Decision to Move Analysis

At the bottom line, we want to advance our understanding of people's decisions to move between communities, particularly the decision to move from a village to a regional center. Based on the preliminary analyses of differences between regional centers and villages and analyses of the predictors of satisfaction with the quality of community life, we think that regional centers tend to offer better job opportunities, incomes and better housing, but also tend to have more social problems. Villages, meanwhile, tend to have a more active subsistence lifestyle and often better hunting and fishing opportunities than do regional centers.

The differences in employment, income, But the differences between regional centers and villages are more complex than expected. The regional center Barrow, for example, is perceived to have excellent hunting and fishing opportunities, reflecting its historic importance as a subsistence site. Contrary to expectations, we found that social supports are as high in the regional centers as the villages. Rather perceived social supports are high in both types of communities. Keep in mind, however, that our principal measure of social supports is the accessibility to the respondent of people to interact with to meet the respondent's needs. We must also consider the respondent's interest in meeting the needs of others.

We examined the following dimensions of the decision to move:

1. Consideration of a move

More than a third of Inupiat adults have considered moving away from their community in the last five years.

2. Moving for job-related reasons

Jobs and, as seen below, education, are the two most common reasons why people consider moving.

3. Moving for education-related reasons

Note that people may be thinking about their childrens' education as a reason for moving or about their own or that of another adult.

4. Moving for family-related reasons

Considering a move for a family-related reason is also common. This could involve moving to Anchorage to take care of an aunt, moving back to the home-family community or any of a myriad of other family-related reasons.

5. Moving for subsistence-related reasons

Interestingly, moving for subsistence lifestyle-related reasons is not commonly mentioned.

6. Reasons for not moving

As seen below, family is by far the major reason why people chose not to move from their community. Also important as a reason not to move is subsistence, with jobs and education as somewhat less important reasons.

7. Decision to move by type of community

Regional centers are often not the final draw for people looking for jobs or education. The cities, like Anchorage, Fairbanks, and even outside cities like Seattle, are also possible destinations. We also think that regional center residents may consider moves back to villages. Based on the two directions in which regional center residents may be attracted, we hypothesize that regional center residents are more mobile, and hence more likely to have considered a move away from their community in the last five years.

Reject the null hypothesis. Regional center residents are more likely than village residents to have considered a move away from their community in the last five years. But the difference is not great.

One might think that villages more than regional centers are the location of family roots. In the case of the Inupiat, however, Barrow (and Kotzebue?) were established Inupiat settlements well before contact with the western world. As the table shows below, however, a larger proportion of residents in villages are over 65. Moving to help take care of elders therefore might be more common as a reason for regional center non-elders. Yet there are many other family-related reasons for moving that involve other age groups - e.g. raising a child. Nevertheless, we expect that family is a more common reason to move from a community for regional center residents.





                * * *  C R O S S T A B U L A T I O N  * * *

   AGE (group)  age of household members
by PLACETYP  regional center or village resident


                       PLACETYP

                Count  óregional village
               Col pct ó center             Row
                       ó                   Total
                       ó     1  ó     2  ó
AGE            òòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   10  ó  2450  ó  5691  ó  8141
  under 16             ó  38.5  ó  42.2  ó  41.0
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   16  ó   294  ó   603  ó   897
  16,17                ó   4.6  ó   4.5  ó   4.5
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   20  ó   668  ó  1537  ó  2205
  18-24                ó  10.5  ó  11.4  ó  11.1
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   30  ó   746  ó  1268  ó  2015
  25-34                ó  11.7  ó   9.4  ó  10.2
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   40  ó   823  ó  1647  ó  2470
  35-44                ó  12.9  ó  12.2  ó  12.5
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   50  ó   653  ó  1254  ó  1907
  45-54                ó  10.3  ó   9.3  ó   9.6
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   60  ó   427  ó   508  ó   936
  55-64                ó   6.7  ó   3.8  ó   4.7
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
                   70  ó   300  ó   962  ó  1262
  65 and older         ó   4.7  ó   7.1  ó   6.4
                       ôòòòòòòòòôòòòòòòòòô
               Column     6361    13471    19832
                Total     32.1     67.9    100.0

Percents and totals based on responses

4,734 valid cases;  5 missing cases

Reject the null hypothesis. Family is a slightly more common reason for moving among regional center residents.

