Jantina Tammes Lecture: Rural Migration Processes: Gender differences across the life course

Jantina Tammes Lecture 2015

Rural Migration Processes: Gender differences across the life course
This lecture will examine internal migration processes whose associated origins and destinations are rural. Drawing on data from the speaker’s previous research in the United Kingdom the lecture adopts a life course approach to identify the rural migration processes operating at three distinct life course stages: the transition from youth to adulthood, union formation, and retirement. Gender differences (and the negotiations and compromises undertaken by partners at the retirement stage especially) are reported.

Life events rather than age affect the likelihood of moving and accordingly a life course approach acknowledges that the preferences and propensities for living in, or moving from, rural settings vary across the life course. These reflect the complex interplay between economic, cultural, social and lifestyle factors evident in several life domains (work, financial, family, health, leisure) which give rise to sets of competing influences, considerations and motivations that cut across life course stages/ events. Taking such an approach deepens our understanding of internal migration processes beyond the stereotypical generalisations which only inform us of the ‘act of migration’. Moreover such an approach permits interconnections to be made with gender and the decision-making of couples.

Aileen Stockdale