Latest revision as of 08:20, 5 February 2010

When an individual migrates several times during a certain period, his or her moves may be distinguished according to the order of migration ¹. The duration of residence ² or duration of stay ² refers either to the interval between the arrival in a place and the subsequent departure for another destination or to the interval since the most recent move. Return migration ³ involves movement back either to the initial area, or to any previous place of residence. Repeat migration ⁴ or chronic migration ⁴ refers to a tendency to migrate several times over a relatively short time interval. Rural-urban migration ⁵ sometimes takes the form of serial migration ⁶, stage migration ⁶ or step migration ⁶, as migrants tend to move to large cities as a final place of destination by a series of shorter, intermediate migrations to cities or areas of successively larger size. The serial migrations ^7★ between a series of cities of different sizes is sometimes used when net migration of each city is positive and results from an excess of in-migration from the rural sector and smaller cities over emigration to the larger cities.

• 3. Individuals involved in return migration are called return migrants.
• 4. When repeat migration involves moving to new areas, some authors talk of secondary migration and of secondary migrants, in contrast to primary migration which involves first order or primary migrants. This is a source of confusion, since these terms usually take the meaning of 806-4.

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