The leaving of Liverpool: an examination into the migratory characteristics of Liverpool

Elizabeth Davies, Paul Williamson and Clare Holdsworth, University of Liverpool

(Project no. 30005)

For the most part, academics and researchers know that Liverpool is facing a demographic crisis. Over the past fifty years, Liverpool has lost forty percent of its population, and it has been predicted that this trend will continue with the city facing another dramatic loss of up to ten percent of its population over the next ten years.

Despite this demographic knowledge of Liverpool being widely recognised, there has been little research done from a social perspective, for example, on who is leaving the city, where they are moving to and why they are leaving. My research project will focus on these issues, using four categories of people: those who live in Liverpool; those who work in Liverpool but live elsewhere; those who have just moved to Liverpool; those who have left Liverpool.

These comparisons are going to be interesting because it will allow me to draw conclusions about the reasons why people are leaving, who is leaving, where they are leaving to, the relationship between income, occupation and location and also people's perceptions of the city.

I will be focusing on questions such as: is migration associated with socio-economic characteristics; what role do housing and labour markets play in the decisions whether or not to migrate and how does the perception of Liverpool and 'scousers' affect the levels of in-migration?

I want to set migration in the context of a family or household life cycle, changing jobs, household priorities and so on.