Interregional Migration of Defense Scientists and Engineers to the Gunbelt during the 1980s

AbstractThe 1980s defense buildup largely benefited the preexisting centers of defense procurement in the “Gunbelt”: the Pacific, South Atlantic, New England, and Mountain regions. I examine whether the interregional distribution and movement of scientists and engineers paralleled this concentration of defense contracts, using the 1982–89 National Science Foundation Survey of Scientists and Engineers. The Gunbelt modestly increased its share of the nation's scientists and engineers during the 1980s, with employees leaving the Midwest and Middle Atlantic for defense jobs faster than those employed in civilian businesses. However, most Gunbelt migration predated the Reagan buildup, due in part to Gunbelt military spending between the 1940s and the 1970s. Defense-funded professionals were also less interregionally mobile in the 1980s than those without defense funding. There is also a dramatic difference in the regional distribution of defense vs. nondefense professionals. Though all four Gunbelt regions hav...