Migration Clusters in Brazil: An Analysis of Areas of Origin and Destination

Ernesto F. Amaral, University of Texas at Austin

The main goal of this research is to analyze whether the pattern of concentration of migrants in a specific area of destination is the same as that of the area of origin of those migrants. The 2000 Brazilian Census has migration data for regions of origin (municipality) and destination (group of census tracts). Migration flows from 415 municipalities in the state of Bahia to 875 groups of census tracts in the mesoregion (metropolitan region) of São Paulo are analyzed. In Bahia, migrants are more likely to leave municipalities with low levels of education, which are surrounded by municipalities with the same levels of education. In São Paulo, migrants are more likely to move into areas with low education, and high proportion of population working, which are surrounded by areas with different levels in covariates. Low-skilled migrants are moving into areas with higher opportunities of jobs, but with low-skilled population.