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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Coulter, Rory (University of St. Andrews); van Ham, Maarten (University of St. Andrews); Feijten, Peteke (University of St. Andrews) |
| Abstract: | Residential mobility decisions are known to be made at the household level. However, most empirical analyses of residential mobility relate moving behaviour to the housing and neighbourhood satisfaction and pre-move thoughts of individuals. If partners in a couple do not share evaluations of dwelling or neighbourhood quality or do not agree on whether moving is (un)desirable, ignoring these disagreements will lead to an inaccurate assessment of the strength of the links between moving desires and actual moves. This study is one of the first to investigate disagreements in moving desires between partners and the subsequent consequences of such disagreements for moving behaviour. Drawing on British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data, we find that disagreement about the desirability of moving is most likely where partners also disagree about the quality of their dwelling or neighbourhood. Panel logistic regression models show that the moving desires of both partners interact to affect the moving behaviour of couples. Only 7.6% of couples move if only the man desires to move, whereas 20.1% of shared moving desires lead to a subsequent move. |
| Keywords: | residential mobility, household decision making, moving desires, partner disagreements, satisfaction |
| JEL: | J61 R21 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5612&r=mig |
| By: | Ana Paula Martins |
| Abstract: | This research extends simple two-sector models in order to inquire the impact of the extent of coverage or enforcement of minimum wage legislation in one of the sectors on the equilibrium outcome. Two versions of institutional wage avoidance are presented. They may be seen as representing different institutional detection rules: one working through worker complaint, the other through firm sampling inspection (and enforcement) by the legal system. Both cases are modelled as enlargements of two dualistic models: Harris-Todaro (the wage in the other sector is market determined) and Bhagwati-Hamada (the wage in the other sector is institutionally fixed and coverage is complete). Impact on population flows of changes in degree of coverage (compliance) is also confronted with the effect of a change in the institutional wage for each scenario. |
| Keywords: | Migration, Mobility, Minimum Wages, Segmented Labor Markets, Informal Sector, Regional Labor Markets, Dualistic Models, Coverage. |
| JEL: | O15 O17 O18 R23 J38 J42 J61 J62 F22 K42 |
| Date: | 2011–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eei:rpaper:eeri_rp_2011_04&r=mig |
| By: | Glazyrina, Anna; Shaik, Saleem |
| Keywords: | Migration, Technical Efficiency measures, DEA, hyperbolic distance function, World-wide countries, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea11:98911&r=mig |
| By: | Tammaru, Tiit (University of Tartu); van Ham, Maarten (University of St. Andrews); Leetmaa, Kadri (University of Tartu); Kährik, Anneli (University of Tartu) |
| Abstract: | Large scale suburbanisation is a relatively recent phenomenon in East Central Europe and responsible for major socio-spatial changes in metropolitan areas. Little is known about the ethnic dimensions of this process. However, large minority population groups, mainly ethnic Russians, remained into the former member states of the Soviet Union after its dissolution in 1991. We use individual level Estonia Census data in order to investigate the ethnic dimensions of suburbanisation. The results show that ethnic minorities have a considerably lower probability to suburbanise compared to the majority population, and minorities are less likely to move to rural municipalities – the main sites of suburban change – in the suburban ring of cities. Individual characteristics that measure strong ties with the majority population and host society exert a positive effect on ethnic minority suburbanization, and on settling in rural municipalities. |
| Keywords: | suburbanisation, ethnicity, Census data, East Central Europe, Estonia |
| JEL: | J61 R21 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5617&r=mig |
| By: | Pellizzari, Michele (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | A large part of the Italian welfare system is designed and implemented at the very local level, leading to a high degree of heterogeneity in the type and the generosity of available programs across the country. As a consequence, studies of welfare use based on standard household surveys may fail to consider a large part of welfare recipients and provisions. In this paper I overcome such a problem by combining the analysis of welfare use in the Italian sample of the European Survey of Incomes and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) with the investigation of a new administrative archive that contains information on means tests certificates needed for applying to all kind of locally administered welfare programs. Results show that, without controlling for observable characteristics, migrants from outside the EU are more likely to receive or apply for welfare. Once individual and household characteristics are controlled for, such a residual welfare dependency is greatly reduced but does not disappear. Geographical location is a key factor, given that migrants tend to locate in the richest areas of the country, which also happen to be the ones where the local welfare is most generous. |
