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3. Key Issues
3.1 Trends in migration
The general picture is not in doubt. Out-migration from rural areas is predominantly an exodus of young people. In terms of patterns of movement within Scotland, remote rural areas have the highest loss of population to other areas of Scotland. The 2001 Census shows an internal in-migrant to out-migrant ratio of 0.82 and accessible rural areas have the strongest net gain with 1.11 in-migrants for every 1 out-migrant (Scottish Executive, 2005, 16). Remote rural areas are ageing more radically than other types of rural and urban areas because of a combination of a more profound loss of young people and the older age of in-migrants returning to the area or arriving for the first time.
The peak ages for migrating are the late teens to mid-20s reflecting moves out of the parental home to attend higher education or take up employment (Registrar General, 2003). Migration into Scotland shows a peak of in-migration at age 19 and 20 as young people come to study in Scotland and a peak of out-migration at ages 23 and 24 as many of those who have come to study in Scotland leave, along with some graduates who had grown up in Scotland (Registrar General, 2006). One of the consistent findings of studies that focus more specifically on rural areas is that the fact of having to leave the area of origin for higher education contributes to the net loss of young people from some types of rural areas.
The Registrar General notes (2006) that the lack of comprehensive data makes it difficult to review trends in migration in detail. The migration section included in the Registrar General's annual review of demographic trends gives an overview of in and out-migration from Scotland by age and net population gain and loss by local authority areas rather than age-specific detail by urban and rural areas. This overview shows that Shetland and the Western Isles are among the areas with the highest net loss of population. The most comprehensive source of data on migration is the 2001 Census and a number of reports have used the census to provide greater depth concerning young people and rural areas (Fleming, 2005; Scottish Executive, 2005; Registrar General, 2003). The Economic Updates produced by Highland and Islands Enterprise provide a summary picture of migration from particular regions, such as the Highlands and Islands and Argyle and Islands.
3.2 Youth out-migration, education and employment
Some studies have focused on the future migration intentions of young people in rural areas [Glendinning et al.'s (2003) study in northern Scotland; Hill's study in Dumfries, undated; Hopkins et al.'s small study of 17 year olds in Dumfries; MacKinnon's (2005) study of 14-18 year olds in four areas: one island, one Highland, and two lowland, one accessible rural area and an area of former mining settlement]. Other researchers have gathered biographical accounts of those who have left rural areas [Stockdale's (2004, 2002a, 2002b) study of migrants from Roxburgh and North Lewis]. Some researchers have attempted to trace a cohort of young people who lived in the study area at a particular time, in order to explore why some have since left and some are still resident [Jones and Jamieson's follow up study of Borders' school leavers (Jones and Jamieson 1997; Jamieson 2001; Jones 1999)]. Other studies have concentrated on the biographies and views of young adults living in a particular rural area [Pavis et al.'s study of 18-24 year olds in Duns and Callander (2000, 2001)] or have embedded the issue of migration in a more general ethnographic study of a rural locality [Maclean's study of a Highland township (1997)].
While young people from rural areas are not a homogenous group and their experiences vary according to the characteristics of the area and their own social background, gender and biographical experiences, common themes emerge across all of these studies. Above all, youth migration is fuelled by the need to move for higher education and better opportunities for employment elsewhere. All of these studies emphasise and to some degree demonstrate an association between migration and the desire for higher education and graduate employment or 'good jobs'. They give voice to young people's feelings that they have to leave rural areas in order to take up education and/or opportunities for employment that engage and develop their skills and qualifications. Young people with parents who take it for granted that their children will enter higher education are prepared for migration from an early age and some come to presume that this will be the beginning of a more permanent exit. When parents themselves are migrants into the rural area, anticipation of exit is enhanced (Jones and Jamieson, 1997; Jones, 1999; Jamieson, 2000; Pavis et al., 2000, 2001). All of these studies indicate that a portion of young people anticipate leaving the area from an early age, and that those who are most likely to be prepared for leaving have parents who benefited from higher education. Jones and Jamieson's study suggested that young people without university educated parents considering migration do not always receive adequate professional advice and guidance, and they thus argue that support and information are needed for the migrate-or-stay decision (Jones and Jamieson, 1999). Many of the studies illustrate a range of views among young people, including strong ambivalence about leaving and a wish to return at some future date, and as such government and local policy should be about offering real choice to young people rather than be designed simply to retain them in rural communities (Jones and Jamieson, 1997).
