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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Erzo F.P. Luttmer; Monica Singhal |
| Abstract: | Is culture an important determinant of preferences for redistribution? To separate the effect of culture from the effect of the economic and institutional environment ("context"), we relate immigrants' preferences for redistribution to the average preference in their birth countries, controlling extensively for individual characteristics and country-of-residence fixed effects. We find a strong positive relationship. This cultural effect is larger for non-voters, those with shorter tenure in the country of residence, and those who move to countries with a large number of immigrants from their own birth countries. Immigrants from countries with a higher preference for redistribution are also more likely to vote for a more pro-redistribution political party. The effect of culture persists strongly into the second generation. |
| JEL: | D72 H23 Z10 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14268&r=mig |
| By: | Stefanie Schurer (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This study comprehensively portrays the labour market outcomes of second generation immigrants in Germany. Special attention is attributed to observable heterogeneity in terms of country of origin and unobservable heterogeneity in terms of parental human capital, neighbourhood effects, and mixed marriage background. Pooled, static and dynamic panel data models, and a decomposition analysis are used to estimate and explain the average differences in hourly wages and unemployment probabilities separately for men and women. The results suggest that the second generation cannot be considered as one homogeneous group: some groups perform better, equally or worse than comparable German natives. Also, relative outcomes in wages depend mainly on observable characteristics, whereas relative unemployment risks are mainly driven by unobservable factors. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2008n14&r=mig |
| By: | Constant, Amelie F. (DIW DC, Georgetown University and IZA) |
| Abstract: | In this paper I assert that the entrepreneurial spirit can also exist in salaried jobs. I study the determinants of wages and the labor market success of two kinds of entrepreneurial women in Germany – self-employed and salaried businesswomen – and investigate whether ethnicity is important in these challenging jobs. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel I estimate selection adjusted wage regressions for both types of businesswomen by country of origin. I find that self-employment offers businesswomen a lucrative avenue with higher monetary rewards, albeit for a shorter spell. If salaried businesswomen went into self-employment, they would receive considerably higher wages and for at least 30 years. However, if self-employed businesswomen went into salaried jobs, their wages would decline, suggesting that it is the self-employment sector that offers better opportunities and monetary success. Self-employed women in Germany fare well and most importantly, success does not depend on their ethnicity. |
| Keywords: | businesswomen, entrepreneurship, self-employment, economics of minorities, immigrants wage differentials |
| JEL: | M13 J23 J15 J61 J31 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3644&r=mig |
| By: | Amelie Constant; Martin Kahanec; Klaus F. Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | The paper studies opinions and attitudes towards immigrants and minorities and their interactions with other barriers to minorities' economic integration. Specifically, we consider the minority experts' own perceptions about these issues, the veracities and repercussions of unfavorable attitudes of natives. Employing newly available data from the IZA Expert Opinion Survey 2007 we depict main trends in the integration situation of ethnic minorities in Europe in a comparative manner. Using a unique dataset, this innovative study is the first to gauge the perspectives of expert stakeholders and ethnic minorities on their integration situation and the main barriers that hinder it. Robust findings show that ethnic minorities: face integration problems; natives' general negative attitudes are a key factor of their challenging situation; discrimination is acknowledged as the single most important integration barrier; low education and self-confidence as well as cultural differences also hinder integration; minorities want change and that it come about by policies based on the principle of equal treatment. Well designed integration policies that take the specific situation of the respective ethnic minority into account, are persistent and enforce anti-discrimination laws are desirable. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes, opinions, immigrants, ethnic minorities, labor market |
| JEL: | J15 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp812&r=mig |
| By: | Sanromá, Esteve (University of Barcelona); Ramos, Raul (University of Barcelona); Simón, Hipólito (University of Alicante) |
