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Population migration and economic restructuring in the United States
International Regional Science Review
|January 1, 1989
Summary
Migration patterns in the 1970s spurred different employment shifts than earlier decades. Government, services, trade, and construction, not manufacturing, drove population redistribution across the United States.
Area of Science:
- Economics
- Sociology
- Demography
Background:
- Interstate migration patterns in the United States have undergone significant transformations.
- Previous analyses focused on manufacturing and basic economic sectors to explain employment shifts related to migration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze and contrast sectoral employment shifts linked to migration pattern changes in the 1970s with those from earlier periods (1955-1970).
- To identify the key economic sectors driving accelerated core-periphery net outflow during the 1970s and 1980s.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of sectoral employment data and interstate migration patterns across different time periods.
- Statistical examination of the relationship between migration and employment changes.
Main Results:
- Sectoral employment shifts in the 1970s differed substantially from those observed between 1955 and 1970.
- Manufacturing competitiveness did not explain the increased core-periphery net outflow characteristic of the 1970s and 1980s.
- Government, services, trade, and construction sectors were strongly associated with broad population shifts.
Conclusions:
- The drivers of large-scale population redistribution in the US evolved significantly by the 1970s.
- Migration played a more critical causal role in employment changes during the 1970s.