Return migration to eastern Kentucky and the stem family concept

• Published in: Growth and change 1987-04, Vol.18 (2), p.38-52
• Main Author: White, S.E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age Factors; Americas; cultural influences; Demography; Developed Countries; Developing Countries; Economic theory; Emigration and Immigration; Family; Family Characteristics; Family Relations; Kentucky; kinship; laurel county, kentucky; Migration; North America; pike county, kentucky; Population; Population Characteristics; Population Dynamics; powell county, kentucky; reversing; Social Class; Socioeconomic Factors; socioeconomic status; Studies; Transients and Migrants; United States
• ISSN: 0017-4815; 1468-2257
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2257.1987.tb00454.x

ABSTRACT This research provides a conceptual framework—based on the stem family concept—with which to explore the cyclical nature of return migration to Eastern Kentucky. A generalized six‐phase migration model is developed within a stem family/diffusion context to explain how the socioeconomic characteristics of return migrants have varied in response to economic changes outside Appalachia. The role of awareness space on channeling migration flows is also examined. Responses from 119 households in Laurel, Pike, and Powell counties, Kentucky, are used to test hypotheses associated with the general model. The survey results support the continued existence of extreme stem family forces within Eastern Kentucky. Most inmigrants are return migrants. Return migration motives continue to be more related to sociocultural factors than they are job‐related decisions. Most returnees are well below retirement age, and even the younger and more educated among these have a strong preference for remaining in Eastern Kentucky, although their historical tendency has been to move away when economic pulls are strong enough. Maps of return migrants’awareness spaces closely conform with past outmigration patterns. As awareness spaces have been shown to correspond with migrants’destination choices, the maps suggest that future outmigrants from Eastern Kentucky will continue to bias their destination choices more toward the North than the South.