Internal migration in the time of Covid: Who moves out of the inner city of Stockholm and where do they go?

After the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the media abounded with stories of people ‘fleeing city‐centres' and ‘finding refuge in the countryside'. A recurrent argument is that the shift towards remote work has prompted individuals to reconsider their living situation and envisage the possibility of relocating further away from their workplace. The aim of this study is to examine the patterns of out‐migration from the Stockholm inner city during the COVID‐19 pandemic, as well as the characteristics of out‐migrants. We use Swedish register data to compare the trends for the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic (2020) and the 5 years preceding it (2015–2019). Our study shows that, similar to other large cities across the world, individuals moved out of the inner city of Stockholm to a higher degree in 2020 than during the years preceding the pandemic. The majority of movers relocated to the Stockholm suburbs, which experienced a substantial increase in inflows from the Stockholm inner city. Yet a number of smaller municipalities, including traditional tourist destinations, also received more residents from the Stockholm inner city in 2020. Although it remains to be seen whether the increase in out‐migration from the Stockholm inner city observed in 2020 will be a long‐term trend, the paper discusses the policy implications of inner city out‐migration, from the perspective of both the sending and the receiving locations.

Trends in internal migration in Japan, 2012-2020: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the past 10 years or so, there have been growing concerns in Japan that migration trends, such as large in-migration to the Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA) at the national scale and large movements from the suburbs to the centres at the metropolitan scale, have widened the core-periphery disparities at each scale under national population decline. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to unexpected changes in these migration patterns, such as a weakened population concentration in the TMA. This study aims to examine internal migration trends from 2012, on axes of core-periphery in Japan and centre-suburbs in metropolitan areas, and the changes in the migration patterns caused by the pandemic in 2020. First, we prepared intermunicipal origin-destination tables by estimating the suppressed flows in 2012-2020 using the iterative proportional fitting technique, and then we calculated the net migration and migration efficiency indices based on seven area types: centre and suburbs of the TMA, centres and suburbs of major metropolitan areas, centres and suburbs of other metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan areas. The results indicate that the 2020 migration efficiency in the centre of the TMA drastically dropped to the lowest level during the study period, contrasting with an upward trend in 2012-2019. The pandemic strongly affected the migration patterns from/to and within the TMA, with much net gain in the suburbs from the centre, but the impact of migration efficiencies among the other areas was minimal. These findings can help in providing direction for the postpandemic policy challenge of spatial planning in Japan, for example, the weakened but still widening disparities between the TMA and the other regions and the renewed threat of urban sprawl caused by the increased migration from the centre to the suburbs within the TMA.

Employment of highly-skilled migrants during the pandemic: Focus on internal migration in Indonesia

This article examines whether highly-skilled migrants (HSMs) have better employment prospects compared to low-skilled migrants (LSMs), highly-skilled non-migrants (HSNMs) and low-skilled non-migrants (LSNMs) during the unsettling time of the COVID-19 pandemic. This question was explored by focusing on internal migration in Indonesia utilizing the August 2020 National Labor Force Survey, which includes several pandemic-related information. The study examined employment in terms of working status, change in hours worked and change in income. The results indicate that having high skills was very important in coping with the disruptions in the labor market, regardless of the migration status. The highly-skilled migrants were the second best (after the highly-skilled non-migrants) in coping with the crisis. As this study focused on migration, future research should focus more on short-term mobility, such as commuters, who were likely to have been more disadvantaged by mobility restrictions during the pandemic.

Local Labour Market Outcomes of Educational Migration

Thus far, the majority of studies have focused on international student migration. Less attention has been paid to internal migration for tertiary education and even less to local effects caused by this category of migration. To redress this limitation, the paper determines the most important consequences of internal migration for university enrolment in the local labour market of a university city. This is shown through the example of the Polish university city with one of the highest student-to-population ratios - Opole. The study is based on the literature review and the result of qualitative and quantitative research conducted in Opole. The first was conducted among students and the second among owners and employees of local enterprises. Findings of the research suggest that the inflow of students to the university city can lead to shortrun and long-run effects on the local economy. Findings of the research suggest that in the short run the inflow of students to the university city leads to structurally important changes in the labour supply and creates new jobs. In the long run, it leads to permanent changes in labour resources, attracts investors to the city and causes permanent changes in the labour demand. The analysed outcomes of migration for tertiary education are only a small but vital part of the consequences of education migration. The global spread of the coronavirus has also stressed the importance of educational migrants in university cities. The impact of pandemic COVID-19 on university cities should be the subject of future research.

