‘you'd never starve here’: return migration to rural newfoundland

’You’d never starve here’: return migration to rural Newfoundland

B A R N E T T R I C H L I N G Mount Saint Vincent University

Cet article, base sur des recherches men6es i Terre-Neuve de 1979 i 1982, s’interroge sur les motivations et les fonctions des anciens emigrants qui retournent chez eux, dans deux villages de la Baie des Iles. Nous comparons nos donn6es a celles recueillies lors d‘une enquCte portant sur 420 6migrants rentres au pays et vivant maintenant dans differentes regions de l’ile de Terre-Neuve. La migration est d6finie comme un am6nagement du sous-dheloppement, dans les milieux ruraux de la province.

This paper, based on research conducted in Newfoundland between 1979 and 1982, focuses on the motivtions for, and functions of return migration in two Bay of Islands outports. Comparisons are drawn between data from these communities and from a survey of 420 returned migrants living in different parts of insular Newfoundland. Migration is seen as an accommodation to underdevelopment in the province‘s rural sphere.

T H E P R O B L E M O F N E W F O U N D L A N D R E T U R N M I G R A T I O N

Migration has figured prominently in Newfoundland’s social and economic life during this century. Before joining confederation in 1949, many Newfoundlanders migrated to urban New England, the ’Boston States.’ After union, the direction of migration first shifted to industrialized Ontario and Nova Scotia, then to Alberta and British Columbia. But while Newfoundland has been a net exporter of people for most of the twentieth century, it has also received a steady flow of migrants, mostly returning native Newfoundlanders.

Today, provincial population is 585,000, approximately 95 per cent of whom are

’ This study is based on research conducted in Newfoundland in August, 1979, June- August, 1981, and June, 1982. The 1979 survey of returned migrants was initiated and coordinated by George Gmelch, and was funded by a grant from EarthwatchKentre for Field Research. Support for field work in 1981-82 was provided by a research grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful for the many contributions of George and Sharon Gmelch, Larry Delaney, and JoAnn Richling to the success of the original survey project, and for the work of field assistants Linda Parsons and Vince Walsh in 1982. The article was received in June, 1983, and accepted in January, 1984.

Rev. canad. SOC. k Anth. / Canad. Rev. SOC. 8r Anth. 22(2) 1985

237 ‘ Y O U ‘ D N E V E R S T A R V E HERE’

native-born Newfoundlanders. Of the remaining 5 per cent, about two-thirds are from other parts of Canada, the rest immigrants from abroad. Between 1960 and 1980, an estimated 150,000 persons moved to Newfoundland (Newfoundland, 1982: 2). That so small a segment of the population was born elsewhere indicates that a high proportion of those that return are Newfoundland-born.

As a means to understand some of the causes and consequences of return migration to the province, we undertook a survey of 420 Newfoundland-born returnees (53 per cent male, 47 per cent female) in 2979. The majority (82 per cent) were rural dwellers, living in communities of fewer than 2,500 persons; 60 per cent lived in outports with fewer than 1,000 people. Only 6.5 per cent resided in towns or cities larger than 5,000 (see Table I ) . Our survey covered the Avalon, Bonavista and Burin peninsulas of eastern Newfoundland, the north-central Notre Dame Bay region, and the western Bay of Islands. A recent paper by Gmelch (1983) summa- rizes the main socio-demographic attributes of the sample.

Rates of return migration were calculated for a sample population consisting of surveyed returnees and their siblings. Of the total sample (N = 2,706,51 per cent male, 49 per cent female), 63 per cent of males and 55 per cent of females had emigrated. In turn, 62 per cent of migrant males and 48 per cent of females returned. Their combined rate of return is 55 per cent. A second sample made up of the siblings of respondents’ spouses (N = 1,620), demonstrated similar rates of return for males and females: 62 per cent and 48 per cent respectively. One-fifth of those surveyed left Newfoundland before 1949, another fifth between 1969 and 1979; 80 per cent returned home between 1969 and 1979.

