9312528 Roseman A persistent problem in carrying out research on spatial aspects of internal migration has been the lack of data at a sufficiently disaggregated spatial scale in order for meaningful analyses to be conducted. The increasingly differentiated nature of subpopulations means that age-specific or sex-specific migration streams, for example, are evident only at very fine scales of spatial resolution. In addition, theoretical explanations for migration behavior are based on characteristics of migrants. Existing migration data, whether survey based or archival, are either too geographically coarse or lacking in sufficient detail on migrant characteristics to allow for comprehensive analysis and testing of migration theory. The U.S. Census Bureau will prepare a special tabulation of the 1990 Census of Population which contains county-to-county internal migration counts broken down by migrant characteristics for the entire United States. This award permits a consortium of social scientists, including geographers, to purchase the data at a special price at this time so as to make this data set available to the largest possible number of scholars doing research on internal migration in the United States. For spatial analysis of migration these data are especially valuable. The data will be distributed free of charge to interested researchers by the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, and its availability on a wide basis will facilitate research on general migration theory, spatial differences in migration behavior, analyses of population redistribution, and on detailed aspects of the migration behavior of particular subgroups within the population. The timely compilation and distribution of this important data set on population migration at the county level will permit researchers to examine and test a number of theories related to population movement which heretofore had not been facilitated by existing data. The futur e availability of these data to a large number of individual researchers will accelerate research on internal migration, and it will provide them with the ability to carry out research using the 1990 Census much earlier than anticipated. Migration research will be greatly enhanced as a result. ***
