Migration of young labor force entrants

The analysis focuses on what factors encourage or discourage migration among recent high school graduates. Youth represent an important group to study because they have the highest rates of both job and location mobility in the U.S. population. Of interest to policy-makers is the role of migration in the school-to-work transition and its more general role as a manpower allocation mechanism.

The empirical specification is based on a theoretical model of individual decision-making in Black 1]. A logit model of the probability of migration is estimated separately by elapsed time since graduation, sex, and marital status. The data source consists of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 that has been merged with local labor market data from the 1970 decennial census. The analysis yields several insights into the determinants of migration: local labor market conditions, an individual's employment success, migration experience before and after high school graduation, and personal characteristics such as aptitude, sex, family status, school experience, and family background.