Some of our survey’s conclusions about Newfoundland migration activity proved inconsistent with the general findings of other studies linking migration patterns to inter-provincial, macro-economic factors. Boadway and Green’s study (1980), for example, identified variables such as disparate wage scales and aggre- gate labour demands as causative factors in Newfoundland migration. They argue that migration is largely responsive to economic conditions in Ontario, the destina- tion of most Newfoundland emigrants, and that migration streams out of or into the province may be predicted from changes in economic conditions in central Canada relative to Newfoundland. From this perspective, for instance, they explain the decline in Newfoundland’s net migration from -20,000 in the period 1966-71 to -2,000 between 1971-76 as a function of rising Newfoundland wage scales compared to Ontario wages (1980: 2).

By contrast, our findings suggest that return migration to Newfoundland is not tied exclusively to structural economic imbalances between the province and mainland Canada. An indication is that for approximately 90 per cent of the sample, unemployment abroad played no part in the decision to return. Second, half of surveyed household heads reported unemployment at some time of each year since returning, and nearly 30 per cent were unemployed at the time of the 1979 survey. (An equivalent percentage of respondents’ spouses were also unemployed at this time.) Since some 65 per cent of respondents indicated initial emigration to find work or to seek better jobs and pay, this level of post-return unemployment implies that improved economic conditions at home did not attract people back to the province.

A recent Economic Council of Canada report on the Newfoundland economy

238 B A R N E T T R I C H L I N G

sheds light on a second problem area in the macro-economic formulation. It shows, on the one hand, that male Newfoundlanders residing on the mainland tend to participate more in the work force than do other Canadians or Newfoundlanders remaining a t home, while experiencing unemployment rates similar to those of mainlanders. For male returnees to Newfoundland, on the other hand, rates of unemployment are the highest for any provincial group. Moreover, nearly 20 per cent of male returnees eventually drop out of the work force entirely (1980: 55).

Finally, about 90 per cent of surveyed migrants return home between the ages of 20 and 45. This pattern discounts retirement as a reason for return, a factor that might otherwise account for the low incidence of pre-return unemployment.

From a different perspective, yet another shortcoming in the macro-economic approach is its disregard for cultural factors which influence migration. Boadway and Green’s assertion that ’there is no uniformly strong financial reason to leave the rest of Canada and migrate to Newfoundland (unlike the incentive to leave)’ (1980: 7) is a case in point. They fail to account for locally-held values that motivate the return migration, including those pertaining to family finances and other aspects of domestic economy linked to historic patterns of Newfoundland society and economy, especially in rural outports. Subsequent field work in 1981 and 1982 examined some of these cultural priorities in relation to local conditions affecting out and return migration in rural Newfoundland, leading to an alternative to the macro-economic analysis of migration. In all, 66 persons were interviewed in two outports in Bay of Islands. The focus on rural communities was to substantiate the original survey profile, already heavily oriented toward the province’s rural sector (see Table I) .

H I S T O R I C A L B A C K G R O U N D

Return migration to rural Newfoundland is particularly interesting in view of compelling pressures against it. These pressures derive from developmental trends in the province since 1949 undermining many rural historic patterns.

Federal and provincial post-Confederation policies have linked social and economic modernization in Newfoundland to the growth of urbanization and indus- trialization. Outport resettlement schemes, begun in the early I ~ ~ O S , were a main feature of this initiative. The goal of these schemes was to relocate people from hundreds of small, often isolated and largely self-sufficient villages to more accessible, centralized places. Here they were to obtain jobs and to benefit from a host of municipal and social welfare services aimed at improving the quality of life. Included among these were health and educational facilities, roads, public utilities, pensions, child allowances, and so forth.

