Internal migration and household relationships the migration of

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Internal migration and household relationships: the migration of students About the project o. w.

Internal migration and household relationships: the migration of students About the project o. w. duke-williams@leeds. ac. uk www. geog. leeds. ac. uk/people/o. duke-williams/ Students away from ‘home’ This project examines the relationships between internal migration, commuting and family types in Britain. These relationships are believed to be changing – for example people might exchange a longer commute for a preferred residential location, or one family member may engage in long-distance weekly commuting. The project will use a variety of data sources including the Special Migration and Special Workplace Statistics from the 1991 and 2001 Censuses, the ONS Longitudinal Study, the British Household Panel Study, and the Labour Force Survey to investigate these changing relationships. The project draws on two new aspects of the 2001 Census: the relationship matrix, and migration ‘moving group’ information. The relationship matrix is formed from questions in which respondents indicated their relationship to all other members of their household; it can be used to identify a rich variety of family types including extended and multi-generational families. The ‘moving group’ information allows migrants (people who moved in the year prior to the Census) to be identified in separate groups within a household if they had moved from different addresses. Using these two aspects together will allow analysis of the way in which the number of people who move together influences the patterns of migration. About the poster A particular sub-group of interest is students. Despite being a significant proportion of the population, student mobility is poorly understood, especially the mobility of former students after they have completed their studies. Movement of students into university towns is a research area currently attracting considerable interest, with a debate over issues associated with 'studentification'. The poster presents evidence about a number of different aspects of student mobility. The panel to the right looks at the observed behaviour of student movements, as reported in the 1991 Census. A specially produced table contained a matrix showing the term-time and usual residence locations of all full-time students. Examination of this matrix allows the spatial behaviour of students who leave home to study to be explored. The panel to the left discusses the age profile of such students and the distances traveled by students. By implication, these data also illustrate problems of differential access to higher education: area can be identified that have more students leaving than entering, perhaps because of limited local availability of suitable opportunities. How do the data observed from the 1991 Census compare with the more recent situation as recorded in the 2001 Census. This question is hard to answer, because a similar matrix does not exist in the 2001 data. However, suitables exist that allow some comparison to be made, These data also allow a much more detailed spatial investigation of where students are 'away from home' during term-time. This allows maps to be drawn that show differential mobility and inferred access inequities on a much finer scale than was the case in 1991. This is illustrated with maps of London. The examples in the panels below use three wards in England that have the highest proportions of resident students (based on the proportion of adults who are full-time students): Holywell, in Oxford (90. 3%), Keele in Newcastle-under-Lyme (82. 2%) and Heslington in York (79. 9%). This graph shows the age profile of students and schoolchildren from the 1991 Census for whom their term-time address was different to their residential address (that is, the term time address is in a different district: the data do not allow a distinction to be made of separate addresses within the same district). The number of schoolchildren for whom this is true is low. Although the absolute difference between boys and girls who go to school away from home is small, the relative difference is sizable: up to twice as many boys in each age group up to the age of 16 had a term-time address in a different district than was the case for girls. For older students, the numbers, as would be expected are much higher, with a peak at the age of 20. The numbers decline again as the age of students increases. It should be recalled that this graph does not show total student numbers, but numbers for whom term-time and residential address are different. The graph also shows the mean distances between the term-time and home districts. Whilst these distances are shorter for school-age children, the variation in distances is less that the variation in overall numbers. It is also notable that the maximum mean distances are observed for a slighter older group of students than those for whom the highest absolute numbers are seen. These are presumed to be postgraduate students. How has the situation changed since 1991? We can compare Table 100 with the results found in Table CS 012 from the 2001 Census Area Statistics. Unfortunately, CS 012 has much less age resolution than Table 100, and does not have a term-time address location, so distance cannot be compared. In order to generate a proportion of all students who are away from home, the Standard Tables Theme Table TT 02 is used to give a base count of students. The age breakdowns used in CS 012 and TT 02 is different, and permits only two compatible age groups to be established: less than 20 and 20 plus. As in 1991, gender differences are limited (especially given the age breakdown used). The overall count of students who are ‘away from home’ during term-time is 4. 7%, and thus higher than the overall 4. 0% from 1991. The under 20 rate is 2. 1%; this compares with 1. 8% from 1991. The 20 plus rate is 27. 7%, which is lower than the comparable level from 1991 (33. 