The Internal Migration and Spatial Redistribution of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 1965–70 and 1975–80

Abstract

This article examines the importance of place of birth on the internal migration and spatial redistribution patterns of the foreign-born population in the United States during the 1965–70 and the 1975–80 periods, relying principally on the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for our input data. The diverse nationalities are aggregated into eight different regions of origin: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Rest of South and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, Canada and the Rest of the World. First, the regional distribution of these eight groups at the 1970 and 1980 censuses are examined. Next, the spatial redistribution of the foreign-born population and its changes over time are studied. The age patterns of migration for the different foreign-born groups are analyzed, and the article concludes by examining decadal changes in redistributional tendencies using multiregional life table analyses.