PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND RETURN MIGRATION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1955-60.

The article focuses on primary, secondary and return migration in the U.S. between the period 1955 and 1960. In the course of analyzing the historical data on net intercensal migration that constituted the basic demographic data for the study of population redistribution and economic change in the U.S. between 1870 and 1950, it became necessary to formulate hypotheses that would explain certain peculiarities observable in the profiles of age-specific rates. In brief, the configuration of age-specific rates of net interstate migration and of interstate displacement of population due to migration was such that some explanation was called for in terms of probable differences between gross migration in the dominant, or prevailing, directions and gross migration in the reverse directions. For migration in general, peak rates occur in the early twenties. Dominant and reverse migration are both systematically related to age, the rates for adults first increasing then decreasing with advance in age. Return migration is present in both dominant and reverse migrations.