Movement of non-metropolitan youth towards the cities

This report focuses on a group of young people who were living in non-metropolitan areas in their final years of secondary school, and the pathways they followed in the years following secondary school, including their geographic mobility and participation in education, training and employment. Rural communities have long felt concern about the rate at which young people leave for urban areas, many never to return. This report analyses the issues involved by mapping the experiences of the same group of young people over an extended period of time. The authors investigate what pathways non-metropolitan youth follow in the years after school; which young people are most likely to leave non-metropolitan areas in the years after school; which young people are most likely to stay; which young people are more likely to move back after spending some time in a major city; what differences there are in financial and social outcomes for stayers, leavers and returners. [Executive summary, ed