While the socio-economic advantages owing to resettlement remain debatable, this course of development did yield two clear results. One was the partial depopulation of rural Newfoundland, once the island’s dominant sector. Between 1953 and 1976, the number of rural dwellers declined by nearly 35 per cent to approximately 43 per cent of total population. The other result was that most resettled families were cut off from access to sources of non-cash income, the mainstay of outport domestic economy for generations. These sources included garden produce, game and small commodity production, as well as cooperative exchanges of labour and other resources between families. Non-cash income in its

239 ‘ Y O U ‘ D N E V E R S T A R V E H E R E ’

various forms was edmated to account for an average of one-third of total domestic income in rural Newfoundland in the late 1960s (Skolnik and Wadel, 1969: 24). Many resettled families actually suffered an overall decline in living standards relative to the outports, despite access to regular wages and public services. Anticipation of the disadvantages associated with total cash dependence in the urban setting explains why many families undertook the arduous task of moving their houses with them when they relocated.

Rural resettlement was also tied to the growth of Newfoundland’s industrial sector. To economic planners, the outport population represented a pool of comparatively cheap labour to be channelled into proposed or existing industries based in or near resettlement centres. Important changes in the province’s fisheries were central to this aspect of development. In the immediate post-war period, a capital- intensive fresh and frozen fish trade, with its requisite demands for off-shore crewmen and on-shore plant workers, began to weaken the traditional in-shore fishery, historically based on salt fish production (Alexander, 1977). But as studies by Brox (1972) and Wadel (1969) have demonstrated, government emphasis on the centralization of production led directly to the under-development of what re- mained of the rural community and its economic core of in-shore fishing. More- over, the general failure of the provincial industrial strategy to create sufficient jobs for both urban and rural dwellers has led to chronic unemployment, especially in the hinterlands (e.g., The People’s Commission, 1978). On average, rates of rural unemployment are double those in urban Newfoundland; in turn, the province’s cities and towns endure rates of joblessness about twice as high as those of mainland Canada.

The province’s inability to provide the population with ample jobs in the wage sector has, understandably, led to significant emigration. Since confederation, in fact, levels of out-migration have been, on average, at least twice as high as in the twenty-five years preceding union with Canada. ‘Official’ rates of unemployment in the province are currently near 20 per cent; much higher rates occur in certain rural districts. In 1979~53 per cent of Newfoundlanders of work force age (over 15) were in the work force, as compared to a rate of 63 per cent nationally; in 1978, the provincial job vacancy rate was one job per 66 persons, as compared to one per 20 nationally (Economic Council of Canada, 1980: 26-8). Competition for jobs a t home produces both a high level of worker frustration (and so low participation rates), and out-migration. Other data for 1978 further substantiate the picture: in Newfoundland, average income from wages and salaries was 58.6 per cent of national average, total disposable income 67.9 per cent of national average, and income supplements from federal and provincial transfers some 145 per cent of national average (1980: 3 4 .

In addition to these legacies of modernization, a third factor weighing against return migration to rural Newfoundland stems from patterns of emigration and emigrant experience abroad. Newfoundlanders commonly settle in large, urban areas. Virtually all of the 1979 sample resided in centres of at least 30,000 - bigger than all Newfoundland cities except St. John’s - and 86 per cent in cities of ioo,ooo or more. The amenities and economic and occupational opportunities of the mainland are, at best, scarce in the outports. Such scarcities would seem to deter preferential return to rural portions of the province.

Despite these countervailing pressures, Newfoundlanders do return to the


TABLE I COMMUNITY SIZE OF SAMPLE POPULATION 1979 (%)

Community of Present Percent Size youth community change

500-1000 60.9 63.9 +4.92 1000-2500 17.2 18.1 +5.23 2500-5000 10.9 11.5 +5.50 5000-25000 1.6 1.2 -33.33 +25000 9.4 5.3 -77.35

outports. Our survey data are inadequate to determine precise rates of return to urban vs. rural localities provincewide. Nevertheless, return to rural areas is, and historically has been, significant. Table I indicates this in comparing respondent’s present community size with childhood community size. Through the change in distribution is small, a trend toward residence in smaller places is evident. Addi- tional evidence is found in a survey of immigration to Newfoundland in 1980-81 released by the provincial government in May, 1982. According to this study, 43 per cent of all arrivals (N = i,ooo) settled in rural communities. Further, of those returnees born in Newfoundland (52 per cent) or residing in the province pre- viously (6 per cent), the rate of return to rural areas was 51 per cent (Newfound- land, 1982: 31).