| Keywords: | migration, welfare |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5613&r=mig |
| By: | Matloob Piracha; Massimiliano Tani; Florin Vadean |
| Abstract: | Literature on the immigrant labour market mismatch has not explored the signal provided by the quality of home country work experience, particularly that of education-occupation mismatch prior to migration. We show that type of work experience in the home country plays a significant role in explaining immigrant mismatch in the destination country’s labour market. We use the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia and find that having been over-educated in the last job held in the home country increases the likelihood of being over-educated in Australia by about 45 percent. Whereas having been under-educated in the home country has an even stronger impact, as it increases the probability to be similarly mismatched in Australia by 61 percent. |
| Keywords: | immigration; education-occupation mismatch; sample selection |
| JEL: | C34 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1105&r=mig |
| By: | Bloemraad, Irene; de Graauw, Els |
| Keywords: | Sociology |
| Date: | 2011–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:1925563&r=mig |
| By: | Ortega, Francesc (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Peri, Giovanni (University of California, Davis) |
| Abstract: | Two large but separate bodies of literature analyze the economic effects of international trade and immigration. Given that several factors are important determinants of both trade and migration flows, the previous studies are vulnerable to a potentially serious omitted-variables bias, questioning the validity of existing estimates of the effects of trade and immigration on income. This paper provides estimates of the effects of trade and immigration on income in a unified framework. We also provide a useful decomposition of the channels at work in terms of the employment rate, the capital intensity, and total factor productivity of the receiving economy. We assemble panel data on immigration flows, output, employment and capital stocks for thirty OECD countries over the period 1980-2007. In order to identify the causal effects of trade and immigration on economic outcomes we adopt and extend the gravity-based approach in Frankel and Romer (1999). Our predictors for trade and immigration flows are based on geography and the demographic trends of each country’s trade and migration partners. We find that immigration has a large, positive effect on the employment rate of the receiving country. However, it leaves income per capita unaffected because of an offsetting negative effect on TFP. In contrast, trade flows appear to increase income per capita, mainly through TFP growth, and have no impact on the employment rate. The positive employment effect of immigration is the most robust of all the effects identified in this paper. |
| Keywords: | trade, international migration, income, geography |
| JEL: | F22 E25 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5604&r=mig |
| By: | Commission, Productivity (Productivity Commission) |
| Abstract: | Australia is largely a nation of immigrants. From the First Fleet to the post-war wave of assisted passages, to the present day, migration has always been at the centre of this country’s development. As time has passed, however, and our population has grown and spread, it is natural that the consensus that we must ‘populate or perish’ would give way to more diverse and nuanced perspectives about migration and population growth, and the policy implications.<p> Debate has ebbed and flowed over the years and flared up again in the lead-up to the federal election. However, that debate arguably was not as well informed by the facts as the topic deserves. Many numbers were cited, drawing on various demographic concepts, but these often appeared contradictory or based on only part of the story. As a consequence, the public is likely to have been left confused, bemused or misled on what is a key public policy issue.<p> In this Research Paper, the Commission has sought to improve the information base for public discussion by describing the main demographic trends and what lies behind them. That said, it does not seek to be exhaustive, but rather to focus on those features that seem most important. |
| Keywords: | immigration; population; migration; population growth |
| JEL: | O15 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:prodrp:2010_001&r=mig |
| By: | Chinmay, Tumbe |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a fact sheet of domestic and international remittances at the State level and across household characteristics and discusses the extent of remittance dependency, it’s growth since the 1990’s, the different uses of remittances across States, the possible impact on source region inequality and its importance in enhancing ‘financial inclusion.’ Data from the 49th and 64th round migration related National Sample Surveys, the Reserve Bank of India and the 2001 Census are used for the analysis. Some of the findings are: (a) The domestic remittance market was estimated to be $10 billion in 2007-08, 60% being Inter-State transfers and 80% directed towards rural households (b) Domestic remittances financed over 30% of household consumption expenditure in remittance receiving households that formed nearly 10% of rural India (c) Domestic remittance dependency was high in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and has generally grown since the 1990s, most notably in Orissa. (d) The top 25% households received around 50% of domestic remittances suggesting that remittances could be increasing source region inequality (e) 70% of domestic remittances were estimated to be channeled in the informal sector as against 25% in China revealing a huge opportunity for financial institutions to serve migrant workers (f) Kerala, Punjab and Goa accounted for over 40% of international remittance flows and are among the top remittance-dependent economies of the world. |
