Mobility Disparity between Race/Ethnic Groups: Onward and Return Migrations

Sang Lim Lee, Utah State University

The purposes of this study are to examine migration disparities in repeat migration including onward and return migration by Hispanics, blacks, and whites and to inspect the differences among the various types of migration. In addition, this study explores differences between onward and return migrations. These have been rarely studied because of a lack of proper migration data. This research employs the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79) for a hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) of repeat migrations. The results demonstrate that whites are more likely to make onward migrations compared to blacks and Hispanics. But, with return migration, significant differences between whites and other minorities are not found. Return migration presents several interesting different patterns compared with the other type migrations, including the effects of age and educational attainment. The findings seem to indicate that different characteristics are involved in different types of migration