posted on 2014-12-15, 10:38authored byMary. Glasser
Previous studies of human migration have tended to use information drawn either from cross-sectional snapshots at a particular time, or from data that focuses only on a small sub-section of the community. A longitudinal approach to understanding migration decision-making through time, such as a residence history analysis, permits an account of how those same individuals may behave throughout their lives with respect to more than one move. Few previous studies have examined migration variability throughout a lifetime with regard to the geographical context in which they were made or examined the same individual's migratory patterns through their lives and during historical times. The aim of this thesis is to examine lifetime migration using residence history analysis in a rural context.;The sample of residence histories as drawn from two rural areas: Tynedale in Northumberland and Rutland in Leicestershire. Following a questionnaire survey of 250 households to establish broad patterns of lifetime migrations, in-depth interviews of 40 of those households were used to examine the decision-making behind those moves in more detail. The lifetime residence histories were subdivided into three different age cohorts, those under 40 (Cohort A), those aged between 40 and 59 (Cohort B) and those aged over 60 (Cohort C) at the time of interview. The moves made by individuals in these cohorts were analyzed in three broad categories; younger years (moves in teens and twenties), middle years (moves in thirties and forties) and later years (moves in fifties, sixties and seventies).;Individuals in all three age cohorts behaved in a remarkably similar fashion, irrespective of the temporal or spatial context in which decisions were made. Notably, however, the youngest age cohort made more moves during their twenties than their older counterparts. The first independent moves of Cohort A were also made over greater distances. Moves in the younger years not only generated the greatest volume of migration but in the course of subsequent moves it was these moves that tended to be particularly important in creating ties to areas and yielding information about possible alternative residences.