In view of the conditions encouraging out-migration and deterring return, especially to the outports, it is puzzling that a pattern of return migration to rural Newfoundland occurs at all. That it does, however, is seen here to manifest a process wherein outporters accommodate the selective exploitation of urban resources to socio-economic patterns and values characteristic of historic outport society. With the in-shore fishery’s declining capacity to support the rural population, wage employment, particularly outside the local community, has come to hold a prominent place in this accommodative process. This insures continued replenishment of the minimum ’nuclear cash’ essential to operating the rural household economy. Brox argued that the ‘cash income that the outport household gets from directly productive activity . . . tends to generate an often larger income from other sources - largely those that would not [indeed, could not] be tapped if the,household were not [in the outport]’ (1972: 17). These other sources, as mentioned above, include non-cash income in the form of subsistence production and inter-familial cooperation. Brox suggested that this core cash income produces a ’multiplier effect’ for the domestic economy, permitting householders to supplement total income with diverse sources of non-cash income. As indicated earlier, the dual focus of domestic income is an important economic advantage for rural dwellers.

When opportunities for wage labour are found locally or within easy commuting distance, the accommodation of the urban to the rural sphere is comparatively simple. The general shortage of jobs in Newfoundland, however, has led to consistently high levels of relatively short-term labour migration from rural to urban areas. Circulation between outlying communities and the larger, more developed centres of Newfoundland and Labrador constitutes a variant form of this

241 ‘ Y O U ’ D N E V E R S T A R V E H E R E ’

adaptation (e.g., Herrick, n.d.). Migration between the outports and urban Canada defines yet a third form. This last type of migration is more frequent than intraprovincial, rural-urban migration since Newfoundland’s urban sector has proved incapable of providing full employment even to those who are permanent city dwellers.

Attention is now turned to data collected in the Bay of Islands in 1981 and 1982. These illustrate the accommodative underpinnings of return migration, and iden- tify some key values at work in the migratory process. The communities described are referred to by fictional names - Northside and Southside.

R E T U R N M I G R A T I O N I N THE BAY OF I S L A N D S

Northside and Southside are similar in many respects, but they are not representa- tive of outport Newfoundland as a whole. Both are nearly equal in size - around 900 people - and are roughly equidistant from Corner Brook, though on different sides of the bay. Economic activity (including fishing and wage work) in each is affected by seasonal factors and, consequently, local work force activity tends to be occupationally pluralistic. In 1981-82, unemployment among men in the two communities ranged between 20 per cent and 30 per cent; for women, between 15 per cent and 25 per cent. The lower figures for women are attributed to their generally lower participation rate in work outside the home, and to their greater dependence on seasonal work in local fish plants.

Domestic production from gardening, livestock, hunting, and fishing has declined in both villages over the past ten years. This is due to increased availability of disposable cash income from unearned sources (e.g., family allowances, pensions), and of retail outlets selling various consumer goods and services (cf., Philbrook, 1966, who has remarked that outport home production is no longer meritorious). At one time an outport household depended on non-cash income from subsistence production as its mainstay. Today subsistence activities merely supplement an otherwise cash-reliant domestic economy. As a result, the level of economic self-sufficiency, evident before the early 1960s when roads were built linking both communities to Corner Brook, has fallen, with an increasing dependence on the city. Local families usually travel to town a t least once a week for shopping, entertainment, and services. While most families consume some subsistence production such as salted fish, game, berries, and firewood, the non-cash portion of total domestic income from such sources exceeds 10 per cent in fewer than one household in five; in none did it account for more than 25 per cent.

