Family Life Course Transitions and the Economic Consequences of Internal Migration

Gordon F. De Jong, Pennsylvania State University
Deborah Roempke Graefe, Pennsylvania State University

Family life course events (i.e. marriage, childbearing, separation/divorce) are seldom carefully conceptualized and measured as determinants of both internal migration and the economic well-being outcomes of family migration. The more usual focus of the demographic literature is on family and household STRUCTURE rather than on family life course PROCESSES. Based on life course transition theory and longitudinal population survey data from the 1996-1999 and 2001-2003 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we utilize event history difference-in-difference models that consider time since migration to provide new evidence on how before- and after-migration life course transitions affect post-migration welfare receipt, employment, poverty status, and family earnings gains and losses of inter- and intra-state migrant families.