| Abstract: | The existing literature on immigrant assimilation has highlighted the imperfect portability of human capital acquired by immigrants in their country of origin (Chiswick, 1978; Friedberg, 2000). This would explain the low levels of assimilation upon arrival in the new country, as well as the wide initial earnings gap. Recent studies (Chiswick and Miller, 2007 or Green, Kler and Leeves, 2007, among others) have dealt with this issue from the perspective of over-education. This study analyses the portability of immigrants’ human capital into the Spanish job market according to their geographic origin. It also aims to compare the most notable empirical regularities found in the aforementioned studies with the situation in Spain. The results obtained indicate differing degrees of the transferability of human capital depending on geographic origin, as transferability is greater for countries that are highly developed or have a similar culture or language and lower for developing countries and those with more distant cultures. The evidence is relatively disparate for the two components of human capital as although it is particularly clear for schooling, it is less so for experience. The results also confirm that in Spain immigrants suffer from over-education, in both incidence and intensity, implying a higher relative wage penalty and a greater negative impact on immigrants from the second group of countries. As an immigrant’s stay in Spain advances, a process of assimilation does exist, except for Asians and, in some circumstances, those from Sub-Saharan Africa, though the pace is very slow. |
| Keywords: | immigration, over-education, wages, assimilation |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J24 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3649&r=mig |
| By: | Monika Sander |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how immigrants’ Body Mass Index (BMI) changes with increasing years since migration in Germany. The data are drawn from three waves (2002, 2004, and 2006) of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). The results indicate a clear increase of the BMI with additional years in Germany for men and women. |
| Keywords: | Body Mass Index, immigrants, SOEP |
| JEL: | C23 I12 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp122&r=mig |
| By: | Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina (San Diego State University, California); Georges, Annie (National Center for Children and Families); Pozo, Susan (Western Michigan University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we focus on the use of remittances to school children remaining in migrant communities in Haiti. After addressing the endogeneity of remittance receipt, we find that remittances raise school attendance for all children in some communities regardless of whether they have household members abroad or not; however, in other communities, we only observe this effect among children living in households that do not experience any family out-migration. Our finding underscores the simultaneous and opposing impacts of household out-migration and remittance receipt on children’s schooling. While the receipt of remittances by the household lifts budget constraints and raises the children’s likelihood of being schooled, the disruptive effect of household out-migration imposes an economic burden on the remaining household members and reduces their likelihood of being schooled. As such, remittances ameliorate the negative disruptive effect of household out-migration on children’s schooling and, given the substantial costs of schooling in Haiti, contribute to the accumulation of human capital in the midst of extreme poverty. |
| Keywords: | migration, remittances, education, Haiti |
| JEL: | F22 O54 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3657&r=mig |
| By: | David McKenzie (World Bank, BREAD and IZA); John Gibson (University of Waikato); Halahingano Rohorua (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | Temporary migration programs for unskilled workers are increasingly being proposed as a way to both relieve labour shortages in developed countries and aid development in sending countries without entailing many of the costs associated with permanent migration. New Zealand’s new Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program is designed with both these goals in mind, enabling unskilled workers from the Pacific Islands to work in horticulture and viticulture in New Zealand for a period of up to seven months. However, the development impact on a sending country will depend not only on how many workers participate, but also on who participates. This paper uses new survey data from Tonga to examine the process of selecting Tongans to work in the RSE, and to analyze how pro-poor the recruitment process has been to date. We find that the workers recruited come from largely agricultural backgrounds, and have lower average incomes and schooling levels than Tongans not participating in the program. We also compare the characteristics of RSE workers to those of Tongans applying to permanently migrate to New Zealand through the Pacific Access Category, and find the RSE workers to be more rural and less educated. The RSE therefore does seem to have succeeded in creating new opportunities for relatively poor and unskilled Tongans to work in New Zealand. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:0807&r=mig |
| By: | Ofer Malamud; Abigail Wozniak |
