Educational constraints of immobility? Examining ethnic differences in student migration in Britain using Census microdata

Nissa Finney

doi:10.5565/rev/dag.235

Educational constraints of immobility? Examining ethnic differences in student migration in Britain using Census microdata

Authors

Nissa Finney University of Manchester The Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR)

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Abstract

This paper is situated in the emerging literature on minority/immigrant internal migration which grew from questions about the population dynamics behind ethnic residential segregation. This work has revealed both that migration within Britain is creating ethnic mixing and that there are considerable ethnic differences in levels and geographies of residential mobility. This paper contributes to our understanding of these differences by examining how being a student is related to residential mobility for different ethnic groups. It suggests that different residential decisions and migration norms at the point of entry into higher education partly explain ethnic differences in mobility. Using 2001 Census microdata (Sample of Anonymised Records), the paper finds that minority ethnic students are less mobile than their White counterparts, that being a student increases the probability of migrating for White British and Chinese young adults but decreases the probability of migrating for Pakistani and Black African young adults, and particularly so for Pakistani females. Given that it is common to migrate away from home for University study in Britain, this raises questions about equality of access to Higher Education. The examination of mobility in relation to key life events in young adulthood enables debates about ethnic geographies to move beyond the concern with segregation. The paper concludes with challenges for further research and a discussion of the policy implications of the findings in the context of current changes to Higher Education funding in the UK.

Keywords

internal migration, ethnic group, student, lifecourse, census microdata, Britain.

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