Swapping houses: Mobility behaviour and migration tendencies in a changing multicultural city

Issues of diversity and migration have with no doubt received substantial attention in policy making. However, migration studies have been typically focused on tendencies of international immigration and relatively little attention has been paid to internal migration which is in large part responsible for population redistribution. In the context of South-Eastern Europe, ethnic migration has remained relatively unexplored. State and city policies have not dwelt in the issues of ethnic segregation arising from nationalistic politics, ethnic intolerance, and perception of unmanageable cultural differences. Gradually, the cities in the region experience urban ethnic segregation limiting multicultural diversity. Using secondary migration data from 2005, 2009, and 2013 national surveys, and the Migration Index, this paper investigates patterns of co-ethnic internal migration in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Thus, the paper addresses the following questions: Do ethnic groups tend to move toward neighbourhoods where their own group is relatively concentrated? How gender, age and education influence such moving patterns? How does the social composition of the neighbourhoods change? The paper concludes with possible policy approaches to counter-fight ethnic residential segregation.