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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Östh, John (Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden); van Ham, Maarten (School of Geography & Geosciences, University of St Andrews, Scotland UK); Niedomysl, Thomas (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p> International marriages are both a result and a driver of higher levels of global mobility and interconnectivity. Increasing ease of air travel for work and leisure, rising numbers of individuals studying, working and travelling abroad, and the emergence of international partnering websites have expanded traditionally local marriage fields – the geographical areas where people meet the partner – to global proportions. This expansion has increased the chance of meeting a potential partner from abroad resulting in an increase in international marriage migration. Recruiting a partner from abroad is surrounded by prejudice and stigma. ‘Knowledge’ about the characteristics of the individual ‘importing’ a partner from abroad is often based on anecdotic evidence and myths. In this paper we explore the factors that determine the probability that a native Swede recruits a partner from abroad. Along with various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the Swede we will pay specific attention to the geographies of marriage migration: the opportunity structure. This study uses longitudinal population data for the whole of Sweden, containing information on all individuals who lived in Sweden between 1994 and 2004. The results from multinomial logistic regression models shed a unique light on gendered and geographic patterns of partner recruitment.<p> |
| Keywords: | Migration; International marriage; Marriage migartion; Demographic characteristics; Socioeconomic characteristics; Globalisation; Sweden |
| JEL: | F22 |
| Date: | 2010–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifswps:2009_021&r=mig |
| By: | Falck, Oliver (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Heblich, Stephan (Max Planck Institute for Economics); Lameli, Alfred (University of Marburg); Suedekum, Jens (University of Duisburg-Essen) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are taken from a unique linguistic survey conducted between 1879 and 1888 in 45,000 schools. Matching this information to 439 current German regions, we construct a dialect similarity matrix. Using a gravity analysis, we show that current cross-regional migration is positively affected by historical dialect similarity. This suggests that cultural identities formed in the past still influence economic exchange today. |
| Keywords: | gravity, internal migration, culture, language, dialects, Germany |
| JEL: | R23 Z10 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4743&r=mig |
| By: | Laudeline Auriol; Bernard Felix; Martin Schaaper |
| Abstract: | Human resources are recognised as being key to the creation, commercialisation and diffusion of innovation. Among them, doctorate holders are not only the most qualified in terms of educational attainment, but also those who are specifically trained to conduct research. In 2004, the OECD launched a collaborative project with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and Eurostat aimed at developing internationally comparable indicators on the labour market, career path and mobility of doctorate holders. This Working Paper presents the second edition of the technical guidelines used in the framework of the Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH) project. The technical guidelines are composed of: i) the methodological guidelines; ii) a core model questionnaire and instruction manual; and iii) the output tables used for reporting data at the international level and related definitions. This second edition builds on the experience resulting from the first large scale data collection, which was based on the first edition of the technical guidelines released in 2007. In addition to a number of basic adjustments, it proposes new ways to measure post-doctoral positions and types of mobility, including international mobility. The current draft is the result of discussions among the members of the CDH expert group. Its aim is to provide guidance to countries that wish to implement the project at national level.<P>Suivi des carrières et de la mobilité des titulaires de doctorats : proposition de directives, questionnaire modèle et indicateurs – deuxième édition – le projet OCDE / Institut statistique de l’UNESCO / EUROSTAT sur les carrières des titulaires de doctorats<BR>Les ressources humaines ont un rôle déterminant pour la création, la commercialisation et la diffusion d’innovations. Parmi cette population, les titulaires de doctorat ne sont pas seulement ceux les plus qualifiés en terme de niveau d’éducation, mais aussi ceux qui ont été spécifiquement formés à la recherche. En 2004, l’OCDE a lancé un projet en collaboration avec l’Institut statistique de l’UNESCO et Eurostat ayant pour objectif de développer des indicateurs sur le marché du travail, les carrières et la mobilité des titulaires de doctorat comparables au plan international. Ce document de travail présente la seconde édition des lignes directrices utilisées dans le cadre du projet sur les Carrières des Titulaires de Doctorat (CTD). Les lignes directrices se composent : i) des directives méthodologiques ; ii) d’un questionnaire modèle et manuel d’instruction ; et iii) des tableaux de sortie utilisés pour recueillir les données au niveau international et des définitions qui y sont associées. Cette seconde édition résulte de l’expérience acquise au cours de la première collecte de données de grande échelle, laquelle était fondée sur la première édition des lignes directrices datant de 2007. En complément d’un cerain nombre d’ajustements de base, elles proposent de nouvelles pistes de mesure des emplois « postdocs » et des types de mobilité. Le document dans sa présente forme est le résultat des discussions menées par le groupe des experts CDT. Il est destiné à guider les pays qui souhaitent implanter le projet au niveau national. |
| Date: | 2010–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2010/1-en&r=mig |
| By: | Alesina, Alberto (Harvard University); Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris); Giuliano, Paola (University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Abstract: | Flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers to be efficient. Otherwise, firms can take advantage of the immobility of workers and extract monopsony rents. In cultures with strong family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets to avoid moving and limiting the monopsony power of firms, even though regulation generates lower employment and income. Empirically, we do find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages, are less often employed and support more stringent labor market regulations. There are also positive cross-country correlations between the strength of family ties and labor market rigidities. Finally, we find positive correlations between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the twenty first century and family values prevailing before World War II, which suggests that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots. |
