Regional mortality and the influence of internal migration

Principal Researcher

Anthe van den Hende

Type of research

PhD research

Supervisors

Professor Leo van Wissen and Dr. Fanny Janssen

Summary of the project

Title

‘ The role of internal migration on regional mortality trends, differences and projections’

Objective

T o provide a better understanding of the relationship between regional mortality differences and regional population change due to internal migration. Migration is of importance in explaining present regional differences in mortality, but is also assumed to be of large influence in regional mortality projections. Further it is the objective to find/create the best method/model to incorporate this relationship into regional mortality projections.

Summary

Research on regional mortality has gained in importance in the past decades, as national statistics are argued to “mask significant regional variations”. A country does not consist of a homogeneous population, for this reason the diversity of environments within a country will lead to different regional mortality levels and trends. Therefore, a focus on regions will highlight the variations as well as the different developments that exist within a country.

Many previous researches have already indicated that regional mortality differentials exist, which are often explained by socioeconomic differences, but there are other aspects that could explain these differentials. The differences might be due to the population compositional change due to selective internal migration. Research has shown that in widening regional gaps in mortality, internal migration might be of influence and should not be overlooked in regional mortality research. Due to internal migration the composition of a region changes, which has an influence on the population under exposure and the number of deaths. A drawback of many previous researches is that they only focus on the past and present and hardly any research is conducted on the relation between mortality and migration in regional projections. It is very interesting though to investigate how the dynamics within the country will develop.

This is then also what this present research is associated with. The objective is t o provide a better understanding of the relationship between regional mortality differences and regional population change due to internal migration. Migration is of importance in explaining present regional differences in mortality, but is also assumed to be of large influence in regional mortality projections. Further it is the objective to find/create the best method/model to incorporate this relationship into regional mortality projections. The overall question asked in this research is “What is the role of migration on regional mortality differences, projections and trends in the Netherlands?” The Netherlands has been chosen as case study since good data are available on population, mortality and migration. Many countries may have good data on the first two aspects, but for migration research ‘data-rich’ countries are required. Data on internal migration is well provided for the Netherlands, moreover the Netherlands is interesting to look at because of its ‘habit’ of commuting, which has an influence on the internal migration pattern.

With the use of secondary data it is the aim to answer all the research questions, either with a descriptive or explorative study. To investigate the trend in regional mortality differences, the measures life expectancy and age adjusted death rate are used. From Statistics Netherlands data on the number of deaths and population by age, sex and region for the period 1988-2008 have been collected. Research question two is concerned with regional mortality projections and needs a historic period as basis. The data collected for question one will be used as input for question two. For the other research questions it is not clear yet which data and methods will be used.

 

Research questions

“What is the role of migration on regional mortality differences, projections and trends in the Netherlands?”

1. What regional mortality differentials exist within the Netherlands?

2. How will the regional mortality develop within the Netherlands?

3. What regional patterns of internal migration exist within the Netherlands?

4. How are the migration patterns and the mortality differentials related in the Netherlands?

5. How can internal migration be included in regional mortality projections?

6. How will the regional mortality differentials develop within the Netherlands, accounting for migration?