Montana or bust! (migration patterns)

• Author: Sylvester, James T.

The influx of newcomers into Montana has been a hot topic of late, peppering conversations from Libby to Dillion to Sidney. We hear about rich Californians bidding up property values and overwhelming local school districts. But is this the whole story? Probably not.

Unfortunately, hard data about newcomers are difficult to come by. We don't post immigration officers at Montana's borders or keep tabs on people moving between states. We have to rely on other sources, many of which provide only partial or anecdotal information. Nevertheless, migration trends and patterns can have substantial effects on economic and social life. So we present here our current findings.

The Bureau recently completed a major telephone survey. The primary purpose was not migration per se. But our surveys routinely ask about recent mobility and this was a particularly large sample set (over 1,200 households throughout the state). Thus we had the baseline data for an up-to-date analysis of in-migration trends and patterns.

Before we discuss the survey and findings in more detail, here are a few highlights of the study. We found that:

* Newcomers down the block may not be refugees from California or Colorado or Texas, but other Montanans. Our survey showed that more than 40 percent of migrants were existing state residents moving from one Montana county to another.

* Nor do we have an especially high percentage of out-of-state migrants. The proportion of people who've moved into Montana from another state during the past five years is just about the national average.

* Both cross-county and cross-state migrants tend to be younger than the population as a whole, not retirees. In addition, cross-state migrant profiles present an apparent contradiction: this group tends to be better educated than Montanans overall, but has lower incomes.

* California is the largest single "feeder source" of cross-state movers into Montana, accounting for about one in five migrants over the past five years.

* A surprising number of cross-state migrants (from California and elsewhere) had preexisting ties to Montana. More than half had lived here before themselves, or another member of their household had. They were returning to Montana.

* Beyond family ties, newcomers said they moved to Montana for quality of life and employment-related reasons. These two reasons were cited about equally by respondents.

* New residents to the state generally chose to live in western Montana or an urban county. Cascade County was also a frequent destination choice, but Malmstrom Air Force Base may account for a fair portion of that immigration.

Most of our report will focus on people coming into Montana, but is anybody leaving? Some research and anecdotal evidence suggests that both sides of the equation are constantly in flux, that people move into the state, and in a few months or years, move out again. That, too, is very hard to measure, since our statewide telephone surveys, by definition, won't catch those who left. However, we did ask several questions about "intent to leave" during the June 1995 Montana Poll. A brief discussion of those results rounds out this report.

How Many Migrants?

Our study uses the U.S. Census Bureau definition of migrant. That is, migrants are defined as...