Who is leaving and who is moving in?

These charts show the net migration of Dakotafire counties.

Kenneth M. Johnson, Senior Demographer from the Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire, explains net migration this way:

Net migration is the difference between the number of people who left a population during a certain period of time, and the number of people who moved in that population during that time.

This graphic shows the net migration between 1990-2000 for age groups in Dakotafire counties. A range of -.500 would indicate that the county had only 50% as many in that age group as one would have expected had there been no migration. You will note the substantial loss of young adults in their early 2Os from many of the counties. This would reflect young people leaving the county to attend college, join the military or move to a place where there is more social or economic activity.

Look at the red columns, which depict the movements of those ages 20-24. Brown does OK. and Dickey does less badly than other counties—both have colleges. Otherwise, young adults of this age group leave every other county.

That’s probably not surprising, since young people do go off to school, the military or other adventures at that age. Do they return later? Take a look at the blue columns. for ages 25-29. More people move out than move in at that age. from every county.

Surprisingly, in Clark, Edmunds, Faulk, McPherson and Marshall, there is a fairly strong in-migration rate for those ages 30-34. which is indicated by the purple columns—but note that it would not come even close to making up for those that left from ages 20-29.