I need some help here, especially if you are familiar with DHS questions used to construct a measure for internal migration. The sets of questions asked that can be used to derive internal migration variable include: 1) childhood place of residence; 2) Previous place of residence; and 3) Current residence. My question is, which combination creates the best measure for internal migration if you wish to relate it to health outcomes of the mother and the child? Is it a combination of Question no. 1 and 3 OR Question no. 2 and 3?
Hi Rhoune
I'm not a health scientist, but as a migration specialist it would seem to me that Questions 1 and 3 would in principle provide the best migration information for the purposes of analyzing the health outcomes of the mother and the child. I do not know for which spatial entity types the data is available, but you could perhaps create a new categorical migration variable to analyze the impact of changes in social milieu, e.g. moved from rural to urban environment (code 1), vice versa (code 2), and no change (code 3). Or perhaps a more sophisticated categorical variable such as: Code 1: Rural locality in childhood and rural locality currently; Code 2: Urban locality in childhood and urban locality currently; Code 3: Rural locality in childhood and urban locality currently, and Code 4: Urban locality in childhood and rural locality currently.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes
Pieter
Hi Pieter,
Your feedback is very useful given your expertise on migration issues. I appreciate the elaborate explanation on the different possible scenarios.
Thank you,
Rhoune
I've been working on something similar with the DHS lately and have (thus far) done essentially what Pieter has suggested to you, though I'm looking at how to integrate the place of previous residence and duration of residence.
At least with the Kenyan DHS (what I'm most familiar with), you have a current measure of rural/urban residence and a current measure of type of place of residence - city, small city, town, countryside (the first three being coded as urban, the last as rural), and then the city/small city/town/countryside both for childhood residence and for place of previous residence. You also have the number of years respondents have lived in their current place of residence, which you may want to use to construct a variable looking at how recently they have migrated to their current location.
The DHS doesn't offer a lot in the way of migration measures, sadly. You might want to consult other research that has used the DHS to look at migration - Brockerhoff, for example, has several articles (early 90s) that use the DHS to measure women's migration. They might be helpful in deciding how to code your migration variables.
Thank you Cassandra for your feedback. Yes, I realize the DHS really doesn't offer much when exploring migration related issues
Thanks to everyone who gave their feedback and those who are following this question. I was able to successfully complete my analysis and our paper (attached) has been published.
Article Modern contraceptive use among migrant and non-migrant women in Kenya
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