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Internal Migration and Life Course Transitions in Brazil

Reinaldo Santos, CEDEPLAR-UFMG
Alisson F. Barbieri, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Ernesto Amaral, Texas A&M University

Linkages between life course transitions and age pattern of migration assume that physical and socioeconomic contextual changes affect migration levels, while the age pattern of migration relates to lifetime transitions of individuals. We investigate association between life course transitions and age pattern of internal migration in Brazil between 1986 and 2010 using cohort metrics for life course transitions based on the 1991, 2000, and 2010 Brazilian Demographic Censuses. We evaluate age patterns of migration using the Rogers-Castro model and test six hypotheses about the association between life course transitions and age pattern of migration. Results show a strong association between migration and life course transitions (especially timing of the first union) and the importance of distance between areas of origin and destination of migrants. We discuss the role of migration as a mean for individual life course transition, and that migration is determined, in large part, by the same social conditions of life course transitions. Differences in life course transitions (e.g., by sex or region) and age selectivity help us understand distinct propensities to migrate by families and individuals. We provide high-standard demographic estimates using census data, without the need to collect expensive longitudinal surveys to analyze sub-national migration flows.

Keywords: Internal migration, Life course analysis, Census data

See paper.

  Presented in Session 119. Migration and Socioeconomic Inequalities