Theory of intervening opportunities

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Stouffer's law of intervening opportunities states that the amount of migration over a given distance is directly proportional to the number of opportunities at the place of destination, and inversely proportional to the number of opportunities between the place of departure and the place of destination. The intervening opportunities may persuade a migrant to settle in a place en route rather than proceeding to the originally planned destination. Stouffer argued that the volume of migration had less to do with distance and population totals than with the opportunities in each location. There are links with Ravenstein's laws of migration 2, 3 and 4.

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