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Internal migration rates in the United States have been steadily declining for at least twenty-five years: In 1984, 6.4 percent of the population moved between counties but by 2006—well before the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression—annual intercounty migration rates had already declined to 4.7 percent and by 2010 to 3.5 percent. Despite the implications of the migration decline, it is poorly recognized and understood. The analysis shows that over the last thirty years, three broad trends have combined to pull migration rates dramatically lower: an increase in dual-worker couples, increased household indebtedness, and the widespread rise of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The first two are probably linked, as households have responded to decreasing real income over the last quarter-century through greater female labor force participation and maintaining current levels of consumption by borrowing ever more heavily from the equity in their homes. Thus, although this analysis shows that the decline in migration rates is not directly linked to the Great Recession, the migration decline is surely linked to the broader macroeconomic shifts that gave rise to it. With respect to the role of ICTs, it is not surprising that as ICTs have transformed nearly everything else across society, their use has affected migration rates. It is presumed that ICTs are providing new forms of mobility that are substituting for migration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Women's earnings, employment, and commutes have generally lagged men's. Geographers emphasize the effects of women's gender roles on their spatial entrapment as limiting their job opportunities and labor market status. This research methodologically advances spatial entrapment research by utilizing a national model of commuting with spatial fixed effects to make more accurate predictions and generalizations. Second, this research found that a control group of same-sex partners allows for more direct isolation and measurement of the gender role effect on women's commutes. This research concluded that women's gender roles are negatively affecting their commuting range and, therefore, their labor market status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the interregional migration of partnered gays and lesbians between 1995 and 2000 as the first attempt at understanding the determinants of gay and lesbian migration using data from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 2000 U.S. Census. Briefly, the findings are as follows. Both partnered gays and lesbians are regionally distributed throughout the United States consistent with the geographical distribution of the entire U.S. population. However, the shifting location of the partnered gay and lesbian population between 1995 and 2000 demonstrates significant variability. The general conclusion to be reached from models of the net migration of the partnered gay and lesbian population in that period is as follows: Partnered gay migration is directed toward moderate-sized urban regions rich in natural amenities without regard for tolerance toward gay lifestyles or the absolute or relative size of the partnered gay community. Partnered lesbian migration is focused on less-populous regions with a large, existing, partnered lesbian population. The role of natural amenities, the tolerance for lesbian lifestyles, and population density are not significant in determining partnered lesbian migration. The only trait partnered gay and lesbian migrations have in common is in their move toward less populous regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses primarily on determining the economic consequences of family migration for husbands and wives in matched married-couple families, using data from waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households. The analysis is designed to determine whether or not the return to migration for husbands and wives is similarly affected by their relative earning potential, as predicted by the human-capital model of migration. The study's secondary contributions include its estimation of the effect of moving on earnings for both husbands and wives within matched married-couple families and its avoidance of the problems of self-selection bias and unobserved variable bias associated with cross-sectional models by using panel-data methods. The results indicate—as predicted by the gender-role model of family migration—that the effect of family migration on individual earnings is largely a function of gender: family migration causes an increase in the husband's income and no change in the wife's income even if a wife has a greater earning potential than her husband. Thus, the study does not support the human-capital argument—that family migration decisions are egalitarian and symmetrical, such that each spouse's absolute and relative earning power is given equal weight in the migration decision. This research makes a strong statement that the gender-role model of family migration is of greater utility for understanding family migration behavior than the human-capital model of family migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]