| Keywords: | family values, labor regulation |
| JEL: | E0 P16 Z10 Z13 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4747&r=mig |
| By: | Hunt, Jennifer (McGill University) |
| Abstract: | Using the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, I examine how immigrants perform relative to natives in activities likely to increase U.S. productivity, according to the type of visa on which they first entered the United States. Immigrants who first entered on a student/trainee visa or a temporary work visa have a large advantage over natives in wages, patenting, commercializing or licensing patents, and publishing. In general, this advantage is explained by immigrants’ higher education and field of study, but this is not the case for publishing, and immigrants are more likely to start companies than natives with similar education. Immigrants without U.S. education and who arrived at older ages suffer a wage handicap, which offsets savings to the United States from their having completed more education abroad. Immigrants who entered with legal permanent residence do not outperform natives for any of the outcomes considered. |
| Keywords: | immigration, innovation, entrepreneurship, visa type, wages |
| JEL: | J61 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4745&r=mig |
| By: | Munirul H Nabin; Pasquale M Sgro |
| Abstract: | Despite border enforcement and penalties for firms that hire illegal migrants, the presence of illegal migrants in most economies still persists. This paper assumes a Ricardian economy and analyzes migration of illegal unskilled workers in a model of Cournot Duopoly where firms are producing homogenous and non-traded goods, and hiring illegal migrants. A two-stage simultaneous move game is set up: In stage 1, for a given technology and vigilance level, each individual firm will decide whether to hire illegal migrants. In stage 2, each firm will choose the Cournot output level. Using this structure, we demonstrate that hiring illegal migrants is not necessarily welfare-reducing for a given industry and furthermore the presence of illegal migrants creates more employment for domestic workers. |
| Keywords: | Illegal Migrants, Vigilance, Cournot Competition and Welfare |
| JEL: | F22 L10 O39 |
| Date: | 2010–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dkn:econwp:eco_2010_01&r=mig |
| By: | Christopher L. Smith |
| Abstract: | The employment-to-population rate of high-school aged youth has fallen by about 20 percentage points since the late 1980s. The human capital implications of this decline depend on the reasons behind it. In this paper, I demonstrate that growth in the number of less-educated immigrants may have considerably reduced youth employment rates. This finding stands in contrast to previous research that generally identifies, at most, a modest negative relationship across states or cities between immigration levels and adult labor market outcomes. At least two factors are at work: there is greater overlap between the jobs that youth and less-educated adult immigrants traditionally do, and youth labor supply is more responsive to immigration-induced changes in their wage. Despite a slight increase in schooling rates in response to immigration, I find little evidence that reduced employment rates are associated with higher earnings ten years later in life. This raises the possibility that an immigration-induced reduction in youth employment, on net, hinders youths' human capital accumulation. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2010-03&r=mig |
| By: | Angelucci, M.; De Giorgi, G.; Rangel, M.; Rasul, I. |
| Abstract: | This paper documents how the structure of extended family networks in rural Mexico relates to the poverty and inequality of the village of residence. Using the Hispanic naming convention, we construct within-village extended family networks in 504 poor rural villages. Family networks are larger (both in the number of members and as a share of the village population) and out-migration is lower the poorer and the less unequal the village of residence. Our results are consistent with the extended family being a source of informal insurance to its members. |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/18425/&r=mig |
| By: | Marios Zachariadis |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the relation between immigration and prices for a large number of cities across the world over the period from 1990 to 2006. Aggregate immigration ratios are shown to have a negative impact on international relative prices. The evidence is consistent with demand-side and supply-side considerations both being relevant for the price-reducing effect of immigration, with the latter offering a more likely explanation at annual frequencies during this period. Our findings regarding the inverse relation of immigration and prices and the channels via which this operates across international cities, are broadly consistent wih Lach (2007) and Cortes (2008) who investigate the same relation within Israel and for the US respectively. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, prices, inflation, international price differences |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:3-2010&r=mig |
| By: | Michael Rogan; Likani Lebani; Nompumelelo Nzimande |
| Abstract: | In a globalising world, the pace of human mobility has increased alongside flows of capital and goods. Regional integration and trade liberalisation have accompanied these trends and have, arguably, received more attention from both academic researchers and policymakers. Human movement, however, cannot be de-linked from other social and economic events and it is becoming critical to undertake research that identifies the links between human migration and these events. |
| Date: | 2009–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:30&r=mig |
| By: | Eldridge Moses; Derek Yu |
| Abstract: | In South Africa, the causes of migration and its impact on society first became entrenched, institutionalised and studied in the latter decades of the 19th Century as mining activity catapulted the country onto the world economic stage. As South Africa evolved into a more modern, capitalist society and agriculture became a less attractive employment option due to a period of crisis at the end of the 1800s, various population groups started migrating towards urban centres. Rural Afrikaners who had been displaced from their land and Black labour migrants constituted the bulk of migrants to urban centres. These population sub-groups were quite different in the motivations and outcomes of their migration, with many of the rural Afrikaners being absorbed into state employment while Black movers were mostly labour migrants. |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:32&r=mig |
