Adam Dennett

Technologies for migration and commuting analysis: Spatial interaction data applications

This initial chapter has two aims. Firstly, it seeks to clarify definitional and conceptual issues relating to the key interaction phenomena, migration and commuting, on which we concentrate in this book and for which we strive to obtain information to enhance our understanding of the processes that are taking place in the real world. The chapter explains the conceptual distinction between migrants and migrations, the importance of which becomes clear when the difference between transition and movement data is outlined, and it considers the alternative units of migrant measurement that are used such as individuals, wholly moving households and moving groups. Whilst migration tends to be measured over a period of time, typically a year, commuting is an activity that occurs on a much more frequent basis and consequently is usually measured as the numbers making a journey on one day. The chapter indicates how commuting to work and commuting to study are defined and measured. Secondly, the chapter contains the summary of an audit of interaction data sources, outlining the characteristics of the different types of data that are available from censuses, registers and surveys. Particular emphasis is placed on the former, the Census of Population, for which there are a number of data products providing migration and commuting counts at different spatial scales and disaggregated by various attributes; micro data are distinguished from macro data. However, the chapter also introduces a range of other interaction data sources such as the registers of National Health Service patients, the Pupil Level Annual School Census, the databases of the Higher Education Statistics Agency, various national level surveys such as the Labour Force Survey and the International Passenger Survey. In some cases, the data are exemplified using tables or maps. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the importance of the census as a key data source for small area analysis and a plea that, in a post-census world, sufficient steps be taken by central government to ensure the creation and provision of information systems for monitoring migration and commuting in an effective way, providing accurate and reliable intelligence on trends and creating opportunities for new research projects that develop explanations.

A Multilevel Spatial Interaction Modelling Framework for Estimating Interregional Migration in Europe

This paper presents a new spatial interaction modelling framework for estimating subnational, international migration flows within Europe. We introduce a several-stage model which incorporates constraints at two geographical levels and produces estimates for a full matrices of interregional flows which adhere to known flows between countries in the EU system between 2002 and 2007. It is shown that internal migration data can be usefully employed to help distribute flows subnationally both through in-migration and out-migration distributions and through calibrated distance-decay parameters. Validation of the model outputs is achieved, in part, through comparison with national insurance number registration data from the UK.

A new area classification for understanding internal migration in Britain.

This article details the development of a new area classification for Britain based on internal migration variables taken from the 2001 Census. An explanation of why general‐purpose area classifications already in existence are not ideal for internal migration analysis is provided, before an account of the construction of the new classification is given. The latter involves justification of the choice of variables, explanation of the methodology adopted and presentation of the final typology.

Estimates of internal migration flows for the UK, 2000–2007

Statistics on migration flows year by year within the UK are produced by the Office for National Statistics, the General Register Office for Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency for migration within England and Wales, within Scotland and within Northern Ireland respectively. However, these flow statistics are not integrated across the UK. As there was a need for such integrated flow statistics at a sub‐national scale known as NUTS2 for an EU sponsored project, the authors developed a synthetic estimate of migration flows for the calendar years 2000 to 2007 and the mid‐year to midyear intervals 1999–2000 to 2006–07. The estimates were controlled by the migration flows published at NUTS1 scale from the UK wide NHS Central Register to which country specific flows between NUTS2 regions from the various patient registers were fitted. The gaps, flows between regions in different devolved territories, were filled by adjusting comprehensive flow data from the 2001 Census to the published NHSCR flows. Age detail was added only to the total out‐migration and in‐migration flows from each region using a fixed national profile of migration rates by age from the 2001 Census. The resulting time series of flow data provide, therefore, the three matrix faces of an origin‐destination‐age array for each time period. The paper describes the details of the estimation process and reports on some of the trends that the time series show.

Monitoring who moves where: information systems for internal and international migration

Given the wide variety of types of migration with different motivations taking place at different spatial scales, it is not surprising that there is no single source of data that provides comprehensive and reliable information about the volume, complexion and distribution of migration flows. The reality is that migration data are derived from many different sources, several of which were not created with the intention of providing migration statistics per se. This chapter outlines the main sources of census, survey and administrative data on international and internal migration before explaining and illustrating three migration information systems developed at the University of Leeds that serve as ‘one-stop shops’ for users to access different types of migration data.

Modelling regional imbalances in English plebeian migration to late eighteenth-century London

Using a substantial set of vagrancy removal records for Middlesex (1777–86) giving details of the place of origin of some 11,500 individuals, and analysing these records using a five-variable gravity model of migration, this article addresses a simple question: from which parts of England did London draw its lower-class migrants in the late eighteenth century? It concludes, first, that industrializing areas of the north emerged as a competitor for potential migrants—contributing relatively fewer migrants than predicted by the model. Rising wage rates in these areas appear to explain this phenomenon. Second, it argues that migration from urban centres in the west midlands and parts of the West Country, including Bristol, Birmingham, and Worcester, was substantially higher than predicted, and that this is largely explained by falling wage rates and the evolution of an increasingly efficient travel network. Third, for the counties within about 130 kilometres of the capital, this article suggests that migration followed the pattern described in the current literature, with London drawing large numbers of local women in particular. It also argues that these short-distance migrants came from a uniquely wide number of parishes, suggesting a direct rural-to-urban path.

Access to UK Census Data for Spatial Analysis: Towards an Integrated Census Support Service

In the absence of a comprehensive population registration system in the United Kingdom (UK), the decadal Census of Population provides a crucially important source of demographic and socio-economic data both for academic research as well as planning and policy making for urban sustainability. Data from recent UK censuses have been used to produce a variety of products in digital form at different spatial scales, ranging from the counts of individuals or households with particular characteristics captured by the census questionnaire and often referred to as aggregate statistics, to samples of the population at individual or household level, known collectively as micro data. Access to these often large and complex data sets for social science research has been facilitated through the development of a set of services funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the Census Programme. In this chapter, we review the current Census Support Service at a point of transition to a more integrated system allowing users ‘one stop shop’ access to a range of different data sources, including those associated with the census, through the facility known as the UK Data Service.

A synthetic Longitudinal Study dataset for England and Wales

This article describes the new synthetic England and Wales Longitudinal Study ‘spine’ dataset designed for teaching and experimentation purposes. In the United Kingdom, there exist three Census-based longitudinal micro-datasets, known collectively as the Longitudinal Studies. The England and Wales Longitudinal Study (LS) is a 1% sample of the population of England and Wales (around 500,000 individuals), linking individual person records from the 1971 to 2011 Censuses. The synthetic data presented contains a similar number of individuals to the original data and accurate longitudinal transitions between 2001 and 2011 for key demographic variables, but unlike the original data, is open access.