Trend Migration to innovation cities shifts from job-driven moves to settlement-driven moves

Summary

Microdata on domestic migration from 2005 to 2024 show a common three-stage pattern across the ten innovation cities and Sejong. In the early stage, employment was the main reason people moved in, and movers were concentrated among people in their twenties and thirties. As relocation gathered pace, job reasons declined while housing and family reasons rose, which the report reads as earlier movers bringing their families. After the relocations were completed, inflows shrank and stabilised, and education, transport and residential environment became more prominent motives. Local character still matters, with manufacturing-heavy Chungbuk keeping high job shares and Gyeongnam showing housing reasons ahead of job reasons throughout.