Human migration involves the relocation of individuals, households or moving groups between geographical locations. Aggregate spatial patterns of movement reflect complex interactions among motivations (such as distance, identity, economic opportunities, etc.) that influence migration behaviour and determine destination choice. Gravity models and radiation models are often used to study different types of migration at various spatial scales. In this paper, we propose that human migration models can be improved by embedding regional identities into the model. We modify the existing human migration gravity model by adding an identity parameter based on three different sets of Dutch identity regions. Through analysis of the Dutch internal migration data between 1996 and 2016, we show that adding the identity parameter has a significant effect on the distance distribution. We find that individuals are more likely to move towards municipalities located within the same identity region. We test the impact of regional identity by comparing randomly spatially clustered and optimised identity regions to show that the effects we attribute to regional identity could not be attributed due to chance. Finally, our finding shows that cultural identity should be taken into account and has broad implications on the practice of modelling human migration patterns at large. We find that people living in Dutch municipalities are 3.89 times as likely to move to a municipality when it is located within the same historic identity region. Including these identity regions in the migration model decreases the deviation of the model by 10.7%.

Research has shown considerable municipal-level variation in divorce rates within countries. Given the large increase in cohabitation over the past decades, this study examines whether similar differences can also be observed in the union dissolution risks of cohabitants. By investigating whether six municipal-level factors important in understanding spatial variation in divorce are also associated with spatial variation in the dissolution of cohabiting unions (financial uncertainty, gender roles, religiosity, social ties, alternative opportunities and educational attainment), this article aims to improve our understanding of municipal differences in the dissolution of cohabiting unions. This study is conducted on register data from Statistics Netherlands (2017)(2018). For this study, unique union dissolution information per union type (marriage and cohabitation) is constructed for 355 Dutch municipalities. Nearly all explanatory factors are defined using publicly available municipal-level information. We use spatial lag regression models to analyse differences in municipal union dissolution risks for different union types. We find that municipal-level union dissolution risks of cohabiting and married couples are only moderately correlated, suggesting that the risk of union dissolution for cohabiting couples is not necessary high in municipalities with high divorce rates. Municipal-level indicators of social ties, religiosity and alternative opportunities are linked to municipallevel variation in union dissolution risks of married and cohabiting couples, whereas municipal-level variation in financial uncertainty and educational attainment are only linked to municipal-level variation in union dissolution risks of married couples.