Job Reasons

We expect that village residents are more likely to have job-related reasons for moving from their community.

Reject the null hypothesis. Village residents are more likely to consider moving from their community for job-related reasons.

Subsistence reasons

We have previously seen that subsistence is not a common reason for people to consider moving. We would nevertheless expect it to be more common among regional center residents.

Reject the null hypothesis. Regional center residents are more likely to consider moving from their community for subsistence-related reasons.

Education reasons

We have previously seen that there is no systematic difference between the perceived quality of education in the regional centers compared with the villages. We also observed, however, that there are large differences between the three regional centers. One might expect people in Nome, for example, to be more likely to consider moving for education reasons since they tend to be dissatisfied with the quality of education there. There are not, however, major differences among the three regional centers in education as a reason for leaving the community:

While perhaps the major focus of people's assessment of education are the primary and secondary schools, many also are interested in post-secondary education opportunities. Many of these opportunities lie outside the region. For this reason, we might expect there to be little difference in education as a reason for moving among regional center and village residents.

There is no significant difference.

Family as a reason for staying

Just as we expect family to be a more important 
reason among regional center residents for moving, we might 
expect family to be a more important reason for staying among 
village residents.

Fail to reject the null hypothesis. There is no difference 
in family as a reason for staying between regional center 
and village residents.

Job as a reason for staying

We expect regional center residents to cite jobs as a reason for staying
more often than village residents.

Reject the null hypothesis. Regional center residents are 
more than twice as likely to cite jobs as a reason for 
remaining in their community.

Subsistence as a reason for staying

We think that village residents are more likely to stay for subsistence-related reasons.

Reject the null hypothesis. Village residents are 
more than twice as likely to stay in their community for 
subsistence-related reasons.

Education as a reason for staying

Given the lack of systematic difference in the assessments 
of regional center and village residents of the quality of education, 
we do not expect major differences in education as a reason for 
staying in the community.

No major observed differences, as expected.

We expect that people who are dissatisfied with the quality of 
life in their community are more likely to have considered moving 
in the last five years.

Reject the null hypothesis. More than two-in-three of those who are very dissatisfied with the quality of life in their community have considered moving away in the last five years. This can be compared with one-in-three of those who are very satisfied.

When we examine the predictive power of satisfaction with the quality of life in the community and whether a person has considered moving, we find that we can explain only about 4 percent of the variation (note: we may want to use a logit form of analysis as the dependent variable is dichotomous)

We can then add jobs and education as specific reasons for moving to satisfaction with the quality of life in the community.

Jobs and education each uniquely explain about 10 percent of the variation in consideration of moving. These appear to be practical reasons for moving, acting in addition to a person's assessment of quality of life in the community.

Summary

More than a third of Inupiat adults (43%) have considered moving from
their community in the last five years. Regional center residents
are more likely to have considered moving (50% vs. 39%). The reasons
for moving (and not moving) differ by type of place. Village
residents are twice as likely to consider moving for job reasons (10%
vs 5%) while regional center residents are (slightly) more likely to consider
moving for family reasons (8% vs. 6%).

While subsistence does not appear to be an important reason for moving,
(2% regional center and 1% village), it is an important reason why
village residents choose to stay (24% vs. 11% of regional center residents).

There is a moderately strong relationship between satisfaction with
community life and consideration of moving. Satisfaction with life in the
community alone explains only 4% of the variation in whether someone
has considered moving in the last five years. But moving may also be
seen as a practical necessity. We think two such drivers are jobs and
education. By adding these two factors as reasons for moving, we
explain 26% of the variation in whether someone
has considered moving in the last five years (note: since only respondents
who who said that they had considered moving in the last five years were
asked "why", some of the variance explained is simply because the question
was asked of a subset of respondents).