A process view of the population turnaround: an Australian rural case study

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence of local-level demographic and socio-economic changes during the ‘population turnaround’ decade of 1970 to 1980. The study covers a contiguous area occupied by five small country towns and their trade areas, centred around 80–90 km north of Adelaide. These communities were surveyed in detail in 1968 and 1970 in order to make forecasts of demographic change by 1980. In 1980, a replicatory resurvey provided data on various processes of population change operating at grass roots level. A variety of individually small changes has produced a considerable aggregate improvement in the net migration balance. The paper supplies some of the empirical input for a general model of the turnaround presented in a companion paper (G.J. Hugo and P.J. Smailes (1985) Urban-rural migration in Australia: a process view of the turnaround. Journal of Rural Studies 1, 11–30).