Lifetime Interprovincial Migration in Canada: Looking Beyond Short-Run Fluctuations

This article studies the lifetime interprovincial migration of the Canada-born elderly (aged 60 and over), based on the data of the 1996 population census. The outcomes of the lifetime migration are found to be highly consistent with the human capital investment theory: there were substantial net transfers of migrants from the 'have not' provinces to the 'have' provinces, and the migrants moving in the 'right' direction, on average, achieved long-term income improvements. However, the long-term income improvements attributable to lifetime migration, both directly and indirectly via educational improvement, were in general not large enough to compensate for the disadvantages of being born in the 'have not' provinces and to francophone parents. The lifetime migration is also found to be highly selective by mother tongue and to have aggravated somewhat the spatial polarisation between Francophones and non-Francophones.