Migration studies are both extensive and fragmentary, reflecting a wide variety of aims and methodology. In recent years an abstract statistical approach has dominated migration study which tends to concentrate on the distance and direction of migrants. This thesis aims to extend this approach to investigate more fully the structural variables of the migration environment. The study of the migration context is supplemented by analysis of the characteristics of migrants drawn from a sample survey of heads of households in Grenoble; to give a more complete and balanced picture of the complexity of migration. The examination of net migration balances has been extended to study the spatial pattern of migration by Principal Components Analysis of gross flows at a national level. Factors of the migration environment selected for further study were demography, agriculture and amenities. Agricultural improvement is seen to act as an intervening variable between population pressure and outmigration in the early years of this century, while in more recent years the level of available amenities appears the dominant factor influencing migration. The department of Isère was selected for further study because of the presence within it of the rapidly growing city of Grenoble which in the post-war period emerges as a focus for migrants of national importance. Furthermore the diversity of the natural environment within Isère provides a variety of source and destination areas. The areas of population loss were studied by means of Automatic Interaction Detection which determined the factors important in explaining out-migration and provided a basis for the classification of those areas. The types of origin and destination areas are related to the characteristics of the migrants themselves, drawn from a sample of individual census returns from the 1968 census. The varied environments within Isère and France as a whole produce different types of migrants with varying characteristics and aspirations; who seek out different areas of the city in which to settle. The characteristics of the migrants are drawn from a sample survey of individual census returns from the 1968 census.