Joint Effects of Personal Factors and Ecological Variables on the Interprovincial Migration Pattern of Young Adults in Canada: A Nested Logit Analysis

Abstract

This paper applies a nested logit model to the 1981 c e m w micro data to study the joint eflects of personal factors (sex, mother tongue, nativity, education, and mrital status) and ecological variables on the 1976-1 981 interprovincial migration pattern of young adults in Canada. In multivariate contexts, personal factors not only are of paramount importance in explaining the departure process but also have sign$cant interactions with ecological variables in determining the destination choice pattern. INTRODUCTIONThe most important political issue in Canada in 1988 was the free trade agreement with the United States. The attacks by the opposition parties on the agreement negotiated by the majority Conservative government are based mainly on two grounds: first, it would undermine Canadian regional economic policies, which openly provide financial subsidies to industries in economically less developed regions; and second, it would diminish Canadian cultural identity.These government subsidies are the result of a persistent interregional economic disparity that appears to be an inherent part of the market economy, whereas the cultural sensitivity is a reflection of a strong desire among Canadians to maintain a distinct heritage that helps to preserve the historical British/French separation and to promote muIticulturalism as an official cultural policy.Coexisting with the apparently large regional diversity in economic and cultural respects is the paradox that the geographical mobility of the Canadian population is one of the highest in the world (Long and Boertlein 1976). Somehow the high level of mobility does not seem to function well in reducing interregional disparities and in mixing people. There were even mobility programs providing relocation grants to help those in the labor force find jobs elsewhere in the country. Kao-Lee Liaw is professor of geography, McMaster University.

Counting Migrants and Migrations: Comparing Lifetime and Fixed‐Interval Return and Onward Migration

“…The preference for living within a familiar cultural milieu is represented by a measure of cultural similarity, which reflects the cultural and language heterogeneity of Canada, with migration patterns strongly influenced by French and English language differences (Liaw 1990). To represent the quality of the physical environment of each province, an average index of coldness is used to repre-sent the annual number of degree-days below 18°C.…”

Inter-metropolitan migration of the newly landed immigrants in Canada: 1991–1996 and 1996–2001

“…For a potential migrant with personal attributes s and residing in CMA i, I specify that the migration behaviour depends on a departure probability P(s, i) at the upper level, and a set of destination choice probabilities, P(j | s, i) for all j not equal to i, at the lower level. Based on a set of reasonable assumptions, these probabilities then become functions of observable explanatory variables in the following two sub-models Liaw 1990). …”

“…As presented in section ''Data and statistical model'', the inter-CMA migration process is conceptualized into two separate processes: (1) a destination choice process, expressed by a destination choice sub-model, and (2) a departure process, formulated by a departure sub-model (Liaw 1990). In order to test the relevance of the ethnic enclave theoretical perspective as well as make comparison of the two periods more meaningful, I focus on immigrants from six origins (i.e.…”

An Empirically Based Implementation and Evaluation of a Hierarchical Model for Commuting Flows. 一种基于经验的层状通勤流模型实现与评估

“…One way to deal with this problem is the approach taken by Liaw and Ledent (1987), who introduce a hierarchical processing strategy by distinguishing between a departure model and a destination choice model in a nested logit formulation. Liaw (1990) used this approach to explain interprovincial migration flows in Canada. The competing destinations model represents an alternative way to deal with the IIA property.…”