Designed both as a text for courses in population geography and migration and as a resource for planners working on migration issues, Migration and Residential Mobility studies the movement of people from region to region and within cities in such developed countries as the United States, Canada, England, and Sweden.
Martin Cadwallader presents the major theoretical and empirical issues of the field, while describing and explaining various kinds of statistical models for migration. In particular, he uses structural equation models to specify the interrelations of variables that affect migration. He draws together concepts and methods from geography, economics, sociology, demography, and other fields, but provides a unifying geographical emphasis on the relationships among socioeconomic processes and spatial patterns.
The book covers both macro and micro approaches to migration. The macro approach explains broad patterns of migration by measuring characteristics of the socioeconomic and physical environments, while the micro approach explains why individual people move, using a model of psychological decision-making processes. Cadwallader also makes a distinction between interregional migration and residential mobility within cities.