Migration between England, Scotland and Northern Ireland is falling

IN THE EARLY 1990s Tennent, a Scottish brewer, ran a television advert designed to play on the homesickness of migrant workers in London. A Scottish office drone, yearning for the pubs of his homeland, endures crowded Tube trains, argumentative Cockneys and foreigners as the song “Caledonia” plays in the background.

Many young Scots at the time emigrated to the rest of the United Kingdom in search of work or excitement. “I was desperate to travel to London,” remembers Melanie Hill, who graduated from Strathclyde University in 1993 and now works for ScottishPower, an energy company. In 1987, the peak year of emigration, 65,000 people—one in every 78 Scots—left for England, Northern Ireland or Wales. But the flow has slowed, as have the other streams that carry people between the four nations.