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In 1885 and 1889 Ravenstein published two seminal papers on the role of migration in changing population distribution. This article analyses the importance of internal migration for shaping the spatial population distribution of Germany in the last three decades. We use a time-series dataset of annual inter-county migration flows from the German population register for the years 1991 to 2017. Population density is used as proxy measure for settlement type as an alternative to the commonly used BBSR typology. Our findings show that around 3 percent of the population moves between counties each year, and that the efficacy of internal migration in redistributing population has declined since the 1990s. Our results are in line with other recent work stating that the re-urbanisation phase, which was prevalent during the 2000s, has ended and sub-urbanisation patterns have become more prominent since 2011. We show that internal migration indeed plays an important role in shaping the distribution of population, especially the movements of young adults and families along the rural-urban continuum. In the 1990s and 2000s, internal migration tended to be more important for shaping regional populations than international migration and natural population change. Notably, this ranking reversed in the last few years and natural population change even became positive for densely settled regions.

The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants' sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general.

The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants' sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general.

Abstract
In many economically advanced countries, a relevant proportion of the population migrates across national boundaries every year. For these individuals, migrating abroad brings benefits (e.g. monetary returns) but also potential pitfalls, as migration is accompanied by profound changes in everyday life. However, there are mainly cross-sectional studies of individuals' migration experiences that analyse the effects of migration on these individuals' quality of life. This study fills this gap by examining shifts in the subjective well-being (SWB) of internationally mobile German citizens from a longitudinal perspective using data from the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study and fixed effects panel regressions. To observe SWB over the course of actual migration events, we drew on a sample of repeat migrants: Germans who returned to Germany shortly before the panel and emigrated again during the panel. Consistent with methodologically comparable studies on internal migration, the analyses show a happiness dip before migration and an increase in SWB with the migration event. The increase is consistent, tends to be more pronounced than that observed in internal migration studies, and to some extent persists after the first few years of migration. Moreover, the results suggest that the increase in SWB systematically depends on the influence that individuals can exert on their migration decisions. Individuals without a partner show the highest increases in SWB, followed by so-called leading partners, partners of couples with a mutual migration decision, and trailing partners.

Stata-Syntax zur Generierung der für die statistische Analyse verwendeten Datei aus den Daten der SC3 des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS, https://doi.org/10.5157/NEPS:SC3:7.0.1) sowie zur deskriptiven Analyse und zur multiplen Imputation; Mplus Input-Files für die multivariate Modellierung; Stata-Syntax für ergänzende explorative Auswertungen der "student"-PISA-Daten 2009 und 2012. Letztere Daten sowie Syntaxfiles zum Einlesen derselben finden sich auf der PISA-Webseite (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/).

Stata-Syntax zur Generierung der für die statistische Analyse verwendeten Datei aus den Daten des Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (SOEP) und Replikation der durchgeführten Analysen. Die Daten zum Substituierbarkeitspotenzial von Tätigkeiten innerhalb von Berufen müssen beim Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) angefragt werden. Informationen zur Berechnung der Arbeitslosenrate auf Berufsebene können über Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) bezogen werden.