Sociology 2236A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Epidemiological Transition, Old Age, Commuter Town
10 Apr 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Migration
Net Interprovincial Migration 2015-2016
o BC and Ontario were the principal beneficiaries
o Except for NB, three of the four Atlantic provinces posted
o Alberta and Quebec had the largest interprovincial migratory losses in absolute terms
o The largest migratory flows in Canada were from Alberta to BC and Ontario
o Oil price plunge flipping migration patterns with people leaving Alberta
- The slump in oil prices is starting to reverse migration patterns among the provinces
- Mass layoffs in the energy sector are leading people to move from Alberta to BC and Ontario, bucking a decades-
long trend of people flocking to the western province
- When oil was steadily climbing from 2000-2014, Alberta experienced large waves of migration
o Unsurprisingly, Ontario experienced the largest inflow of migrants from other parts of Canada
Internal Migration
o Usually within a country
Conceptual Issues
o Permanency of move
o Temporary vs. Long term
o Type of boundary crossed
o Local administrative (ex. Community)
o Vs. Other (ex. City, region, province)
o Distance travelled
o Short distance (close to “home”) vs long distance (far away from home)
Demographic Perspective
Migration entails
o Crossing of administrative/political boundaries
o Travel over a relatively long distance
o A permanent or semi-permanent change of address
Often difficult to satisfy all three criteria
o Not always possible to know individual intentions
o Is move permanent/temporary?
▪ Not always certain, given the data available
o Administrative boundaries can be crossed even at short distances travelled
Operational definition often applied: change of place of usual residence from one administrative area to another
Data Sources
o Canadian census/NHS (key source)
o 1-year mobility question
o 5-year mobility question
o Based on respondent’s address at time of the census and at 1 or 5 years prior to census
Categories of Movers
o Non-Migrants
- Non-movers
- Local movers (residential movers within same municipality)
o Migrants
- Moved within same province (intraprovincial migrants)
- Moved, different province (interprovincial migrants)
- Moved to Canada from abroad (international migrant)
o Other data sources: administrative records (income tax files, family allowance files), specialized surveys (migration history)
Basic Measures of Migration
Analysis of Migration Frequencies
o Look at migratory exchanges between origin and destination areas within a geographic system (ex. regions, provinces,
cities, etc.)
E.G. Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration
o The main causes of migration are economic in
nature, especially long distance moves. Key is the
supply and demand of labor. The “local” moves are
mainly due to family related factors
o women are more likely to move short distances;
men are more likely to move long distances (from
1885)
- Today, less applicable to advanced
societies (ex. Canada), more applicable to
developing countries
o For every stream of migration in one direction,
there is a corresponding counter stream of
migration in the opposite direction (the latter being
the smaller in volume)
o Technological development, to the extent that it
reflects economic growth and related developments (ex. improvements in transportation) tends to stimulate migration
- True, but today in the most advanced societies, the development of new communication technologies may have
the opposite effect (ex. to reduce the necessity of migration for work related reasons)
W. Zelinsky – the Mobility Transition
o As with demographic and epidemiological transitions, societies undergo a mobility transition
o Socioeconomic modernization (from primitive society to super advanced society) → demographic transition,
epidemiological transition, mobility transition
William Petersen
o “Innovating” vs. “Conservative” typology of migration
