Migration and Place Attractiveness

Sammanfattning: The thesis includes six self-contained papers that from various perspectives examine place attractiveness and migration in Sweden. Paper I provides an extensive overview of Swedish municipalities’ place marketing engagement to attract in-migrants, based on survey responses from 220 municipalities. The results suggest that, although this kind of marketing has become more prominent during the last few years, there is little evidence of any significant effects on migration flows. Paper II addresses place marketing campaigns directed towards the Stockholm region carried out by rural municipalities. The results show no general evidence of success, but in a few cases a positive impact of these campaigns cannot be ruled out conclusively.Paper III explores the effect of tourism on interregional net-migration in Sweden. The results indicate that tourism exerts a positive influence on migration, and it is shown how its effects vary depending on age group. Paper IV scrutinizes recent survey research on migration motives in the Nordic countries. This paper employs a different questionnaire design and surveys a somewhat different migrant population. The findings do not support recent research and the importance of employment-related motives is emphasised. Paper V focuses on residential preferences and explores what place attributes people would consider important if they were to migrate. Special attention is given to demographic, socio-economic and geographical determinants. The results show how these aspects influence residential preferences, and make some contributions to methodological issues on researching preferences. Paper VI aims at a conceptual framework whereby place attractiveness can be better understood. It is suggested that needs, demands and preferences are central factors and the attractiveness of places increases with the successive fulfilment of these factors. But the more factors a migrant seeks to fulfil in his or her destination selection, the fewer the choice possibilities.