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AbstractDo life course events stimulate migration during the transition to adulthood? We identify nine specific life events in the family, education, and employment domains and test whether they lead to migration in the short term, using fixed-effects models that remove the influence of all stable individual-level characteristics and controlling for age. Marital and school completion events have substantively large effects on migration compared with individual work transitions, although there are more of the latter over the young adult years. Furthermore, young adults who are white and from higher class backgrounds are more likely to migrate in response to life events, suggesting that migration may be a mechanism for the reproduction of status attainment. Overall, the results demonstrate a close relationship between life course events and migration and suggest a potential role for migration in explaining the effect of life course events on well-being and behavior.

This study examines the residential patterns of rural-urban migrants in Thailand. The analysis takes advantage of a rich dataset that followed migrants from rural Nang Rong, a district in the Isan region, to the Bangkok metropolitan area and the Eastern Seaboard. Findings document substantial residential clustering: almost half of the migrants interviewed in 2000 and 2001 lived in neighborhoods where 80 percent or more of their neighbors came from Isan. Migrants with less than a secondary education, those working in factory jobs, and those working with other migrants from Isan were more likely to be living in Isan-concentrated neighborhoods, net of other variables.