Two other factors, however, contribute significantly to reducing cash dependence in Northside and Southside - housing and labour costs. Less then 10 per cent of families have rented or mortgaged housing in either place. Families usually build their own houses using lumber felled nearby and finished at local mills. Building lots are either inherited or purchased inexpensively from the Crown. As of yet, serviced building lots and municipal tax structures are unknown in most of rural Newfoundland.

As in the past, present outport life depends on cooperative, reciprocal relations between households. Such relations are a form of social capital, central to local economy and to the rural lifestyle. Social networks encompass kin, neighbours,


TABLE I1 OCCUPATIONAL STATUS OF RETURNED MIGRANTS, 1979 (%)

Status Pre-migration After return

Unskilled Fishing Semi-skilled Skilled Service AdministratiodBusiness Executive/Professional Unemployed Retired

26.5 8.2 6 .0

10.1 12.8 7.0 1.2

28.2 NA

10.1 3.6 7.2

12.0 13.9 11.2 2.2

28.1 11.7

and friends. They organize all manner of work, and may be a means to acquire productive capital as well. Labour, equipment, and expertise are the main assets of such networks and are used to reduce domestic cash requirements for meeting basic needs. For instance, families rely on friends and relatives in house construction, thus making debt-free housing a realistic goal. Fishing crews often consist of kinsmen, a practice that helps in acquiring expensive boats and gear.

Migration is part of everyday life in Northside and Southside. The pattern of internal migration to jobs around the Island or Labrador is several generations deep, though such migration has not been as prevalent as movement to the Canadian mainland. Since the mid-1960s the number of people 'going up' to the mainland and returning to the Bay of Islands has been great enough to have relegated departures and returns to the status of non-events.

Young (15 to mid-20s) unmarried men and women leave Newfoundland as much for excitement and change of pace as for jobs. Nearly all are without employable skills, and about 75 per cent have not completed secondary school. They typically obtain work as unskilled or semi-skilled labourers, factory opera- tives, cleaners, clerks, and so forth. Young men engaged in in-shore fishing, particularly full-timers, are noticeably absent from the ranks of these migrants. In fact, less than 4 per cent of surveyed returnees were fishermen before leaving the province (see Table 11). This is understandable since economic activities for fishermen are more often based in the local community than are those for non- fishermen dependent on wage work wherever it is found (cf., Wade1 1969: 48). The base for a comparatively small, non-migratory core of outporters is, then, the in-shore fishery.

Among older (mid-twenties and over) outporters, motivations for emigration arise mainly from the dismal job prospects at home and the need to support families. But for many, the higher costs and risks, and greater responsibilities of family life make a move to the mainland more serious than the casual trips of the young. Older people recognize emigration as a necessity due to unemployment (or underemployment) and dwindling domestic cash resources. Bay of Islanders mentioned occupational and economic motivations for emigration more frequently than did survey respondents as a whole: in the 1979 sample, 45 per cent cited job searches as their reason for emigration; 19 per cent cited better or higher paying


TABLE I11 REASONS FOR LEAVING NEWFOUNDLAND, 1979 SURVEY (%)

Look for Work Find Better Job/Pay Adventure/Experience Visited and Stayed Family Matters Education Personal Problems Other

45.1 19.2 14.4 0.7 5.5 2.1 1.2

11.8

jobs. By contrast, in 1981-82 nearly 90 per cent of Northsiders and Southsiders gave either or both of these reasons. Table 111 compiles the responses to a survey on the ’main reasons’ for initially leaving Newfoundland.

Table 111 indicates that Newfoundland emigration mainly responds to economic factors a t home (i.e., high unemployment, low wages). Return migration, by comprison, appears to be linked to non-economic factors. This conclusion is consistent and predictable when migration is examined in terms of persisting macro-economic disparities between Newfoundland and Canada (e. g., Economic Council of Canada, 1980). The findings in Tables 111 and IV indicate how these disparities affect the direction of migration streams. Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of respondents indicated that economic-occupational push and pull factors - the push of local unemployment and poor wages and the pull of brighter job prospects and better wages on the mainland - influenced emigration.

