Distances and directions of internal migration in Hungary

Illés, Sándor (2004) Distances and directions of internal migration in Hungary. Hungarian Statistical Review, 82 (SN9). pp. 38-52. ISSN 0039-0690

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Abstract

The gravity centre is a classic regional analytical method which requires masses. This mass can be a multitude of people but also any other absolute quantity. The gravity centres of the migration can be considered as one of the variants of the gravity centres of the population. Adopting ourselves to the nature of the migration flows we can not grasp the migration itself with one but only with two gravity centres: with the gravity centre of out-migration and the gravity centre of in-migration. The gravity centre of migration must characterise the regional distribution of the migrate subpopulation directly before and after the event of migration. Our purpose was to state the average distance and characteristic direction of the internal migration flows in Hungary. Used the centrographic approach we got a detailed picture on the development of the direction and distance of migration. Data used for the research were the data of internal migration by settlements for the years 1984-2002 and the geographical co-ordinates of the same settlements, both supplied by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. The methods were simple. The gravity centre is the weighted arithmetic means – weighted with the migrants – of the co-ordinates of latitude and longitude of the settlement centres. After all the gravity centres of migration are nothing else but the mean values of the regional distribution of the out-migrants and inmigrants. Various methods are known for the characterisation of the situation around the gravity centre. One of them, Bachi’s ‘d’ standard distance was calculated to prove two kinds of spatial selectivity of migration in Hungary. In this contribution we chose the whole country as a spatial unit to be studied, but regional and county gravity centres were computed during the research. The gravity centres of out-migration and in-migration were separated from one another and were very near to the gravity centres of the total population. But they were not exactly in the same place. Conclusion can be made that there are territorial selectivities: on the one hand between the sending and receiving settlements (type 1), on the other hand the spatial distribution of the migrate subpopulation is not simply a representative sample of the spatial distribution of total population (type 2). In the country as a whole the gravity centres of in-migration located to the west from the gravity centres of out-migration, thus in the period studied the dominant direction of the migrations proceed to west. The average length of the way made by the permanent migrants was greater compared to the temporary migrants all of the investigated period. The distances between the national gravity centres of migration gradually shortened until 1997, after which a slight increase could be observed.

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