Metropolitan Out-Migration of Elderly Females in Canada: Characterization and Explanation

Abstract

This paper contains an analysis of the 1971–1976 out-migration pattern of Canadian elderly females from the 23 Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Migration is conceptualized as a three-level choice process. The major findings are as follows: Elderly females are substantially less migratory than young females but are slightly more mobile than elderly males. In addition, the elderly females in the more recently settled western region tend to be more mobile than those in other regions. Elderly migrants show substantially less preference for the metropolitan destinations than the young migrants; however, among the elderly, females have stronger preference for metropolitan areas than males. The destination choice pattern of metropolitan-bound out-migrants is less dispersed for the elderly than for the young. Among the older persons, in most CMAs, female migrants have a larger dispersion than male migrants. With respect to metropolitan-bound elderly migrants from the CMAs, the probability of choosing a particular destination is positively related to population size, brightness, and housing growth, and negatively related to the logarithm of distance, cultural dissimilarity, coldness, and gross rent. Environmental variables are more important than the housing variables in determining the destination choice pattern of the elderly migrants.