Abstract
For at least half a century, and building on observations first made a century earlier, the gravity model has been the most commonly-used paradigm for understanding gross migration flows between regions. This model owes its success to, firstly, its intuitive consistency with migration theories; secondly, ease of estimation in its simplest form; and, thirdly, goodness of fit in most applications. While fitting gravity models of aggregate migration flows started taking backstage to microdata analysis in the 1980s, a recent comeback has resulted from increasing applications to international migration and from the emergence of statistical theories appropriate for studying spatial interaction. In this paper we review the status quo and argue for greater integration of internal and international migration modelling. Additionally we revisit the issues of parameter stability and distance deterrence measurement by means of a New Zealand case study. We argue that gravity modelling of migration has a promising future in a multi-regional stochastic population projection system —an area in which the model has been to date surprisingly underutilised. We conclude with outlining current challenges and opportunities in this field.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 63-86 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Investigaciones Regionales |
| Volume | 2016 |
| Issue number | 36Specialissue |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2016 |
Funding
This study has been supported by the 2012-2014 Nga Tangata Oho Mairangi project, funded by Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment grant CONT-29661-HASTR-MAU. Access to the data used in this study was provided by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) under conditions designed to give effect to the security and confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act 1975. All frequency counts using Census data were subject to base three rounding in accordance with SNZ?s release policy for census data. We are grateful for comments received at the 8th International Conference on Population Geographies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, July 1-4, 2015; the LSE Population Seminar, London School of Economics and Political Science, November 19, 2015; and the 56th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Vienna University of Economics and Business, August 23-26, 2016. The views, opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these papers are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily represent, and should not be reported as, those of the organisations at which the authors are employed.
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
Keywords
- Distance deterrence measurement
- Gravity model
- Migration flows
- Parameter stability
- Spatial interaction
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