1. Declining Long and Short Distance Migration within Northern Ireland, 1981-2011
Brad Campbell

2. NI on the Move
Aim: How changing patterns of selective internal migration both reflects and initiates societal change in NI,
Who is moving?
Volume of migration and movers characteristics
Distances people migrate.
How people move through religious and deprived spaces.

3. Aim & Objectives
Aim: Identify the drivers of a long term decline in short and long distance migration within NI between and
Compositional Effects: How are changes in the structure of the population affecting migratory activity?
I.e. an increase in the proportion of elderly population, educational attainment and changing tenure.
Rate (or Behaviour) Effects: How are changes in the behaviour of sub groups and the general population affecting migratory behaviour?
I.e. car ownership and ICT enables people to live longer distances from family and friends and yet still keep in close contact.

4. Academic Context
A central tenant of modernisation theory has been that with socio-economic development people are becoming increasingly mobile, migrating more often and across greater distances (de Hass, 2010; Zelinksy, 1971).
Contemporary empirical findings confirm an emerging spatial-temporal pattern of declining internal migration in advanced nations (Champion et al, 2018).
Interest has turned to addressing whether the distance migrated internally has also observed a similar decline over time (Champion and Shuttleworth, 2016).
Transatlantic empirical debate over the extent to which the distance migrated is declining.
US: fall in long distance inter-state migration (Molloy et al, 2017)
England & Wales: fall in short distance moves <10 km (Champion and Shuttleworth, 2016).

5. Global-Local Impact Distance serves two important functions;
Demographic – redistribution of the population
Economic – the inter-regional supply of labour
A decline in distance reduces the potential of migration to redistribute the population.
In NI residential segregation will remain stubbornly high.
Migration no longer provides cities such as Belfast with an adequate labour supply.
Increase unemployment especially in peripheral areas.
Hinder economic recovery following a recession.

6. Defining Migration
1). Identify NILS members aged and are present at the start of each transition period;
1981 and 1991
2001 and 2011
2). Using SOA geography, assess whether the members made a move between areas.
Census A
Census B
95BB01S1
95DD04W1

7. Methodology Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Technique
Performed using STATA .
Similarly used by Cooke’s (2011) study of declining US internal migration.
Separates out the known/measurable differences between two groups into ;
Endowments – compositional effects
Coefficients – behavioural effects
Interaction

8. Mean Distance (km)
No major change in the mean distance migrated.

9. Moves by Distance Band
When differentiated by distance, temporal differences appear.
Decline in short and long distance migration.
Growth in medium distance moves.

10. Decomposition
Short
Medium
Long
67.7
25.6
6.7
69.8
21.3
8.8
Change
-2.2
4.3
-2.1
* Inter-SOA movers aged 16-74
So what is causing a fall in short and long distance moves?

11. Short Distance
Compositional changes is the primary driver of the -2.2% decline.
In the absence of compositional changes, a behavioural shift would have contributed to a 18.5% increase in short moves.

12. Compositional Drivers
Compositional decline in categories with a high propensity to migrate short distances;
Social housing tenants
Larger size households
Married people
Protestants

13. Medium Distance
A behavioural shift equated to a 74% increase in medium distance moves.
Compositional changes also helped increase medium moves by a further 26%.

14. Behavioural Drivers
Large constant – population wide behavioural shift to medium distance moves.
Married people and SWD shift towards greater medium moves.
Young people aged moving to university.
Car owners more likely to migrate medium distances.

15. Compositional Drivers
Compositional increase in groups with a higher propensity to migrate medium distances;
Car ownership
Aging of the population – medium distance lifestyle moves and downsizing
Smaller sized households

16. Long Distance
Compositional and behavioural changes both played an important role in driving a decline in long distance moves.

17. Behavioural Drivers Car owners migrating shorter distances.
Population wide shift away from long distance moves.
Economically inactive significantly less likely to migrate long distances.
Middle aged less likely now to move long distances.

18. Compositional Drivers
Increase in the less mobile older age categories
Growth in home ownership
Growth of single people and a decline in marriage
Growth in the Catholic population

19. Conclusion
NI diverges from the experience of other countries in experiencing a decline of both long & short migration.
Compositional changes have a cancelling out effect on the aggregate mean distance (km).
Hypothesis that there will be no major impact on the redistribution of the population.
More of an impact on the regional economy which depends more heavily on the longest distance moves.

20. Acknowledgements
‘The help provided by the staff of the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) and the NILS Research Support Unit is acknowledged. The NILS is funded by the Health and Social Care Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency (HSC R&D Division) and NISRA. The NILS-RSU is funded by the ESRC and the Northern Ireland Government. The authors alone are responsible for the interpretation of the data and any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of NISRA/NILS.’

21. References
de Hass, H. (2010) Migration and Development: A Theoretical Perspective. International Migration Review, vol. 44(1):
Molloy, R., et al. (2017) Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the United States. Demography, vol. 54:
Cooke, T. J. (2011). It is not just the economy: Declining migration and the rise of secular rootedness. Population, Space and Place, vol.17: 193–203.
Champion, T., & Shuttlesworth, I. (2016). Are people changing address less? An analysis of migration within England and Wales, 1971–2011, by distance of move. Population, Space and Place.
Wolf, D. A., & Longino, C. F., Jr. (2005). Our “increasingly mobile society”? The curious persistence of a false belief. Gerontologist, 45, 5–11.
Zelinsky, W. (1971). The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geographical Review, 61, 219–249.