Leaving the countryside - An analysis of rural-to-urban migration and long-term capital accumulation

Depopulation is considered a problem for rural societies because it depletes the countryside of human capital and symbolizes the decay of the rural. In this article, however, rural-to-urban migration is analysed from the perspective of the rural migrants rather than from that of the rural societies: Does rural-to-urban migration represent a problem for the individual migrants in terms of the long-term effects of migration? This research question is addressed by assessing rural migrants' long-term achievement in terms of economic and cultural capital compared to rural non-migrants. The longitudinal approach is made possible by analysis of microlevel data from Norwegian censuses and the National Migration Register. The links between geographical and social mobility for the entire Norwegian rural birth cohort of 1965 (n = 9081) during a time-span of 30 years are then traced. Previous research has produced mixed results regarding the long-term effects of migration, which seemingly depend on data sources, methods and the national context of the respective studies. This article suggests that migrants from rural areas in Norway on average gain higher economic and cultural capital resources than non-migrants. However, these rewards of rural-to-urban migration differ substantially between migrants from different factions in the rural class structure.