Internetization of international migration, and we investigate it by exploring the links between the Internet and migration outcomes all along the migration path, from migration intentions to actual migration. Our analyses leverage a number of sources, both at the micro‐ and the macro‐level, including the Gallup World Poll, the Arab Barometer, data from the International Telecommunication Union, the Italian population register, and unique register data from a migrant reception center in Southern Italy. We also distinguish between economic migrants—those who leave their country of origin with the aim of seeking better economic opportunities elsewhere—and political migrants—those who are forced to leave their countries of origin for political or conflict‐related reasons. Our findings point to a consistently positive relationship between the diffusion of the Internet, migration intentions, and migration behaviors, supporting the idea that the Internet is not necessarily a driving force of migration per se, but rather an enabling “supportive agent.” These associations are particularly relevant for economic migrants, at least for migration intentions. Further analyses underscore the importance of the Internet in providing a key informational channel which helps to define clearer migration trajectories.     

An interactive contextual model of migration in Ilocos Norte,the Philippines

This paper develops and estimates an interactive contextual model of migration in Ilocos Norte, the Philippines. It focuses on how contextual features alter the effects of family class status and community development level on the family's migration decisions. The model estimates show a curvilinear relation between class status and migration, but the pattern differs in accordance with the prevalence of migration from the community in the past. In addition, the effects of socioeconomic development and agricultural commercialization patterns vary with context. These results demonstrate the importance of using interactive models for analyzing the contextual influences on migration.     

农村外出妇女的生育意愿分析——基于鄂州、黄石、仙桃三地数据

本文利用2009年2月在鄂州、黄石、仙桃农村外出和未外出育龄妇女的调查数据,通过列联分析和logistic二元回归分析,从四个方面分别考察了外出与未外出育龄妇女生育意愿的关系及其影响因素。结果发现．育龄妇女的意愿子女数主要受其年龄、受教育程度、职业状况等个人特征的影响,外出过的妇女的意愿子女数要显著少于未外出过的妇女,这种差异主要是由于外出妇女与未外出妇女本身的结构差异所引起的,外出本身对育龄妇女的意愿子女数并没有显著作用;在生育目的上,外出与未外出妇女存在显著性差异,外出能弱化传统思想在妇女生育动机中的作用;在意愿生育性别和意愿生育时间这两个方面外出和未外出妇女没有显著性的差异。     

Effect of development of rural commodity economy on family planning]

The paper discusses the effects of the changes of rural income level on family planning practice based a survey of 200 rural families in a affluent vegetable producing area of suburban Beijing. In 1984, 99.7% of child birth followed the local birth planning, and 99.1% of families with one child received One Child Certificates. The annual per capita income of the 200 families was 1,092 yuan (1 US$ = 3.7 yuan) in 1984 even higher than the community average. The number of children was negatively associated with the per capita income and per capita consumption except families with 4 children, most of whom have grown up. The rural mechanization in the community has greatly increased the need for skills and technology rather than strong laborers. The provision of community welfare programs and the increased living standard changed the value of children and also changed people's perception in favor of gender equality. Among families with 1 or 2 children, most preferred to have girls. And among families with more children, the preferred family size is smaller than the actual size, which shows a tendency towards favoring a small family. Among 1 child families, 58.7% considered 1 boy and 1 girl to be ideal, and 37.7% was happy with the only child. As the community becomes richer, both the community and individual families increased their investment in education. The spending on education per child was over 2 times as high in 1 child families than the families with more children. The educational status of parents is positively associated with the exception of children's future education and current spending on education. The concern of parents over children's education is an important factor in improving the quality of labor force. Women of higher education status are more acceptable to contraception and family planning policy. The relatively high level of education of the community has been conducive to it fertility decline.     

Son Preference and Children’s Housework: The Case of India

We use a nationally representative survey of Indian households (NFHS-3) to conduct the first study that analyzes whether son preference is associated with girls bearing a larger burden of housework than boys. Housework is a non-negligible part of child labor in which around 60 % of children in our sample are engaged. The preference for male offspring is measured by a mother’s ideal proportion of sons among her offspring. We show that when the ideal proportion increases from 0 to 1, the gap in the time spent on weekly housework for an average girl compared to that of a boy increases by 2.5 h. We conduct several robustness analyses. First, we estimate the main model separately by caste, religion, and family size. Second, we use a two-stage model to look at participation into housework (as well as other types of work) in addition to hours. Third, we use mother’s fertility intentions as an alternative measure of son preference. The analysis confirms that stated differences in male preference translate in de facto differences in girl’s treatment.     