By comparison, about 67 per cent cited patriotic-social pull factors - e.g., ’Newfoundland is my homeland’ - and nearly half cited familial personal pull factors - notably the desire to live near their family - as motivating their return. At the same time, fewer than one person in five mentioned economic-occupational factors such as improved economic conditions or opportunities for self- employment as reasons for returning to the Island. (In fact, when asked to name two main disadvantages of living in Newfoundland, more than one-third cited low wages first.) In 1979, almost 30 per cent of returnees were unemployed at the time of the survey; in 1981-82, about one-third of informants were jobless. Few ( l o per cent) were ’pushed’ from the mainland by an unemployed household head or the head’s job dissatisfaction. In summary, while economic-occupational pull factors were more influential in return migration than push factors, economic factors were relatively unimportant for return migration. Familial-personal and patriotic-social pull factors were more significant, indicating that the return to Newfoundland is linked to strong attachments to the Island itself, and is not affected by difficulties encountered abroad nor, apparently, by economic improvements at home.

In view of key migrant attributes (e.g., relative youth, semi-skilled or unskilled occupational status, low educational levels) identified by the 1979 survey (Gmelch, 1983), it is curious that Newfoundland-based affective-pull factors outweigh mainland-based economic-pull factors in return migration. At face value, the survey’s more frequently elicited motivation responses affirm that return migration is


TABLE IV MOTIVATIONS FOR RETURN MIGRATION, 1979 SURVEY (%)

Motivation factor

~~

Individual factors* Categories

Economic-Occupational Pull: Good Job Opportunities in Newfoundland

Push: Household Head Unemployed Chance to Fish or Own a Business

Household Head Didn’t Like Job

Familial-Personal Pull: Wanted to Live Near Relatives (Misc.) Personal Reasons Push: Had Few Friends Abroad

Disliked Where I Lived

16 20 10 11

18

10.5

54 31 42.5

7 27 17

54 31 42.5

7 27 17

Patriotic-Social Pull: Newfoundland is My Homeland 67

10 Wanted to Live with People of My Background 37 52

Push: Felt Like a Stranger Abroad Too Much Crime/Violence Abroad 14 12

*Figures for individual factors represent the proportion of the sample rating each factor as having ‘much’ or ’very great’influence on the decision to return.

essentially non-economic in nature. Doubtless emigration is a response to local socio-economic conditions. But to determine if return migration might also be so it was necessary to reexamine these motivation responses in terms of their local (emic) evaluations. Field inteviews in the Bay of Islands demonstrated that economic factors do figure prominently in decisions about return, with the valued ends of return migration being served explicitly by the expressed motivations (and means) of the initial out-migration. In fact, several response categories evaluated proved, on further inspection, to subsume expressions of economic priority strongly identified with the outport way of life.

Examples were found when Bay of Islanders compared their living standards in the outport with living standards on the mainland. With only one exception, they evaluated the rural community more favourably. Their preferences reflected a perception that outport families consider cooperative relations with kin and neighbours (thus the motivation for living near relations), and various forms of non- cash income, notably debt-free housing, as valued assets. Most deem affordable housing a determining factor in return migration; prohibitive housing costs and the spectre of long-term mortgage debt preclude consideration of permanent residence outside of Newfoundland. One Northsider put it this way:

On the mainland you could never afford to own anything. To own a house you need two or three lifetimes to pay for it. In Newfoundland you can own something on your own, away you can’t afford it. We brought everything home [from Toronto] in a pick-up and the bank owned that! In [Northside] you don’t need as much money to get by.