In giving voice to young people's attitudes to migration and staying, these studies reveal an often repeated view that leaving the area is evidence of seeking to make the most of yourself and being open to change, while staying is evidence of arrested development, lack of ambition and closed attitudes. These are stereotypes that reflect complex discourses with connotations of social class, including the presumption of the greater worth of formal qualifications over locally learned skills and that trade on the devaluing of rural places in comparison to the presumed complexity and sophistication of city life. While this view is more often repeated by would-be migrants and migrants in preparation for or justification of migration (Pavis et al., 2000, 2001), it is a view also repeated by young people who feel trapped in their local community (Jamieson, 2000).
Although this view is not in any sense a straight forward 'fact', it remains the case that rural areas lose many talented young people. Stockdale argues that the problem is not that young people leave but that they do not return, precisely because those who leave have or, in the process of gaining education and experience away from their place of origin, gain the human and social capital needed for rural areas to thrive. Policies should therefore focus on the creation of opportunities for young people to return, rather than simply encouraging them to remain. Canadian scholars have commented on the irony of 'defining educational success in terms of a mobile population of youth exported to urban areas' that leaves rural schools promoting the erosion of the human capital of their own area (Corbett, 2003). The University of the Highlands and Islands ( UHI) Millennium Institute is potentially part of a remedy, enhancing the opportunity for young people to obtain degrees without leaving their local area. Whether this will have a radical effect on out-migration depends on how subsequent options for employment are perceived and on dissipating the widespread presumption that leaving the area is an important part of making a success of yourself. The latter, in turn, may partly depend on the quality of the education experience and the extent to which it enables a sense of self-development judged to be the equivalent to the process of leaving and gaining experience elsewhere.
Studies have less to say about how young people who stay or return anticipate and negotiate a successful career, although some examples are given by Pavis et al. (2000, 2001) and Jones and Jamieson (Jones and Jamieson, 1997; Jones, 1999; Jamieson, 2000; Jones, 2001). Comparison of migrants and stayers generally confirm the overall gains in terms of occupational satisfaction and income of the decision to migrate (Stockdale, 2004; Jones and Jamieson, 1999). The majority of those with few or basic qualifications, or who left higher education before completing a qualification often lack secure and/or rewarding employment with few opportunities for advancement or promotion. Graduates often have to take similar unskilled work while searching for a graduate job (Pavis et al., 2000, 2001). Several studies point to the importance of local networks for assistance in finding paid employment and of family assistance in setting up local businesses. For young people in insecure and unrewarding work, friends and family are the compensation that binds them to the area.
3.3 Youth out-migration and lack of affordable housing
Lack of affordable housing was also noted in the literature as being an important driver of rural out-migration by young people. This was noted in Hall Atiken (2007), Jones (2001), MacClean (1997) and Stockdale (2002a). Jones (2001) explores the limited housing options available for young people in rural Scotland. In contrast to urban areas where the rental market is cheaper and more plentiful, with the option of sharing with a peer group, there is a small, expensive rental market in rural areas and a lack of a peer group to share with. Living at home is therefore one of the more viable options but this contrasts with the desire expressed by young people for example in Hill (Undated) to leave home and live independently from parents.
3.4 Gender and out-migration
Higher rates of out-migration of young women are a particular problem in many remote rural areas and this is highlighted in a number of studies. For example, the survey by Glendinning et al. (2003) suggests that by age 15/16 a higher proportion of girls than boys want to leave the area of the north of Scotland in which they are brought up either for good or for a few years and then return. Across Scotland a slightly higher proportion of young women have left home by each age across the teenage years and into the early twenties. In many rural areas, this gender difference in turn means more women have left the area at early ages than men. Gender difference in leaving home and in leaving rural areas reflects a range of factors including the different freedoms afforded men and women in family and community, heterosexual conventions, different patterns of consumption, the gendered nature of employment opportunities and greater emphasis on educational qualifications in the employment sectors dominated by women. While each factor is identified in the literature, no author puts relative weights on the balance of these factors and it is likely that they will vary in different localities and biographies.