Do People Move When They Say They Will? Inconsistencies in Individual Migration Behavior

Conventional theories of migration decision–making posit that there exists a simple, sequential link between residential satisfaction, mobility intentions and actual moving behavior. Past empirical work, however, has indicated substantial discrepancies between mobility intentions and behavior. This study investigates behavioral inconsistencies in migration using data drawn from the 1985, 1987 and 1989 rounds of the American Housing Survey (AHS). Mobility is inferred by comparing occupants of the same housing units in two consecutive surveys. The results show that a substantial number of people do not realize their intention to move and many move unexpectedly; with or without prior intentions to move, movers and stayers appear to differ significantly in terms of their sociodemographic characteristics. The extent to which individuals act consistently with their intentions also differs along with their attributes (e.g., tenure, age, education and gender). The paper discusses possible reasons for behavioral inconsistencies in migration based on recent developments in social psychological theories of human behavior.     

Environmental hazard and migration intentions in a coastal area in Ghana: a case of sea flooding

Recently, there has been significant debate about whether ‘environmental migration’ can constitute a form of adaptation to environmental change, as opposed to forced or flight migration. The Foresight Report on Migration and Environmental Change (2011) suggested environmental factors are one driver of migration, as well as political, social, economic and demographic drivers, and that—under the right conditions—migration can be a form of adaptation to changing climatic conditions. However, this is dependent on migrants having adequate social and financial capital to undertake beneficial types of migration; it further argues that environmental change may result in ‘trapped populations’ whereby people who lack the necessary resources to re-establish livelihoods elsewhere may be left exposed to increasingly severe environmental shocks and stresses in situ. Research on the climate-migration nexus in West Africa has largely focused on out-migration from the semi-arid Sahel with more limited evidence about how sea flooding interacts with migration flows. This paper attempts to help fill this knowledge gap. Using data from a representative survey of households across three coastal communities in Ghana’s Volta River Delta, this paper concludes that exposure to sea flooding may not be a primary cause of out-migration as other community, economic and political factors influence migration intentions and decisions. Thus, it is important for planned adaptation interventions to be strengthened in situ to enable households, particularly farming households, sustain their livelihoods.     

Minority status and family size: A comparison of explanations

Summary In this study, the family sizes of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino Americans are compared with those of whites, using data from the 1970 public use samples for California and Hawaii. The two hypotheses derived from the 'minority status' hypothesis are tested; the latter states that minorities experience tensions and anxiety which lead to lower fertility compared with native whites of Anglo-Saxon ancestry under certain conditions. We also examine the effect of assimilation in terms of variables known to affect fertility, and control for several age and acculturation variables. Analysis, based on a regression decomposition model, gives some support to the argument that the family size of minority groups differs from that of native whites because of incomplete assimilation and because independent variables affect fertility differently. However, since the independent effect of minority status per se is generally to raise fertility for Japanese and Chinese Americans, and lower it for Filipinos, we reject this version of the minority status hypothesis. Our general conclusion is that family size differentials in a pluralistic society may be part of a persisting pattern of sub-cultural differentiation, and do not necessarily reflect any 'tensions and anxiety' of minority status.     

Recent studies on place-utility and intention to migrate: An international comparison

Findings from five recent studies carried out in different cultural and social-economic contexts (Egypt, Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, and U.S.A.) show significant support for certain features of a "placeutility/migration intentions" model of migration decisions. These findings also suggest that there may be substantial variation in the migration decision process from one setting to another, and that the behavioral models which have been generally used to advance hypotheses in this field need to be revised to take into account empirical findings.Subjective assessments of place-utility are at best partial predictors of actual migration, as measured in follow-up surveys in four of the five studies. Intentions to move are strong predictors of subsequent migration in some settings but weak predictors in others. The findings point to the need to give greater weight to personal and structural constraints on migration (financial resources, help from friends, etc.) which, in the decision making process, may override place-utility consideration in the determination of intentions and actual migration decisions. Overall, the five studies add significantly to knowledge on how migration decisions are made in different settings and point to a number of challenging hypotheses and gaps in research design which need to be addressed in future research.This paper constitutes a revised version of my Discussant's Comments for the session on "Migration strategies, migration intentions, and migration decisions," organized by James T. Fawcett at the Population Association of American Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, April 1984. The revisions take into account modifications in the content and authorship of the papers prior to appearing in this issue or elsewhere in final printed form. I am indebted to Jean Turner for her comments on the draft of this paper.     

