Internal migration in france between 1954 and 1975 2. migration and urbanization
Courgeau, D.; Lefebvre, M.
Population 37(2): 341-370
1982
ISSN/ISBN: 0032-4663 Document Number: 246006
For over a century, urbanization in France, as in other industrial countries, has resulted in the concentration of the population in a small number of towns and a depopulation of rural areas. Migration has played an important part in this process, both by reason of the size of the migratory flow and because the age structure of migrants has resulted in a sizeable natural increase in the towns in spite of relatively low urban fertility. The very clear relationship between rural-urban migration and the size of towns, which existed until the 1970's, has now disappeared and given way to a much more complex pattern which involves age and occupational distributions. A detailed study of movement in some towns of south west France shows that, whereas in the past movement could be studied in the towns themselves, depending on the nature of the environment, it has now spilled over into the rural environs of the towns, whatever their size.