INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY

United Kingdom (Liverpool) 94

SEPTEMBER 1996 - VOLUME 2, NUMBER 3

97.94.1 - English - Sen-dou CHANG, Department of Geography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 (U.S.A.)

The floating population: An informal process of urbanisation in China (p. 197-214)

China's low level of urbanisation has been the result of tight controls over population movement under a rigid rural and urban household registration system. Since the modification of population mobility policies in the mid 1980s, surplus workers have been moving to coastal regions without changes in their rural residency status. The floating population has been estimated at around 80 million in recent years. The research was partly based on the official 1990 census and partly on the analysis of local documents and literature published in China. This paper attempts to employ substantial source materials to shed light on the characteristics of population migration in a centrally planned society that is in the process of transforming to a market economy. In order to compare rural-urban migration in China with that in other developing countries, the data on 1985-1990 interprovincial population migration have been analysed. Some demographic research techniques on population migration, such as the impact on the place of origin and the place of destination, have been employed to assess the influence of rural-urban migration on China's long-term economic development. Economic betterment appears to be the sole motivation of rural population migration in China. Concluding suggestions are advanced on how to deal with excessive rural labour which could be guided and efficiently utilised as an advantageous human resource in China's long-term developmental strategy. (CHINA, RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION, FLOATING POPULATION, LABOUR MOBILITY, URBANIZATION)

97.94.2 - English - Colin G. POOLEY and Jean TURNBULL, Department of Geography, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB (U.K.)

Migration trends in British rural areas from the 18th to the 20th centuries (p. 215-237)

Longitudinal residential histories are used to examine the extent to which three rural areas in Britain had distinctive migration histories from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Migration flows into and out of the regions are used to examine the extent to which the regions were integrated into the British migration system, and the relative importance of rural to urban migration is assessed. Data were collected from a large number of family historians who provided life-time residential histories for their ancestors. This information provides a much fuller picture of longitudinal migration than analyses based on census or similar sources. Analysis reveals a high degree of short-distance mobility within regions and emphasises the dominance of London in longer-distance migration. Despite their different locations and histories, the three rural regions of NE Scotland, East Anglia and SW England displayed remarkably similar migration patterns. It is also suggested that the role of towns in the migration system has previously been overemphasised, with much migration taking place between small settlements and some movement from large cities to smaller towns and villages. The reasons for migration were also remarkably similar for all three regions, suggesting that all parts of Britain were responding in similar ways to processes of social and economic change from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The analysis challenges some accepted notions about migration in the past, and contributes to the debate about the extent to which British regions became part of a national economic and social system from the 18th century. (UNITED KINGDOM, REGIONAL DEMOGRAPHY, HISTORY, INTERNAL MIGRATION, LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS)

97.94.3 - English - C. J. PATTIE, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield (U.K.), D. F. L. DORLING, R. J. JOHNSTON and D. J. ROSSITER, Department of Geography, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS (U.K.)

Electoral registration, population mobility and the democratic franchise: The geography of postal voters, overseas voters and missing voters in Great Britain (p. 239-259)

A core concern of population geography is with the size, location and movement of groups of people. Most census analysis concentrates on various types of 'residents' of an area; many studies concentrate on 'households' while the population subgroups receiving considerable attention include children, the elderly, refugees, and ethnic minorities. The size, location and movement of one (very large and significant) group has received little attention-voters. In Great Britain, the geography of registered voters largely mirrors that of the adult population, but with three exceptions: firstly, electors can use a postal vote to cast a ballot in a place where they are not currently resident; secondly, some British nationals living overseas can register as electors and vote by proxy, and thirdly, many who are eligible register as voters do not do so. This paper uncovers the geographies of those three groups and evaluates their implications for the operation of the democratic franchise. (UNITED KINGDOM, HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, CIVIL RIGHTS, POLITICS, DEMOCRACY)

97.94.4 - English - Peter J. SMAILES, Department of Geography, University of Adelaide, Adelaide S.A. 5005 (Australia)

Demographic response to rural restructuring and counterurbanisation in South Australia, 1981-1991 (p. 261-287)

In contrast to the situation in the majority of European countries, and even the US, mainland Australia's settlement pattern of heavy population concentration into only five widely-spaced metropolitan cities, with limited development of medium-sized towns, has produced some distinctive features of population geography in its rural areas. One of these is the division of the national territory into three major demographic and socioeconomic zones: the sparsely peopled outback, the mostly rainfall-dependent farming zone approximating roughly to the cereals/sheep belt and higher-rainfall pastoral country, and the 'core' zone of higher rural population densities favoured by relative accessibility to metropolitan cities and/or amenity-rich rural landscapes. Using South Australia as a case study, this paper seeks to trace and demonstrate two processes (counterurbanisation and rural restructuring) whose effects overlap to differentiate and characterise the population geography of the latter two zones, separated by a transition along the outer fringe of Adelaide's urban field. Rural restructuring accelerated by an extended period of agricultural crisis after 1982, has affected the whole State, but in the demographic core zone, it has been partly offset by continued counterurbanisation, resulting in demographic mixing and rural dilution. The 1981-91 population growth in rural communities is shown to be more a function of population density at the outset of the period than of initial population size. Demographic growth over the period than of initial population size. Demographic growth over the period is shown to conform to a simple unidimensional scale, allowing the production of a clear, easily interpretable typology of rural demographic change with few non-conforming statistical areas. At a local level within individual rural communities, demographic decline is shown to be accompanied by increased concentration of the population into small towns, while demographic growth is associated with deconcentration. (AUSTRALIA, RURAL POPULATION, HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, POPULATION CONCENTRATIONS, AGRARIAN STRUCTURE)

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