Internal Migration and Life Course Transitions in Brazil

Reinaldo Santos , CEDEPLAR-UFMG
Alisson F. Barbieri, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the association between transitions of the life course and the age pattern of internal migration in Brazil between 1986 and 2010. This relationship has its pillar in the premise – discussed in the literature – that physical, economic and social contextual changes would affect migration levels, while the age pattern of migration relates to transitions in the lifetime of individuals. In order to understand the association between migration and life course transitions, we extract period data from the Demographic Censuses of 1991, 2000 and 2010. From these data, cohort metrics were constructed on the life course transitions (completion of basic education, entry into labor market, first marriage and first child). Parameters developed in the Rogers-Castro model was used to evaluate the age pattern of the migration. This analysis allowed the construction of six hypotheses about the relationship between the transitions of the life course and the age pattern of the migration. The results point to a strong association between migration and other transitions in the life course, especially regarding timing of the first union. In addition, the results show that distance between origin and destination of migrants, a proxy for the cost of mobility, is an important variable since it exposes the immobility of young people, especially those of school age, and discriminates typical age patterns, such as individual or family migration.

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 Presented in Session 62. Migration and Spatial Change in Global South