Old Habits Die Hard? Lingering Son Preference in an Era of Normalizing Sex Ratios at Birth in South Korea

South Korea was among the first countries to report both an abnormally high sex ratio at birth (SRB) and its subsequent normalization. We examine the role of son preference in driving fertility intentions during a period of declining SRB and consider the contribution of individual characteristics and broader social context to explaining changes in intentions. We employ data from the National Survey on Fertility, Family Health and Welfare that span 1991–2012. We find that reported son preference declined to a great extent but remained substantial by the end of the observation period, and that the intention to have a third child still differed by sex of existing children. Change in individual-level factors does not explain the decline in son preference, suggesting that broad social changes were also important. This study provides a better understanding of how son preference evolves in the post-transitional context of very low fertility.     

贫困地区劳动力迁移、农户收入与贫困的缓解——基于新疆农户面板数据的实证分析

本文基于新疆30个贫困县、3000个农户、2008-2010年的微观面板数据,在控制了家庭规模、劳动力数量等家庭特征变量和粮食播种面积等村庄特征变量的前提下．运用固定效应法与工具变量法分别考察了劳动力迁移规模、迁移方式与迁移区位对家庭收入的影响．并进一步分析了劳动力迁移对贫困的缓解效应。回归结果表明：劳动力迁移规模虽然对农户农业收入有负向影响．但显著提高了农户人均收入与利他性收入：自发性迁移与政府组织性迁移方式均能显著提高农户收入,且自发性迁移的作用更强;省内县外迁移对农户收入的提高最为显著,其次为县内乡外迁移．省外迁移不影响农户收入：劳动力迁移规模提高了中等收入农户的收入水平。但对贫困户的贫困无缓解效应．也不影响富裕户的收入水平。     

中国农民工的社会网络与性别偏好——基于深圳调查的研究

文章利用西安交通大学人口与发展研究所2005年中国深圳市农民工调查数据,基于社会网络理论定量研究了农民工的性别偏好现状及其影响因素。研究发现流动后农民工的生育观念与行为仍具有明显的男孩偏好特征;社会网络因素、流动因素和个体因素在一定程度上对农民工的男孩偏好观念与行为产生了影响。本文的研究结果对于理解中国城镇人口出生性别比偏高的现象和原因有重要作用。     

Work disability and migration in the early years of welfare reform

The inter- and intra-state migration of American families with work-disabled members is a neglected area of empirical study. Longitudinal migration and health status data from the 1996 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) are merged with state-level welfare policy indicators to investigate migration behavior under welfare reform’s emphasis on requiring work and encouraging reliance on social support networks. We use a nested discrete-choice event history model that incorporates the departure decision and interstate destination choice in a single model that tests the effects of state-level welfare policy and economic opportunity characteristics, with state fixed effects, plus family sociodemographic characteristics and social networks, as the basis for comparing migration of families with and without work disabilities. The results show that although families with disabilities and illnesses are less likely to migrate than other families generally, they are “pushed” to migrate if they live in states that do not exempt them from TANF activities requirements. Furthermore, in-migration is inhibited by stringent state welfare illness exemption rules and high state unemployment rates. Intrastate migration is more likely among families who received family and community social support, regardless of work-disability status.     

Size of place and community attachment: A reconsideration

The literature on community attachment is briefly reviewed, and the dichotomization of theoretical perspectives into ‘linear development’ and ‘systemic’ approaches is brought into question. It is argued that recent evidence on the deterioration of U.S. metropolitan areas and the emergence of net urban-to-rural migration casts doubt on the exhaustiveness of the ‘linear development’ and ‘systemic’ perspectives and warrants an empirical reconsideration of the relationship between size of place and community attachment. Rural residence proves to be positively related to dependent measures of community attachment in a 1974 statewide Wisconsin survey. Measures of ‘participatory’ attachment to the community, however, are not strongly correlated with community attachment.     

流动经历对农民男孩偏好的影响

以往关于迁移流动对出生孩子性别比或性别偏好的研究至少有两个不足:一是很少将流迁人口与原居住地非流迁人口的生育行为和生育意愿进行比较;二是只考察了迁移流动对性别偏好方向的影响而没有考虑性别偏好的强度。本文设计了测量男孩偏好强度的男孩偏好强度指数,通过实地调查收集资料,并运用多元回归分析对调查资料进行分析,结果表明,在控制了主要迁移选择性变量后,流动经历能明显降低农村人口男孩偏好强度。研究结果支持适应假说。