| Abstract: | College-educated workers are twice as likely as high school graduates to make lasting long-distance moves, but little is known about the role of college itself in determining geographic mobility. Unobservable characteristics related to selection into college might also drive the relationship between college education and geographic mobility. We explore this question using a number of methods to analyze both the 1980 Census and longitudinal sources. We conclude that the causal impact of college completion on subsequent mobility is large. We introduce new instrumental variables that allow us to identify educational attainment and veteran status separately in a sample of men whose college decisions were exogenously influenced by their draft risk during the Vietnam War. Our preferred IV estimates imply that graduation increases the probability that a man resides outside his birth state by approximately 35 percentage points, a magnitude nearly twice as large as the OLS migration differential between college and high school graduates. IV estimates of graduation’s impact on total distance moved are even larger, with IV estimates that exceed OLS considerably. We provide evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1979 that our large IV estimates are plausible and likely explained by heterogeneous treatment effects. Finally, we provide some suggestive evidence on the mechanisms driving the relationship between college completion and mobility. |
| Keywords: | geographic mobility, college, higher education, vietnam |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:har:wpaper:0811&r=mig |
| By: | Phan, Diep (U of Wisconsin); Coxhead, Ian |
| Abstract: | Vietnam’s economic boom during the transition to a market economy has centered on very rapid growth in some sectors and some provinces, yet poverty has diminished across the entire country. With capital investments highly concentrated by province and sector, geographic labor mobility may be critical in spreading the gains from growth. Conversely, rising income inequality may be attributable in part to impediments to migration. We first use census data to investigate migration patterns and determinants. We then examine the role of migration as an influence on cross-province income differentials. The former analysis robustly confirms economic motives for migration but also suggests the existence of poverty-related labor immobility at the provincial level. Examination of income differentials between pairs of provinces reveals that the impact of migration on inequality can be either negative or positive. A robust inequality-reducing impact of migration is found for migration flows into provinces where most of Vietnam’s trade-oriented industrial investments are located. |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:wisagr:507&r=mig |
| By: | Tapan Biswas; Jo McHardy (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield); Michael Nolan |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the scenario of intra-UK migration amongst its four regions. The level of intra-UK migration is significant and is increasing over time. Using several measures of the balance in migration we observe that, broadly speaking, the balance is improving. We also examine the impact of changes in the regional per capita GDPs and unemployment levels on regional migration using panel analysis. Several authors find these to be significant factors in international migration. However, it seems that neither regional per capita GDP nor the unemployment level has a significant effect on regional migration in the UK (although the regression coefficients have the correct signs). In the case of regional migration in the UK, it is other characteristics of the source and destination regions which appear to matter most. |
| Keywords: | Inter-Regional Migration, UK |
| JEL: | J61 O50 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2008003&r=mig |
| By: | Bharadwaj, Prashant (Yale U); Khwaja, Asim Ijaz (Harvard U); Mian, Atif (U of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | The partition of India in 1947 along ostensibly religious lines into India, Pakistan, and what eventually became Bangladesh resulted in one of the largest and most rapid migrations in human history. We compile district level census data from archives to quantify the scale of migratory flows across the sub-continent. We estimate total migratory inflows of 14.5 million and outflows of 17.9 million, implying 3.4 million "missing" people. We also uncover a substantial degree of regional variability. Flows were much larger along the western border, higher in cities and areas close to the border, and dependent heavily on the size of the "minority" religious group. The migratory flows also display a "relative replacement effect" with in-migrants moving to places that saw greater out-migration. |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp08-029&r=mig |
| By: | Risse, Mathias (Harvard U) |
| Abstract: | My goal here is twofold: First, I wish to make a plea for the relevance of moral considerations in debates about immigration. Too often, immigration debates are conducted solely from the standpoint of "what is good for us," without regard for the justifiability of immigration policies to those excluded. Second, I wish to offer a standpoint that demonstrates why one should think of immigration as a moral problem that must be considered in the context of global justice. More specifically, I will argue that the earth belongs to humanity in common and that this matters for assessing immigration policy. The case I will be particularly interested in is immigration into the United States, where immigration policy continues to be a hotly debated topic. The approach of this paper implies that illegal immigrants should be naturalized and more widespread immigration should be permitted. However, that discussion takes the form of a case study: the relevant considerations apply generally. |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp08-007&r=mig |