Temporal and Spatial Variation in Age-Specific Net Migration in the United States

• Published in: Demography Vol. 42; no. 4; pp. 791 - 812
• Main Authors: Johnson, Kenneth M., Voss, Paul R., Hammer, Roger B., Fuguitt, Glenn V., Scott Mc Niven
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Population Association of America 01-11-2005; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age groups; Aged; Autocorrelation; Birth Rate; Censuses; Child; Child, Preschool; Cultural Diversity; Data analysis; Decision Making; Demographic change; Demographics; Demography; Emigration and Immigration - statistics & numerical data; Emigration and Immigration - trends; Estimates; Fertility; Geographic location; Geography; Hispanic people; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Internal migration; Longitudinal Studies; Metropolitan areas; Middle Aged; Migration; Population; Population Dynamics - statistics & numerical data; Population Dynamics - trends; Population migration; Population movements; Population redistribution; Rural Population - statistics & numerical data; Rural Population - trends; Scatter plots; Signatures; Social conditions & trends; Space-Time Clustering; Spatial Analysis; Studies; Temporal patterns; Trends; U.S.A; United States; United States of America; Urban areas; Urban Population - statistics & numerical data; Urban Population - trends; USA; Young adults; United States; United States > US; USA, Florida
• ISSN: 0070-3370; 1533-7790
• DOI: 10.1353/dem.2005.0033

As fertility differences in the United States diminish, population redistribution trends are increasingly dependent on migration. This research used newly developed county-level age-specific net migration estimates for the 1990s, supplemented with longitudinal age-specific migration data spanning the prior 40 years, to ascertain whether there are clear longitudinal trends in age-specific net migration and to determine if there is spatial clustering in the migration patterns. The analysis confirmed the continuation into the 1990s of distinct net migration "signature patterns" for most types of counties, although there was temporal variation in the overall volume of migration across the five decades. A spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed large, geographically contiguous regions of net in-migration (in particular, Florida and the Southwest) and geographically contiguous regions of net out-migration (the Great Plains, in particular) that persisted over time. Yet the patterns of spatial concentration and fragmentation over time in these migration data demonstrate the relevance of this "neighborhood" approach to understanding spatiotemporal change in migration.