Uncovering Age-Gender Patterns in Migration: A Bayesian Extension of the Rogers–Castro Model for European Migration Corridors

Athina Anastasiadou , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Andrea Aparicio Castro, University of Oxford

Migration is a highly age- and gender-selective process. While age patterns of migration have been extensively studied by demographers, most notably through the widely used Rogers–Castro schedule, systematic attention to gender differences in the age profiles of migration remains limited. In this study, we model a comprehensive dataset of bilateral migration flows among 30 European countries, disaggregated by age and gender, by developing a flexible Bayesian extension of the Rogers–Castro model. The multi-exponential specification is customized to the empirical shape of each flow's age distribution across 870 emigration corridors. From these fits, we obtain Rogers-Castro parameter estimates for every origin-destination-year-gender combination, which we then used to construct a typology of age-gender emigration profiles by implementing K-means clustering. Through this approach, we identify five distinct groups of age profiles in emigration, distinguished by the timing and intensity of life-course migration peaks. By analyzing these groups, we find that many emigration flows diverge substantially from the typical age structure proposed by Rogers and Castro. Moreover, female and male flows often display different age structures even within the same emigration flow or corridor. With our work, we reevaluate existing model schedules for migration age distributions and address a gap in the literature on how these might vary by gender. Additionally, we offer new insights into the age structure of migration flows in Europe by gender, time, and space.

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 Presented in Session 36. Composition of International Migration