No going back: COVID-19 disease threat perception and male migrants' willingness to return to work in India.

This paper explores the causal link between the likelihood of re-migration to cities and the perceived threat of contracting COVID-19 using novel data on male reverse migrant workers in India. We find that reverse-migrants who believe there is a significant chance of contracting COVID-19 display a significantly lower likelihood of returning to their urban workplaces, regardless of their duration of migration. On the other hand, longer-duration migrants display a lower perceived chance of contracting COVID-19 than shorter-duration migrants. We also contribute to the migration literature by linking behavioural attributes to the decision to migrate. We find that more impatient individuals display a heightened belief regarding contracting COVID-19 and a higher projected likelihood of returning to work. Finally, we find that while both loss and risk-averse individuals have a lower projected likelihood of returning to urban workplaces, only loss-averse individuals perceive that their chance of contracting COVID-19 is lower.

Internal student migration in India: Impact of the COVID-19 crisis

The education sector in India was among the most affected sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. While considerable attention has been paid to informal workers' return or reverse migration to their home communities, not much has been reported about the challenges faced by migrant students. Using a mixed-method approach, the current study presents an overview of internal student migration in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic using data from the 2001 and 2011 Census of India and the 2007–2008 National Sample Survey Organization, and discusses challenges faced by selected migrant learners during the COVID-19 pandemic based on primary research. Based on the census data, nearly 3.3 million migrants in India move for study reasons with 2.9 million migrating within the state (with the duration of residence less than five years) from their last residence within India. The pattern of female student migration suggests an increasingly localized interdistrict migration. Findings from the qualitative data indicate that during the pandemic, students had compromised learning and placement experience, inadequate digital resources and pressure to repay loans. Student migrants experienced varying degrees of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic based on their destination and migration stream. © Scalabrini Migration Center 2023.

Internal student migration in India: Impact of the COVID-19 crisis

The education sector in India was among the most affected sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. While considerable attention has been paid to informal workers' return or reverse migration to their home communities, not much has been reported about the challenges faced by migrant students. Using a mixed-method approach, the current study presents an overview of internal student migration in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic using data from the 2001 and 2011 Census of India and the 2007–2008 National Sample Survey Organization, and discusses challenges faced by selected migrant learners during the COVID-19 pandemic based on primary research. Based on the census data, nearly 3.3 million migrants in India move for study reasons with 2.9 million migrating within the state (with the duration of residence less than five years) from their last residence within India. The pattern of female student migration suggests an increasingly localized interdistrict migration. Findings from the qualitative data indicate that during the pandemic, students had compromised learning and placement experience, inadequate digital resources and pressure to repay loans. Student migrants experienced varying degrees of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic based on their destination and migration stream.

Virtual special issue: Internal migration in times of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has potentially altered the system of population movement around the world. As COVID-19 hit cities the hardest in the wake of the pandemic, apocalyptic headlines anticipated the ‘death of cities'. Yet, little was known about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cities and the ways it has shaped the patterns of internal population movement in and out of cities. This virtual special issue aims to consolidate our knowledge of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal migration, discuss key lessons we have learnt so far, and identify areas for future enquiry. It brings together evidence from six different countries: Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, covering the pandemic in varying temporal lengths. Systematic patterns emerge. A first commonality is an overall reduction of internal migration rates during the early days of the pandemic but to a lesser degree than expected. Second, the impacts of COVID-19 leading to out-migration from cities seem to have been temporary, though evidence from Spain and Britain points to scarring effects with persistent losses in highly dense areas. Third, changes in internal migration generated small impacts on the population structure of cities but large-scale changes in small, rural and low-density areas. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Population Redistribution Trends in Nonmetropolitan America, 2010 to 2021

Given the turbulent conditions of the early 21st century and the release of data from the 2020 Census, it is an appropriate time to examine contemporary population redistribution trends in nonmetropolitan America. Analysis centers on the major demographic components of population change: migration;and natural increase. The analysis demonstrates that the turbulent economic, social, and now epidemiological conditions of recent years altered traditional demographic trends in nonmetropolitan America. For the first time in history, nonmetropolitan America lost population between 2010 and 2020 because of shifts in migration trends and diminishing natural increase. In contrast, post‐censal population estimates suggest that nonmetropolitan population gains exceeded those in metropolitan areas for the first time in 50 years between 2020 and 2021. The recent widespread nonmetropolitan population increases are the result of substantial net migration gains that offset the growing natural decrease fostered by COVID‐19. Sustained net migration gains in nonmetro areas provides a demographic lifeline to many counties that would otherwise face depopulation because of accelerating natural decrease. Whether these migration patterns can be sustained remains to be seen.

