Modeling interregional migration flows: Continuity and change

This paper addresses the question of how to formally represent the spatial structure of an observed origin-destination-specific pattern of interregional migration flows. Such a representation allows an analyst to compare the spatial structures of different migration regimes and contrast their changes over time. It also facilitates the indirect estimation of migration flows, in the absence of such data, by allowing the analyst to impose a particular age or spatial structure when observed flow data are inadequate, partial, or completely nonexistent. In this paper, we focus on the level and allocation aspects (or the generation and distribution components) of age-specific interregional migration flows. We find that over time these flows exhibit strong regularities that can be captured by generalized linear models, which can then be used in situations where data are inadequate or missing to indirectly estimate interregional migration patterns.