Occupational structure, wages, and migration in late nineteenth- century England and Wales

Socioeconomic inequality among regions, counties, districts, or localities has long been hypothesized to be the major driving force of migration movements. The analysis of migration in the districts of England and Wales during the second half of the 19th century supports the validity of this general proposition. This article demonstrates that the socioeconomic inequalities among districts provide a good explanation for their migrations. The most important relationship revealed by the analysis is the one between the intensity of district migration and the industrial-occupational structure. This article clarifies migration issues concerned with the socioeconomic differentiation among districts and it identifies industries that were associated with high in-migration and those with high out-migration rates. It also reveals whether industrial expansion was a sufficient condition for high net migration inflows and it attempts to discover whether migration was flowing from districts with lower to districts with higher wage levels. -from Author