Continuity or change? How the onset of COVID-19 affected internal migration in Australia.

Despite anecdotal evidence of a COVID-19 induced decline in the intensity of interstate migration in Australia, population-level evidence is limited. The recent release of the 2020 wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey provides a unique opportunity to robustly assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level, direction, determinants, and reasons for migration in Australia. By applying a series of regression models to individual-level longitudinal microdata, and measuring migration at a range of spatial scales, this paper shows that COVID-19 has somewhat accelerated the long-term decline in the intensity of internal migration-particularly for residential mobility, short-distance migration, and migration due to employment and involuntary reasons. The socio-demographic determinants of migration have remained broadly stable, despite a slight increase in the deterring effect of duration of residence and a reduction in the impact of education. Finally, we show that the increase in net migration gains in regional areas is underpinned by a decrease in outflows. Juxtaposing these results with aggregate-level migration statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 2021, we conclude that the effect of COVID-19 on internal migration to date has been minimal and is likely to be short-lived. However, it may still be too soon to make a definitive judgement, as shifts in work patterns stemming from the pandemic may further transform the level, direction, and composition of internal migration.

Understanding the multifaceted impact of COVID-19 on migrants in Kerala, India.

Motivation: COVID-19 has disrupted the lives of millions of people worldwide. Migrants in developing economies have been among the most affected. This vulnerable population faces a threat to their livelihood and way of life. Hence, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of pandemic on their lives to be able to tackle subsequent waves of the pandemic or similar exogenous shocks in future. Purpose: We delve into the economic and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on employment, sources of income, and lives of different categories of migrant labourers in the Indian state of Kerala. Methods and approach: Using the livelihood portfolio theory, we dissect this impact in relation to a wide range of issues. This was corroborated by the in-depth semi-structured interviews with three categories of respondents. The interview data was analysed by using the directed qualitative content analysis method. We created themes from the data and juxtaposed them with the livelihood portfolio theory in addressing the research objectives. Findings: Results highlight the impact on livelihood, lifestyles, migration prospects and gender aspects. First, the households dependent on international migrants were more severely affected than those with family members who were internal migrants. Second, a considerable lifestyle change (more reliance on a plant-based diet) and borrowing patterns (more reliance on informal money lending) was reported. Third, opinions on future migration prospects were pessimistic, and a trend in favour of reverse migration was noted. We also captured the resilience measures for each of the themes. Policy implications: We find that blanket responses to mitigate migrants' hardships could be counterproductive. Policy-makers ought to implement tailor-made policies keeping in mind the migrants' classification and socio-economic demographics. Further, we recommend specific measures to address challenges that women face, to ease their workload and mitigate the loss of income. Specific measures aimed at initiating attitudinal change such as creating mental health awareness, curbing misinformation and providing counselling services could also add immense value in tackling the pandemic.

Peace Beyond the Binary: A Creative Intersectional Perspective on Global Forced Displacement

In a defiant celebration of their queer subculture at the end of the first act, the lead character exclaims: "the opposite of war isn't peace-it's creation!"1 This lyrical moment spotlights how peace cannot be a crucial determinant of health and well-being if underlying systems of power remain the same;when addressing forced displacement on a global scale, public health responses must instead prioritize dismantling binary social constructs and intentionally creating inclusive care systems. The global COVID-19 pandemic has intensified existing cycles of violence and displacement generated by structural inequality, poverty, the climate crisis, and political instability.2,3 These systems operate through divisive, binary social categories-rich and poor, woman and man, Black and White, perpetrator and victim, citizen and foreigner- making people at the intersection of marginalized identity dimensions increasingly vulnerable to violence and forced migration within and across societies.4 Binary frameworks also determine which displaced populations receive refugee designation and, thus, protection. A study of transgender asylum seekers in Mexico found that they experienced discrimination in education and employment based on their evolving gender identities, violence from both their families and state officials, and adverse mental health outcomes.6 In another study, LGBTQ+ refugees and asylees living in a range of contexts in the United States and Canada reported widespread experiences of violence and a lack of support resources and protection across institutional levels and locations.7 These studies highlight how refugees who transcend binary constructs face violence and displacement not just from their communities but also from a migrant protection apparatus designed for refugees whose identities are assumed to fit neatly into predetermined boxes. Kimberlé Crenshaw's original use of the framework explored how binary conceptions of gender and race in the US legal system produced differential access to systems of justice for women who had experienced violence;the structural separation of racial discrimination and gender discrimination privileged White women's and Black men's experiences and obscured the cross-cutting effects of gender and race for Black women.8 In seeking to address forced displacement, I argue that we must incorporate an expanded version of intersectionality- what I call "creative intersectionality"- that explores how global systems of power relate to and shape one another, recognizes that identity dimensions are not dichotomous nor essential but are developed by translocational experiences and sociocultural contexts, and prioritizes critical action to deconstruct binaries in favor of new systems for collective well-being.9,10 For example, using creative intersectionality as a lens to understand and ultimately address forced displacement requires that we examine all forms of binary constructs, and not just those imposed on an individual's identity dimensions.