6%). Is this a genuine reduction? We know that overall student numbers have increased over the decade, and the CS 012/TT 02 figures show an increase in the total numbers of students involved of almost 50%. But has there been in a change in the proportions living at home while they study, or considering that they have left home permanently? The overall figures mask considerable variation by member country of the UK. The figures quoted above are for GB only, in order to facilitate comparison with the 1991 data; the table provides a breakdown of the 2001 figures across the whole of the UK. Whilst England Wales have similar results, Scotland Northern Ireland exhibit patterns of student mobility at opposite ends of a spectrum. Source: 1991 Small Area Statistics, Table 100 Country All students Age <20 Age 20+ Male Female England 4. 8 2. 1 30. 9 27. 5 Wales 4. 3 4. 8 1. 7 2. 0 32. 5 28. 5 Scotland 3. 5 2. 9 2. 0 2. 3 15. 2 13. 9 Great Britain 4. 6 4. 7 2. 1 29. 5 26. 1 Northern Ireland 5. 4 6. 7 1. 6 2. 1 69. 1 64. 4 United Kingdom 4. 7 4. 8 2. 0 29. 6 26. 3 Source: 2001 Census: Area Statistics, Standard Tables Unlike the 1991 Census, the Area Statistics contain – in tables such as CS 012 – information about students who are away from home (that is, they have a different term time address). This allows more detailed examination of patterns of student movements than has previously been the case. The two maps below show (left) the numbers of students aged 18 plus in wards of London that are away from home, and (right) the numbers of resident students aged 18 plus. These maps reveal strong spatial patterns in the geography of students living away from home. The map of resident students shows strong concentrations in areas close to educational institutions, with relatively low numbers to the east and south of the city. The map of students away from home shows that few students are away from home in the less affluent eastern boroughs of the city. In some areas, the numbers of students present is high whilst the number away from home are low, suggesting that significant numbers of students who remain at home whilst studying. However, further to the east both resident students and students away from home are low, suggesting poor opportunities for access to higher education. One panel looks at the age profiles of persons moving into, within and out of these three wards. How are the ages distributed? If migration flows are heavily dominated by students, we might expect to see some strong age-specific patterns emerge; for example, we would expect movements into the area to have a peak around the ages of 18 and 19, when most students start their studies. It is perhaps of greater interest to look at movements out of the wards. It is not possible to directly distinguish former students in Census data. The Census is a snapshot data set, and gives information about each respondents current status at the time of the Census. Although there has been pressure in the past to include a question about people's staus one year prior to the Census - from which we might learn, for example, that they had been a full-time student one year previously - such a question has not been included in the Census since 1971. However, if migration flows out of heavily student dominated wards are predominantly composed of former students, we can draw inferences about the mobility of recent graduates. The age profile graphs are therefore a useful too to argue about the make up of flows out of these wards, based on assumptions about the age at which full-time students may complete their studies. Building on the argument that flows into these wards are made up of new students, and flows out of them are made up of graduates leaving the area (perhaps to take up a job), we can then look at the spatial patterns that are observed. Where are the students coming from? Where do they go to afterwards? Do they (in aggregate) return to their original locations, or do they go somewhere else? The lower panel presents a series of maps that examines these patterns. Source: 2001 Area Statistics Age profile of moves into and out of wards with large student proportions Student mobility to and from university There are three main phases of student migration that, using the 'traditional' model of a student leaving the parental home to go to university or college, we might expect to see: an initial move to the university town; potentially, one or more moves within the university town; and finally a possible move out of the university town after graduation. These graphs show the age of migrants moving into, within and out of the three wards in England that have the highest proportion of students, using data from the 2001 Special Migration Statistics. If movements fit this traditional model, you would expect to see different peak ages for movements into the ward, movements within the ward, and movements out of the ward. In the case of Holywell and Heslington, there are clear differences in the ages of migrants involved in these flows, and the pattern fits well with this assumed model of student migration. Keele exhibits slightly different behaviour, with the peak level in all movement types being at the same age. In addition, and in contrast to the other two examples. the peak of the out-migrant flow is low. This might be because a lower proportion of students leave the area after graduating. However, note that the intra-ward migration level is much higher than the other two cases. It may be the case that as well as being more mobile within the ward, the Keele students are more likely to move to neighbouring wards, and thus would not be captured in this view of out-migration. In order to investigate further, it is necessary to look at movements in the surrounding wards as well. These maps show the number of migrants to (top row) and from (bottom row) the three wards in England with the highest proportions of student residents. Whilst these migrants are not necessarily all students, the extreme dominance of students in each ward suggests that these migrants are predominantly students, or former students in the case of the migrants out of these wards. All three wards draw students from all over the country, but with more arriving from their local region. The local focussing is tighter in the case of Keele. The patterns indicated by moves away from university are interesting. Both Heslington and Holywell disperse former students to a smaller set of districts than they gather then from, with a bias towards the south east of England. Whilst Keele attracted students from a smaller set of areas, it disperses them to a similarly wide set of locations. Source: 2001 Census: Special Migration Statistics Census output is Crown copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.