Literature on age difference in men and women leaving home routinely notes that this reflects the conventions of heterosexual partnership, in which there is a two year age gap between men and women in age of cohabiting with a partner. Although the majority of young women leave home to take up education rather than to live with a partner, at any age throughout early to mid adulthood, more women are living with a partner than men. Young women who are not pursuing higher education are to set up independent households triggered by cohabitation or the birth of a child (Pavis et al., 2000, 2001).
A number of studies suggest that women are more likely to feel constrained by living in rural areas than men and are more likely to feel they need to leave home and their home area in order to become independent. For example, Glendinning et al. (2003) suggest that constraints of living in a close-knit and controlling community are felt more strongly by women. Research on leaving home suggests that women are more likely than men to feel that they have to live away from their parental home in order to be independent (Hodsworth and Morgan, 2005; Jones and Martin, 1999). This does not mean that young women are more likely than young men to live on their own as neither the School Leavers Survey nor the Scottish Household Survey shows this. In fact, more young adult men live on their own than women in rural and urban areas (Scottish Household Survey, 2006), a difference which reflects the continued differential in young men and women's earnings and the consequent greater difficulty for young women in purchasing their own home (Jones, 2001). In rural areas, the range of opportunities for creating independent households is very restricted. Transitional arrangements such as sharing with peers or affordable rented housing are not typically available. After comparatively reviewing the housing careers of young men and women who have stayed in the Scottish Borders, Jones suggests that the combination of low-paid repetitive work and housing geared towards families and older people perpetuates gender inequalities by encouraging women to lower their aspirations for independent housing until they have a partner or a child.
Some young women are more likely to wish to participate in youth cultural activities at earlier ages than boys making them more discontented with available commercial facilities and transport options. For example, the study by Glendinning et al. (2003) compares the views of young people in the north of Scotland across three different age groups and demonstrates that agreement with the statement 'there's nothing for young people like me to do' is higher for girls across all ages and increases with age for both boys and girls. By age 13/14 two thirds of girls but only half of boys agree that there are 'too few shops that sell the things you want'. A larger proportion of 15/16 year old girls than boys agree that there is 'no transport to go places or do things you want'. The MORI poll of 11-16 year olds on 'Being young in Scotland 2005' shows girls being more interested than boys in listening to music, going to the cinema and shopping. In rural areas the latter two almost always involve public transport, if they are possible at all. For example, Pavis et al. (2000, 2001) pointed out that for young people in Duns the nearest cinema is in Galashiels, the cost was £5.60 return by bus and the last bus back left at 8.20pm. Boys, on the other hand, were more interested in computer games and internet surfing, which are more likely to be available in their home.
A higher proportion of young women than young men now typically do very well at school and young women who are not high academic achievers are more likely to be focused on further education than men, typically taking qualifications directing them to female dominated work. The fact that a somewhat higher proportion of young women are oriented to further and higher education is likely to also contribute to their greater propensity to leave some rural areas. The reasons for gender differences in girls' and boys' attitudes to schooling are still debated. The sociology of education literature in the second half of the twentieth century noted that resistance to schooling was a means by which working-class boys asserted their masculinity. Their denigration of quiet studious behaviour as feminine posed no threat to their future employment if local opportunities included a demand for unskilled manual and masculine labour. For girls, regardless of their educational ability or class aspirations, conventionally the prospects of a 'respectable' job were improved by qualifications. The interaction of class and gender differences is a theme that persists in the literature.
Women's employment remains more concentrated in particular sectors than men's, and this tendency is typically exaggerated in rural areas. For example, the service sector, 'public administration, education and health', and the sector 'distribution, hotels and restaurants' both command a larger proportion of overall employment in the Highlands and Islands than in Scotland as a whole and 75% of women are employed in these two sectors with 50% in the former. Although about 25% of men work in 'distribution, hotels and restaurants', no other sector commands as large a proportion and men's employment is distributed across several sectors, most of which remain very male dominated, including the primary industries, energy and water, construction, transport and communication (Highland and Islands Enterprise, 2007). Despite no shortage of what is conventionally 'women's work', the survey by Glendinning et al. (2003) finds that girls (80% of 15/16 year olds) are more likely than boys (68% of 15/16 year olds) to agree that 'it would be hard to find a job that suits me here' suggesting that at that age girls are not ready to accept the work that they see as available and being done by women.
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