Internal migration in the time of Covid: Who moves out of the inner city of Stockholm and where do they go?

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the media abounded with stories of people 'fleeing city-centres' and 'finding refuge in the countryside'. A recurrent argument is that the shift towards remote work has prompted individuals to reconsider their living situation and envisage the possibility of relocating further away from their workplace. The aim of this study is to examine the patterns of out-migration from the Stockholm inner city during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the characteristics of out-migrants. We use Swedish register data to compare the trends for the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) and the 5 years preceding it (2015-2019). Our study shows that, similar to other large cities across the world, individuals moved out of the inner city of Stockholm to a higher degree in 2020 than during the years preceding the pandemic. The majority of movers relocated to the Stockholm suburbs, which experienced a substantial increase in inflows from the Stockholm inner city. Yet a number of smaller municipalities, including traditional tourist destinations, also received more residents from the Stockholm inner city in 2020. Although it remains to be seen whether the increase in out-migration from the Stockholm inner city observed in 2020 will be a long-term trend, the paper discusses the policy implications of inner city out-migration, from the perspective of both the sending and the receiving locations.

Changes in Destinations of Migrants from Tokyo Special Wards during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Large migrations from major cities were observed in many countries in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide. In Japan, the number of out-migrants from the Tokyo metropolis has increased and the pattern of internal migration has changed due to the pandemic. This article examines changes in destinations of migrants from Tokyo special wards, the central part of the Tokyo metropolitan area. As a result, the suburban areas of the Tokyo metropolitan area and northwest and southwest regions outside it were identified as regional destination clusters that received increased numbers of migrants from Tokyo special wards. The characteristics of the regions and age and occupational compositions of in-migrants indicated that the pandemic facilitated so-called lifestyle migration from the metropolitan center in Japan.抄録新型コロナウイルスのパンデミックが生じた2020年には，世界の多くの大都市で大規模な人口の転出が確認された．日本においても東京都からの転出の増加を含む人口移動パターンの変化が生じている．そこで東京大都市圏の中心となる東京都区部からの転出に着目して，その移動先の分布の変化にみられた特徴を分析した．結果として，移動者が増加した地域として東京大都市圏の郊外部と大都市圏外の北西部および南西部の地域が検出された．これらの地域の特徴と推定される移動者の年齢や職業の構成からは，新型コロナウイルスの流行が大都市圏都心部からのライフスタイル移住を促進したことが示唆された．

Pandemic and Reverse Migration in India

As the most significant contributor to the worlds migrant population, India witnessed a massive reverse migration during the COVID-19 pandemic. The unprecedented return of international and internal migrants to their domicile challenged the Indian economy. Integration of returnees was a colossal task for the government. Against this backdrop, this study analysed the extent of reverse migration, the socioeconomic challenges faced by migrants during the repatriation, the government response to reverse migration and the economic integration of returnees. By reviewing relevant literature, this study exposed the inability of the Indian economic sectors to absorb the reverse migrants and the limited power of migration to bring about a structural transformation in the Indian economy.

Urban exodus? Understanding human mobility in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic using Meta-Facebook data.

Existing empirical work has focused on assessing the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical interventions on human mobility to contain the spread of COVID-19. Less is known about the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the spatial patterns of population movement within countries. Anecdotal evidence of an urban exodus from large cities to rural areas emerged during early phases of the pandemic across western societies. Yet, these claims have not been empirically assessed. Traditional data sources, such as censuses offer coarse temporal frequency to analyse population movement over infrequent time intervals. Drawing on a data set of 21 million observations from Meta-Facebook users, we aim to analyse the extent and evolution of changes in the spatial patterns of population movement across the rural-urban continuum in Britain over an 18-month period from March 2020 to August 2021. Our findings show an overall and sustained decline in population movement during periods of high stringency measures, with the most densely populated areas reporting the largest reductions. During these periods, we also find evidence of higher-than-average mobility from high-density population areas to low-density areas, lending some support to claims of large-scale population movements from large cities. Yet, we show that these trends were temporary. Overall mobility levels trended back to precoronavirus levels after the easing of nonpharmaceutical interventions. Following these interventions, we found a reduction in movement to low-density areas and a rise in mobility to high-density agglomerations. Overall, these findings reveal that while COVID-19 generated shock waves leading to temporary changes in the patterns of population movement in Britain, the resulting vibrations have not significantly reshaped the prevalent structures in the national pattern of population movement. As of 2021, internal population movements sit at an intermediate level between those observed pre- and early phases of the pandemic.

