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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Wouterse, F. S. |
| Abstract: | "This paper applies Gini and concentration coefficient decomposition as well as the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty index and a welfare function to new data from Burkina Faso to test the relationship between long-distance international migration and internal migration within the African continent and inequality, poverty, and social welfare in rural households. Findings support our theoretical expectation that this relationship varies by migrant destination. We find evidence of a negative correlation between internal migration and inequality and a positive correlation between international migration and inequality. International migration, which involves high costs and risks, appears to be mainly accessible to already wealthy households. Comparatively high remittances from this form of migration are associated with greater inequality. We also find that although international migration is associated with a much lower incidence, depth, and severity of poverty, its impact on social welfare is limited because the beneficiaries of international migration do not include the rural poor." from authors' abstract |
| Keywords: | International migration, Internal migration, Rural households, Poverty, Social welfare, Urban-rural linkages, nonfarm, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:786&r=mig |
| By: | Christian Dustmann; Nikolaos Theodoropoulos |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates educational attainment and economic behaviour of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain. Despite their strong educational achievements, ethnic minority immigrants and their descendants exhibit lower employment probabilities than their white native born peers. Although unconditional wages of British born ethnic minorities appear to be slightly higher than those of their white native born peers, their wages would be considerably lower if they had the same characteristics and regional allocation. Differences in wage offer distributions hardly account for the employment differences of British born ethnic minorities. Further, British born ethnic minorities have lower employment propensities for the same wages than native born whites. We examine possible explanations for these gaps. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic Minorities/Immigrants, Education, Employment, Wages |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:7-2008&r=mig |
| By: | Stephan Bartke; Reimund Schwarze |
| Abstract: | Research findings have proven that the willingness to take risks is distributed heterogeneously among individuals. In the general public, there is a widely held notion that individuals of certain nationalities tend to hold certain typical risk preferences. Furthermore, religious beliefs are thought to explain differences in risk-preparedness on the individual level. We analyze these two possible determinants of individual risk attitudes: nationality and religion. First addressing the study of risk attitudes in a literature review, we then test our hypotheses empirically using the large, representative German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). To understand the importance of nationality, we focus on emigrants to Germany. The key findings are: (1) Nationality is not a valid determinant of risk attitudes. It can be broken down into several constituent factors including religion. (2) Religiousness is a significant determinant of risk attitudes. Religious persons are less risk-tolerant than atheists. Moreover, religious affiliation matters: Muslims are less risk-tolerant than Christians. |
| Keywords: | Risk Aversion, Nationality, Immigrants, Religion, Germany |
| JEL: | D10 D80 D81 J15 Z12 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp131&r=mig |
| By: | Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga |
| Abstract: | Unilateral migration policies impose externalities on other countries. In order to try to internalize these externalities, countries sign bilateral migration agreements. One element of these agreements is the emphasis on enforcing migration policies: immigrant-receiving countries agree to allow more immigrants from their emigrant-sending partner if they cooperate in enforcing their migration policy at the border. I present a simple theoretical model that justifies this behavior in a two-country setting with welfare maximizing governments. These governments establish migration quotas that need to be enforced at a cost. I prove that uncoordinated migration policies are inefficient. Both countries can improve welfare by exchanging a more "generous" migration quota for expenditure on enforcement policy. Contrary to what could be expected, this result does not depend on the enforcement technology that both countries employ. |
| Keywords: | international migration, cooperation, migration policy |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2008–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:755.08&r=mig |
| By: | Ximena Soruco Author-X-Name_First: Ximena Author-X-Name_Last: Soruco; Giorgina Piani Author-X-Name_First: Giorgina Author-X-Name_Last: Piani; Máximo Rossi Author-X-Name_First: Máximo Author-X-Name_Last: Rossi |
| Abstract: | This study seeks to identify, measure and analyze possible discriminatory behaviors in southern Ecuador. There are three main findings. First, emigration is perceived as a social problem. Second, emigrant families are seen as economically “irrational” because they are not perceived to be investing remittances in productive and sustainable activities; emigrants are additionally portrayed as “irresponsible” because they leave their families in search of better living conditions. Third, emigrants’ children are perceived as doing worse in school than their peers and as living outside the society at large. Observed discrimination follows a cultural pattern: persons closer to the dominant culture are proportionately more to discriminate against emigrants and their families, and women show more discriminatory attitudes than men. |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:3244&r=mig |
| By: | Hellerstein, Judith K. (University of Maryland); McInerney, Melissa (College of William and Mary); Neumark, David (University of California, Irvine) |
| Abstract: | We specify and implement a test for the importance of network effects in determining the establishments at which people work, using recently-constructed matched employer-employee data at the establishment level. We explicitly measure the importance of network effects for groups broken out by race, ethnicity, and various measures of skill, for networks generated by residential proximity. The evidence indicates that labor market networks play an important role in hiring, more so for minorities and the less-skilled, especially among Hispanics, and that labor market networks appear to be race-based. |
| Keywords: | networks, race, ethnicity, immigrants |
| JEL: | J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3750&r=mig |
| By: | Eliana V. Jimenez; Richard P.C. Brown (School of Economics, The University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the impacts of remittances on poverty with survey data from Tonga, a poor Pacific island country highly dependent on international migrants’ remittances. The sensitivity of poverty impacts to estimation method is tested using two methods to estimate migrants’ counterfactual incomes; bootstrap prediction with self-selection testing and propensity score matching. We find consistency between the two methods, both showing a substantial reduction in the incidence and depth of poverty with migration and remittances. With further robustness checks there is strong evidence that the poorest households benefit from migrants’ remittances, and that increased migration opportunities can contribute to poverty alleviation. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:375&r=mig |
| By: | Adama Konseiga (GREDI, Département d'économique, Université de Sherbrooke) |
| Abstract: | Parental migration is often found to be negatively correlated with child health in Africa, yet the causal mechanisms are poorly understood. The paper uses a dataset that provides information from the respondent parent on child morbidity both in the rural and urban settings. Households first endogenously determine whether they will gain from participating in migration and, if they do, whether they will leave the children behind or not. The final choice is made to ensure the optimal survival chances for the child. This paper contributes to understanding the health consequences of raising the children in the context of increasing urban poverty in Nairobi, Kenya. The findings indicate that households who migrated together with their children in the slums of Nairobi experience higher child morbidity (43 per cent have at least one sick child in the last one month) as compared to households who leave children in their upcountry homes (31 per cent of morbidity rate). Even though children of migrants are safer upcountry, not all households can afford this strategy. Households are able to choose this strategy only if they have a strong social support network in their origin community and/or they are big size households. This is an important finding in targeting the Millennium Development Goals. |
| Keywords: | Childhood morbidity, Split migration, Incidental truncation, Informal settlements Nairobi, Kenya |
| JEL: | C31 D13 I12 R23 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shr:wpaper:08-07&r=mig |