CONCLUDING REMARKS
There is a clear positive connection between out-migration and in-migration in the sense that
places with high out-migration intensities also often have relatively high in-migration ones. In
the everyday debate, it is easy to get the impression that urban regions have a substantial
inflow while the rural areas and small and medium-sized town are rapidly losing their
population. The first of these statements is correct, if you are calculating in absolute figures.
The fallacy, however, lies in the fact that the figures are wrong in terms of relativity. For a big
city to be able to swallow a large number of new residents and that it often does is not in itself
extraordinary - the reverse would be more surprising. However, the evidence is that the
inflow intensities of these cities are very low. Of the 109 local labour markets in Sweden is
Stockholm ranked as number 107, Gothenburg as number 104 and Malmo as number 103
estimated as the average between 1985 and 1999. On the contrary, the small labour markets of
Âre, Gnosjo and Munkfors - the latter a typical old factory town in the Swedish ‘rust belt’ - is
placed as number one, two and four with respect to in-migration intensities. All of these small
local labour markets are, however, also characterised by high out-migration intensities that
also - at least in the latter cases - have resulted in a net out-migration. (Nygren & Persson,
2000).
The ”explaining” variable population size (POP) shows also a negative sign for every “career”
where it is significant. Paradoxically, population changes at local and regional level are,
however, historically much a consequence of migratory movements and redistribution of
people in the industrial era (see e.g. Johansson & Persson, 1991; Hâkansson, 2000). Today,
this is still valid with respect to the numbers of movers but not valid regarding the relative
importance of the gross streams. Instead, it seems obvious that a high out-migration intensities
(OUTMIG) result in high in-migration intensities. It is thus the small local labour markets that
are dependent of a high external turnover of people and this is especially obvious regarding in
to and out from employment and with respect to total migration. In this sense the migration
pattern of the 1990s can be seen as a reminiscence of the migration pattern in the industrial
society.
Population size is, however, positively significant for total net migration and studies. In the
former case it must kept in mind that the out- and in-migration intensities are negatively
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