Rural revival? The rise in internal migration to rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Who moved and Where?

During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, anecdotal evidence of a "rural revival" emerged mirroring the "urban exodus" hypothesis. Currently, we know that internal migration to rural areas increased in some countries during 2020, although not with the intensity speculated by the media. However, little is known about the attributes of rural areas attracting migrants, demographic composition of migration inflows, and if counterurbanisation movements persisted over 2021. Drawing on administrative population register data, we analysed the main types of rural areas pulling internal migrants in Spain and their demographic characteristics, namely age, sex and place of birth during 2020 and 2020, using the period 2016-2019 as a benchmark. Our results show that in-migration increased in rural areas close to cities and with high prevalence of second homes during 2020, while out-migration declined. Exceptionally high inflows persisted over 2021, but outflows converged to figures observed prior to the pandemic. Inflows to rural areas comprised internal migrants across a wide age spectrum, from young adults and families to retired individuals. These flows also comprised foreign-born, particularly populations of a wide age range from Latin American countries.

Interstate Migration in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis Based on Mobile Visitor Location Register and Roaming Data

In migration and mobility studies, the availability of scientifically reliable data remains a persistent challenge. The recent move towards harnessing mobile and big data has also been unable to resolve the data issues due to accessibility, privacy, as well as ethical and methodological intricacies involved with such data sets. In this paper, we explore a new set of data known as visitor location register (VLR) and roaming data, which is recorded and reported by mobile service providers. The reporting model of VLR data used and presented in this paper is not only free from privacy and ethical concerns but also methodologically sound and simple to compute as compared to any previous approaches. Drawing on VLR data, this paper finds direct evidence of unusually high interstate net reverse migration during the first and second COVID-19 lockdowns in India (44.13 and 26.3 million, respectively), and thereafter quick return migration back to cities during unlocks. The findings from this paper also provide insights into evolving migration directions, precarity, pockets of origin and destination and state policies in containing reverse migration during lockdowns in India. We anticipate that the data presented in the paper have the potential to fill a major data gap in migration and mobility studies in other countries too if VLR and roaming data are made available at the required spatial and temporal levels.

COVID-19 AND INTERNAL MIGRATION IN SERBIA— GEOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Internal migration is an essential part of regional population change. Driven by various determinants, internal migration has been unequal across time and space. Migration responses to the changes in societal circumstances make it relevant to investigate the spatial and temporal dimension of internal migration in Serbia before and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The research aims to identify to what extent and in what way the pandemic has changed the magnitude and geographical patterns of internal migration in Serbia. The study is based on additionally processed official statistics on internal migration for the period 2018–2020, from March to December for each year, at the municipal, district (oblast, plural—oblasti), and regional levels. These are aggregate administrative data on usual residence registration by month. The derived data on the net migration rate is cartographically presented using the classification method natural Breaks (Jenks). Spatial dependence was assessed applying the spatial autocorrelation method, based on the Local Moran statistic. The results revealed that the pandemic affected not only the volume of internal migration but also its spatial patterns. The findings present new insights on the role of internal migration in reallocation of population across Serbia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic while underlying the importance of further research to deepen the understanding of internal migration trends upon the COVID-19 outbreak. © 2022, Geographical Institute "Jovan Cviji" of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. All rights reserved.

The regional migration system as a lens for studying migration and development

The paper revisits the migration-system approach, offering a more nuanced conceptual device for focused study of migration and, especially, region-level development. The paper outlines the main approaches to migration systems and links the conceptual framework to system-based discussion of regional development. The tentative conceptual lens formulated for studying the role of migration in regional development, and vice versa, is the regional migration system, or RMS. This conceptual focusing device is developed and tentatively tested in the specific case of Finland s Seinäjoki city-region. The shape of a regional migration system is recognised by means of statistical data, while qualitative data aid in exploring the system drivers, helping explain their shape and magnitude. Also, the paper discusses the contributions of the multilevel perspective and transition-based approach entailed for applying the RMS concept. The conclusions point to several further applications for the conceptual framework introduced.