| Keywords: | International Remittances; Domestic Remittances |
| JEL: | F22 O15 F24 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29983&r=mig |
| By: | Michele Bruni; Claudio Tabacchi |
| Abstract: | The paper aims to provide a representation, as rich and complete as possible, of the Chinese labour market, both in terms of stock and flow, despite the fact that the statistical information is still rather poor and often inconsistent. It does then document the increasing differences in the level and trends of the main labour market variables at the provincial level. In order to reach a deeper comprehension of the dynamic of the Chinese labour market, the paper analyses two other extremely relevant phenomena: the so called “floating population” and the labour shortages that are more and more frequently affecting the coastal regions. After having provided a demographic background to the Lewis model of development with unlimited supply of labour, the paper shows in which periods China has been obliged to accumulate a large labour surplus, mainly in the agricultural sector, and in which periods and through which mechanisms, including ageing and internal migration, the process of deaccumulation has taken place. More specifically, the paper shows how up to now internal migrations have provided urban areas and coastal regions with an unlimited supply of labour, a factor that has played a major role in boosting the Chinese economic development and determining its typology. In order to reach this result, simple demographic tools have been utilized to estimate the net migration balance of each province and in each province of rural and urban areas, and therefore to define areas of departures and areas of arrival, information not provided by the literature on the floating population. Finally the paper provides a rough estimate of the disguised unemployment in agriculture and of its geographical distribution. After assessing which percentage can represent a possible supply of labour for the modern sector, it will be maintained that China not only is very close to the Lewis turning point (a situation that has already been reached in many coastal areas), but is going to become the world biggest importer of labour. In order to provide its population with living standards comparable to that of the western world, in a reasonable time interval, China needs to continue to grow at an extremely high rate. This will require the capacity to deal with a series of structural problems. Limiting our concerns to the labour market, that is characterized by increasing complexity and regional differentiation, high priority should be given to improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of labour market data; to abolish the one child policy that is totally obsolete in a situation that will be soon characterized by a structural lack of labour supply; to give to the Chinese citizens the right to freely move and change residence, while rapidly regularizing the existing floating population; to raise the legal age of retirement; to plan and implement a structure of t entries in vocational courses and higher educational paths coherent with the expected structure of the labour demand in terms of flows by occupation; to strengthen the Employment service system in order to improve skills matching at the local level, and facilitate the correct allocation of human resources over the national territory, in order to minimize the human and economic costs of future unavoidable internal migrations. |
| Keywords: | China; labour market; stock and flow; demography; internal migration; Lewis turning point |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:depeco:0649&r=mig |
| By: | Admir Antonio Betarelli Junior (Cedeplar-UFMG); Rodrigo Ferreira Simões (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | The main aim of this paper is to analyze the locational factors of urbanization in State of São Paulo (Brazil) between 2000 and 2005. Using a micro-regional database, we apply a set of techniques: a) the method shift-share (Esteban-Marquillas), b) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluste Analysisr. The main results indicate that the process of occupation of the countryside by economic activities and migration (began in the late 70s) has directly benefited the micro-regions of Campinas, São José dos Campos, Sorocaba, Ribeirão Preto, Santos and Jundiaí. The effects of this process have spilled over to the surrounding regions, creating the present competitive and locational advantages, and forming urban agglomerations in the State area. |
| Keywords: | Locational factors; Internalization of the industry; Shift-share; Multivariate Analysis; Brazil. |
| JEL: | C02 R11 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td418&r=mig |