245 ‘ Y O U ‘ D N E V E R S T A R V E H E R E ’

With suitable housing assured, overall domestic cash requirements are reduced. This, in turn, gives families greater occupational and economic flexibility during periods of unemployment. Flexibility, too, is valuable to rural Newfoundlanders, something many observers believe is central to their way of life. In this light ’Newfoundland is my homeland’ becomes more than a statement of nationalistic affect; it also expresses self-sufficiency and independence. This value underlies outport socio-economic life, thereby contributing to maintaining the rural lifestyle despite urbanizing pressures in post-confederation Newfoundland. The frequency of occupational pluralism and the retention of subsistence production in many households manifest this value orientation.

The savings migrants actually return with tend to be modest. In 1979, about 20 per cent of those surveyed brought $io,ooo or more home; nearly one in four repatriated less than $500. While a few comparative studies have shown that returnees invest savings in small businesses, land, and other income properties (e.g., McArthur, 1979; Rhoades, 1978), others indicate consumerism, not investment, as more typical (Gmelch, 1980: 148). Most rural Newfoundlanders reserve their money ’to get by, as always.’ Repatriated savings are mainly used to build or improve housing, or to meet daily living expenses, particularly for families returning to unemployment. Investment in fishing boats and gear, small grocery stores, snack bars or similar enterprises is occasionally an ambition, rarely a reality.

Unemployment insurance is important to return migration. A recent study of the Newfoundland economy observed that the federal system of regionally extended benefits and application of reduced eligibility requirements ultimately encourage Newfoundlanders on the mainland to return home. The report shows that a Newfoundland worker in Winnipeg or Hamilton must work at least fourteen weeks to qualify for benefits there, and then can collect only for an equivalent number of weeks as he has worked. If he works as few as ten weeks and then returns to Newfoundland, however, he receives benefits for his ten weeks but then is also entitled to 32 additional weeks of benefits through the extended benefits program (Economic Council of Canada, 1980: 56). Some Newfoundland workers on the mainland remain at their jobs just long enough to qualify for benefits and then return home. The advantages are evident since overall living costs in the outport are generally less than in urban areas, and benefit rates are geared to the requirements of city dwellers.

Among recent returnees to the Bay of Islands, those interviewed in June, 1982 had a higher incidence of (recession-related) unemployment immediately before returning than did earlier returnees. As mentioned above, informants rarely count unemployment as important to return migration. Despite somewhat special cir- cumstances, however, recently laid-off workers tend to cite the same reasons for returning home as those given by other informants - mainly access to non-cash income. Jobless returnees reason that unemployment insurance benefits go much farther at home; this is due to the actual benefit period being prolonged by the regionally extended benefits system, and due to outport income supplements such as rent-free housing. A Southsider explained that ’[pleople are better off here without work ... it’s easier to live. What we have here we own ... it’s not mortgaged. No one can take it from me.’

Such assessments are particularly interesting in light of the comparatively more


TABLE V EVALUATION OE SATISFACTION: LIFE AT HOME vs. AWAY, 1979 SURVEY (YO)

Level of Percentage satisfaction First year home 1979 change

~ ~

Much More Away 17 7 7 -120.77 More Away 16.7 8.7 -91.9 No Difference 13.7 12.5 -9 6 More a t Home 29.1 30.7 +5.49 Much More at Home 23.5 40.4 +71 9

expensive consumer goods and services (when available at all) in rural Newfound- land. Nonetheless, just over half the 1979 respondents rated housing quality in Newfoundland as superior to that on the mainland, and 80 per cent said overall standard of living was better than (33 per cent), or the same as (47 per cent) that abroad. Polled on these same questions in 1981-82, 85 per cent of informants preferred housing and general living conditions in Northside and Southside. As Table v demonstrates, evaluations of overall satisfaction with life in Newfoundland vs. life on the mainland favoured home. Moreover, the degree of their satisfaction increases with the increase in time since return to Newfoundland.