| By: | Wouterse, Fleur |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a two-stage conditional maximum likelihood procedure and new data from Ghana to identify the determinants of rural-urban migration at the individual, household and community levels, with a particular focus on rural services. The econometric evidence supports the theoretical expectation that human-capital and network variables as well as assets are important determinants of migration. Taking the possible endogeneity of rural services into account, the evidence suggests that rural service improvements aimed at reducing economic isolation can enhance labor mobility and free up on-farm labor for migration by lowering transaction costs. |
| Keywords: | Rural-urban migration, rural services, Development strategies, |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:952&r=mig |
| By: | Danzer, Alexander M. (Royal Holloway, University of London); Yaman, Firat (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | Studies that investigate the effect of the regional ethnic composition on immigrant outcomes have been complicated by the self-selection of ethnic minorities into specific neighbourhoods. We analyse the impact of own-ethnic concentration on the language proficiency of immigrants by exploiting the fact that the initial placement of guest-workers after WWII was determined by labour demanding firms and the federal labour administration and hence exogenous to immigrant workers. Combining several data sets, we find a small but robust and significant negative effect of ethnic concentration on immigrants' language ability. Simulation results of a choice model in which location and learning decisions are taken simultaneously confirm the presence of the effect. Immigrants with high learning costs are inclined to move to ethnic enclaves, so that the share of German-speakers would increase only modestly even under the counterfactual scenario of a regionally equal distribution of immigrants across Germany. |
| Keywords: | enclave, ethnic concentration, language proficiency, immigrants, Instrumental variable, random utility model |
| JEL: | J61 R23 F22 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4742&r=mig |
| By: | Tu, Jiong (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada - Labour Program) |
| Abstract: | It has been well documented that immigrants' clustering of residence in large cities has been associated with the creation of a number of ethnic enclaves. The intensive exposure to own-ethnic population could affect immigrant labour market involvement positively or negatively. However, no extant Canadian research has provided empirical evidence on the sign of these enclave effects. In this paper, I use the 1981-2001 Censuses to estimate the impact of residence in ethnic enclaves on male immigrants' labour force participation rate and employment probability. For recent immigrants who arrived in Canada within the preceding ten years, the intensity of enclave residence is negatively associated with their labour force participation rate, but positively related to their employment probability in all censuses. However, living in an enclave has no significant effect on the labour force activity of older immigrants who have lived in Canada for more than twenty years. Since immigrants could be attracted to areas with more job opportunities and hence enlarge the size of an enclave, the estimated effects from probit regressions might be positively biased. I then use instrumental variable (IV) method to address this endogeneity problem, and the IV estimates are consistent with the probit regression results. |
| Keywords: | immigrant, ethnicity, enclave, labour force participation, employment, Canada |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4744&r=mig |
| By: | Vimal Ranchhod |
| Abstract: | How do poor households respond to the cessation of cash transfers in developing countries? South Africa's generous social pension system results in most of the poor elderly being the primary 'breadwinner' in the household. I estimate the magnitude of the changes in household composition and labour force activity amongst the resident members of the household, that correlate with a pensioner leaving the household. I use nationally representative matched panel data from several waves of the South African Labour Force Surveys. Compositional changes include the out-migration of school-aged children, and in-migration of middle aged females and older adults of either gender. More than 1 in 4 losing households get an additional older adult. For people who maintain their residency status across waves, I nd large and statistically signi cant increases in employment rates for middle aged females and males (9.3 and 8.1 percentage points in each case), as well as for older adult females and males (10.3 percentage points in each case). For middle aged adults, this is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in labour supply. |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:35&r=mig |
| By: | Alassane DRABO; Christian EBEKE |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyze the respective impacts of remittances, health aid and public spending on the access to health care services in developing countries. The specific objectives are threefold. Firstly, we quantify the differential impacts of remittances on the access to public and private health care services. Secondly, we determine whether remittances and foreign health aid are complements or substitutes in the access to health care services. Lastly, we evaluate the heterogeneity of the impact of remittances in the access to public and private health care services by quintile of income. We provide a rigorous econometric analysis by controlling for the endogeneity of remittances, public spending and foreign aid. We find that remittances, health aid and public spending are important determinants of access to health services in recipients' countries. Another interesting result comes from the fact that, remittances lead to a sectorial glide in the uses of health care services from the public to the private sector for the intermediate income class. This result holds also for the richer quintiles that are the major recipients of remittances in developing countries. Moreover, remittances and foreign health aid are complements for the access to health care services in "low" income countries. Finally, these results suggest that policies aiming at increasing remittances are appropriate for developing countries but also that, the "optimal" therapy for the "low" income countries is the combination of remittances and foreign aid. |
| Keywords: | Remittances, access to health care services, developing countries, health aid, instrumental variables method, public spending |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdi:wpaper:1125&r=mig |