Cohort Measures of Internal Migration: Understanding Long-Term Trends

Internal migration intensities fluctuate over time, but both migration levels and trends show great diversity. The dynamics underpinning these trends remain poorly understood because they are analyzed almost exclusively by applying period measures to cross-sectional data. This article proposes 10 cohort measures that can be applied to both prospective and retrospective data to systematically examine long-term trends. To demonstrate their benefits, the proposed measures are applied to retrospective survey data for England that provide residential histories from birth to age 50 for cohorts born between 1918 and 1957. The analysis reveals stable lifetime migration for men but increased lifetime migration for women associated with earlier ages at moving in adulthood and a compression of intervals between consecutive moves. The proposed cohort measures provide a more comprehensive picture of migration behavior and should be used to complement period measures in exploring long-term trends. Increasing availability of retrospective and longitudinal survey data means that researchers can now apply the proposed measures to a wide range of countries.     

Asymptotic Results for Spatial ARMA Models

Causal quadrantal-type spatial ARMA(p, q) models with independent and identically distributed innovations are considered. In order to select the orders (p, q) of these models and estimate their autoregressive parameters, estimators of the autoregressive coefficients, derived from the extended Yule–Walker equations are defined. Consistency and asymptotic normality are obtained for these estimators. Then, spatial ARMA model identification is considered and simulation study is given.     

Imputation and low-rank estimation with Missing Not At Random data

Statistics and Computing - Missing values challenge data analysis because many supervised and unsupervised learning methods cannot be applied directly to incomplete data. Matrix completion based on...     

Brain Circulation: The Educational Profile of Return Migrants

Population Research and Policy Review - Countries increasingly compete to attract and retain human capital. However, empirical studies, particularly those of migrants moving back to developing...     

Life‐Course Transitions and the Age Profile of Internal Migration

Despite underlying regularities in the age profile of migration, there is mounting evidence of cross‐national variations in the ages at which migration occurs. Explanations for these differences have variously been sought by reference to cultural, social, and economic factors, and through analysis of reasons for moving. There is also a growing body of work linking migration events to particular transitions in the life course. We set out a conceptual framework that links contextual factors to the age structure of migration through life‐course transitions that act as proximate determinants of the age at migration. We propose metrics to capture the prevalence, timing, and spread of four key life‐course transitions: education completion, labor force entry, union formation, and first childbearing. We then seek to quantitatively establish the link between these indicators and the age and intensity of internal migration at its peak for a global sample of 27 countries. Correlation and factor analysis reveal substantial diversity in the timing and spread of transitions to adult roles, and show that cross‐national differences in the age profile of migration closely parallel variations in the age structure of the life course for over two‐thirds of countries. Migration age profiles are aligned with transitions to adulthood for both sexes but most strongly among women.     

Levels and patterns of internal migration in Europe: A cohort perspective

Europe displays important variations in the level of internal migration, with a clear spatial gradient of high mobility in northern and western Europe but lower mobility in the south and east. However, cross-national variation in levels of internal migration remains poorly understood, because it is analysed almost exclusively using cross-sectional data and period measures. This paper seeks to advance understanding of cross-national variation in migration levels in 14 European countries by drawing on a recently proposed suite of migration cohort measures, coupled with internationally comparable retrospective residential histories. It shows that differences in migration levels are mainly attributable to variation in the extent of repeat movement, which is underpinned by the differences in mean ages at first and last move that together delineate the average length of migration careers. Cohort analysis provides a robust foundation for exploring the demographic mechanisms underpinning variation in migration levels across countries and over time.     

Les professionnels du droit comme acteurs du politique : revue critique de la littérature nord-américaine et enjeux pour une importation en Europe continentale

For many years, North-American social sciences have been analyzing legal professionals as political actors, while in Continental Europe the relationship among law, politics, and society has remained under-examined. At the moment, a central project for US sociolegal studies is exporting to other political and legal contexts hypotheses previously tested inside US borders, raising the question of the generalizability and/or the globalization of US socio-legal analyses. After briefly describing why social sciences have been focusing on law and social changes in the United States, this article aims to determine what prerequisites are necessary for exporting sociolegal studies outside the US, devoting particular attention to historically contingent —and nationally-distinct— relations between law, political power and the social sciences.     

Internal migration age patterns and the transition to adulthood: Australia and Great Britain compared

Life-course transitions are important drivers of mobility, resulting in a concentration of migration at young adult ages. While there is increasing evidence of cross-national variations in the ages at which young adults move, the relative importance of various key life-course transitions in shaping these differences remains poorly understood. Prior studies typically focus on a single country and examine the influence of a single transition on migration, independently from other life-course events. To better understand the determinants of cross-national variations in migration ages, this paper analyses for Australia and Great Britain the joint influence of five key life-course transitions on migration: (1) higher education entry, (2) labour force entry, (3) partnering, (4) marriage and (5) family formation. We first characterise the age profile of short- and long-distance migration and the age profile of life-course transitions. We then use event-history analysis to establish the relative importance of each life-course transitions on migration. Our results show that the age structure and the relative importance of life-course transitions vary across countries, shaping differences in migration age patterns. In Great Britain, the strong association of migration with multiple transitions explains the concentration of migration at young adult ages, which is further amplified by the age-concentration and alignment of multiple transitions at similar ages. By contrast in Australia a weaker influence of life-course transitions on migration, combined with a dispersion of entry into higher education across a wide age range, contribute to a protracted migration age profile. Comparison by distance moved reveals further differences in the mix of transitions driving migration in each country, confirming the impact of the life-course in shaping migration age patterns.     

An avian urban morphotype: how the city environment shapes great tit morphology at different life stages

Urban Ecosystems - Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon associated with tremendous modifications of natural habitats. Understanding how city dwelling species are affected by those changes is...     

Can weight predict academic performance in college students? An analysis of college women's self-efficacy,absenteeism, and depressive symptoms as mediators

Over a third of American college students are either overweight or obese, which has been suggested to negatively impact their academic achievement. Objective: This study seeks to better understand the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and grade point average (GPA), while examining potential mediators of this association. Participants and Methods: The sample consists of 298 college women who volunteered to complete online questionnaires between October and December 2014. Results: Although no significant differences were noted for sociodemographic variables, overweight and obese female students were found to report lower GPA and academic self-efficacy as well as higher depressive symptoms, compared with their normal-weight counterparts. Academic self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between BMI and GPA. Conclusions: To foster better academic achievement in female college students, and especially for those who are overweight and obese, strategies for improving self-efficacy and adaptation to college should be implemented.