Deriving implications of comparison theory for demographic phenomena: A first step in the analysis of migration

This article describes the use of comparison theory to generate testable implications about demographic phenomena, and, to illustrate, derives some implications of comparison theory for migration behavior. Using two strategies for deriving predictions, known as the micromodel and macromodel strategies, we obtain a variety of theoretical results for the three types of actors in migration situations - the migrant, others in the origin country, and others in the destination country - for bilateral relations between origin and destination countries, and for the effects of the societal valued goods and the income distribution and its inequality on the differential propensity to emigrate among rich and poor.