More on BC Interprovincial Migration

Following a post on BC migration patterns, for completeness, I thought I'd look at the total mobility and the "normalised vector" of mobility. That is, we have been looking at net migration but in terms of real estate activity the absolute number as well as the flux matters. To this end I have plotted total migration volume (inflows plus outflows):

Adjusting for population we can see how migration has compared as a percentage of BC's total population. Here it appears that total volume per capita has remained subdued since 1998.

Alberta contributes around 40% of total volumes in the past decade, a higher portion than before. Taking the net flows and dividing by the total volume produces a "normalised" flux. This tells, in effect, how biased the migration flows are relative to total volumes.

There was a large inflow of migrants from the rest of the country in the early-to-mid-1990s both in total volume and direction.

There was a large outflow of migrants to Alberta from 1997 to about 2001. The mini-real-estate-bust in the mid-90s seems to have been driven not only by a drop in international migration but also a net outflow of residents, mostly to Alberta. There was a the decrease in total volume from non-Alberta regions since 1997, meaning real estate transactions due to inter-provincial migration were somewhat subdued during this time.

The late-2000s have been balanced in terms of migration bias. Relative to total population, migration volumes have not changed much in over a decade, give or take. An interesting exercise is to understand the impetus for the out-migration to Alberta witnessed in the latter stages of the 1990s, and what would instigate such a phenomenon occurring again.