Reconciling and translating migration data collected over time intervals of differing widths

In this paper we describe and contrast the age and spatial structures of migration identified by data collected over one-year and five-year time intervals, by focusing, in particular, on the generation and distribution components of age- and origin-destination-specific migration flows. We explore the contributions of primary, return, and onward migration defined by fixed interval migration data, and we outline a crude translation procedure for transforming the one-year migration flow data into an estimated five-year counterpart. The data used in this study represent several migration periods drawn from recent U.S. and Canadian censuses and surveys. Differences between the structures exhibited by U.S. and Canadian migration patterns, collected over one-year and five-year migration time intervals, are carefully examined and contrasted.