While economic considerations do influence decisions to return to the Bay of Islands, most informants also express social and cultural values of the outport as motivations for return. By and large, they see the rural community in idealized, even romanticized, terms. They associate it with a more satisfying and desirable way of life than found elsewhere, and with preservation of the historical roots of Newfoundland identity. Often-cited illustrations of this include references to the quality of local environment - both land and sea - abundance of game, fish and other resources, suitability of conditions for rearing children (e.g., virtually no crime, nearness of watchful kin, open spaces for play), manageable (i.e. slow) pace of life, and the security of being with others who share common experiences and values. Further, about half expressed the opinion that these advantages, taken together, were central to individual freedom and well-being. This sentiment was voiced in comparative evaluations of personal experiences a t home and abroad:

You have more freedom here than on the mainland. You can do what you like, if you feel like going hunting or taking a day off you can do it.

There's more freedom here; you don't have to lock your doors.

A person could live good here . . . plant a garden, raise a pig . . . you'd never starve here in [Northside]. You've got that freedom everywhere in Newfoundland.

It would seem that only the added luxury of permanent, local employment at decent wages could improve on this otherwise idyllic view of the rural community. Indeed, the job prospect at home occupies a key place in the thinking of many outporters, both while away and at home. In this light jobs, too, constitute an element of motivation affecting the return migration process. A Northside resident remarked that

247 ’ Y O U ‘ D N E V E R S T A R V E H E R E ’

Up there it’s hard to save money since you owe so much in rent and all. At least here a house is reasonable enough . . . with a regular job you could save money. You could hardly find three Newfoundlanders up there who wouldn’t go back home, but what’s the good of it to return without jobs?

Another observed:

There isn‘t one in one hundred in Toronto who is there because he wants to be . . . it’s a necessity. I’d rather be here with bread and cold water than in Toronto with turkey on the table three times a day.

Yet while it is commonplace for returnees to remark that their fellows on the mainland would return in an instant if work were available at home, many return, nevertheless, only to the sustained hope of secure employment and a life in the outport. A young woman at Southside summed up this perspective when she said ’We live on dreams here for the most part . . . ’

C O N C L U S I O N

The foregoing material on migration in rural Newfoundland offers an alternative view of how regional economic disparities influence local patterns of mobility. That underdevelopment has not entirely depleted the rural sphere derives largely from economic advantages of subsistence production and cooperative relations in the outport and, a factor appreciated by Matthews (1976), the strong rural value system encouraging the maintenance of the outport lifestyle.

Cycles of migration are an accommodation to rural underdevelopment. Migra- tion enables outporters to obtain a living standard (actual, as well as idealized) at least comparable to, if not higher than that possible on the mainland or in urban Newfoundland, and to enjoy a quality of life defined by deep-rooted values. In this context, return migration expresses rural value orientation and, as such, is a major goal for many emigrants. Rather than indicating an individual’s failure to ’make it’ in the city, return actually signifies personal success in balancing rural priorities with short-term exploitation of urban resources. Failure, by this reasoning, would be denoted in a migrant’s inability to return home to the outport (cf., Martin 1974).

In the wake of post-confederation change and the attendant deepening of internal disparities, many rural dwellers have continued to voice sentiments about the outport lifestyle, idealizing its values and institutions as the essence of New- foundland society and identity. This orientation was especially apparent among returned migrants who returned to the outport because they perceived it as a more suitable place to live, raise children, and work, when work can be found. Interest- ingly enough, similar sentiments were expressed by returnees to urban New- foundland, supporting the view that the rural sector provides a focus for cultural or national-ethnic ideals. The outport is seen as very much alive, not as a decaying backwater. A resident of Corner Brook, recently home from several years in Toronto, observed that in the ouport one found


a nearly utopian place . . . people are friendly, open . . . environment is clean, safe, abundant . . . you can starve much quicker in Toronto, for sure. Newfoundland gives you peace in your soul. Everything you could want or need is here.

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‘you'd never starve here’: return migration to rural newfoundland

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