Aspects of migration between Scotland and the research of Great Britain 1966-71

The 1971 Census revealed 166,590 people resident in England and Wales who had been resident in Scotland five years previously, and 124,340 people then resident in Scotland whose place of residence five years earlier had been in England and Wales. These figures highlight the fact that although Scotland has historically experienced net emigration to England and Wales, this net emigration is the resolution of two much larger offsetting gross flows. The characteristics of these gross flows hold the key to any understanding of the dynamics of Scottish migration. The object of this article is to analyse certain socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the underlying Scottish population. The data presented are culled from the Migration and General volumes of the 1971 Census of Population and the analysis throughout relates primarily to what are termed "five-year migrants", i.e. to those whose usual address on the night of the census differed from their usual address on the same night five years previously and involved a change of residence between Scotland and England and Wales