Place Utility and Migration

Abstract

The development of behavioral movement models has been hindered by definitional and operational problems. Notwithstanding this fact, almost all migration researchers acknowledge the importance of site and situational attributes in the formulation and testing of behavioral explanations for the migration decision process. Through the use of complementary behavioral methods specifically designed to uncover the relevant attributes of potential migration destinations that are of importance to decision makers, four main variables were found to best characterize the evaluative features of potential destinations: Nearness to and Size of a Major City, Nearness to and Type of Fresh Air Recreational Opportunity, Nearness to Close Relatives, and General Economic Conditions. These attributes were stable across a variety of job- constrained choice situations for a sample of young and well- educated migrants. The validation procedure for the variables uncovered by the Grid-Sorting Technique and the Semantic Differential Technique involved the calibration of preferance functions for the individuals and the derivation of predictions for the destinations chosen by the migrants. For sixty-three percent of the sample, preference functions correctly predicted locational choice and the predictive fit of the functions could have been improved had response errors by the decision makers been eliminated.

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