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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Løken, Katrine Vellesen (University of Bergen); Lommerud, Kjell Erik (University of Bergen); Lundberg, Shelly (University of Washington) |
| Abstract: | Norwegian registry data is used to investigate the location decisions of a full population cohort of young adults as they complete their education, establish separate households and form their own families. We find that the labor market opportunities and family ties of both partners affect these location choices. Surprisingly, married men live significantly closer to their own parents than do married women, even if they have children, and this difference cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics. The principal source of excess female distance from parents in this population is the relatively low mobility of men without a college degree, particularly in rural areas. Despite evidence that intergenerational resource flows, such as childcare and eldercare, are particularly important between women and their parents, the family connections of husbands appear to dominate the location decisions of less-educated married couples. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational; proximity; marriage; location; decisions intergenerational proximity; marriage; location decisions |
| JEL: | J12 J16 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2011_003&r=mig |
| By: | Werding, Martin; McLennan, Stuart |
| Abstract: | Social insurance and other arrangements for funding health-care benefits often establish long-term relationships, effectively providing insurance against lasting changes in an individual's health status, engaging in burden-smoothing over the life cycle, and entailing additional elements of redistribution. International portability regarding this type of cover is, therefore, difficult to establish, but at the same time rather important both for the individuals affected and for the health funds involved in any instance of an international change in work place or residence. In this paper, full portability of health-cost cover is taken to mean that mobile individuals can, at a minimum, find comparable continuation of coverage under a different system and that this does not impose external costs or benefits on other members of the systems in the source and destination countries. Both of these aspects needs to be addressed in a meaningful portability framework for health systems, as lacking or incomplete portability may not only lead to significant losses in coverage for an individual who considers becoming mobile which may impede mobility that is otherwise likely to be beneficial. It may also lead to financial losses, or windfall gains, for sources of health-cost funding which can ultimately lead to a detrimental process of risk segmentation across national health systems. Against this background, even the most advanced sets of existing portability rules, such as those agreed upon multilaterally at the EU-level or laid down in bilateral agreements on social protection, appear to be untargeted, inconsistent and therefore potentially harmful, either for migrants or for health funds operated at both ends of the migration process, and hence for other individuals who are covered there. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Health Law,Insurance Law |
| Date: | 2011–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:63929&r=mig |
| By: | Annette Lovoi; Julia Brown; Barbara Magnoni; Rebecca Thornton |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new evidence on migration and risk among Mexican migrants to the United States living in the New York City area. The paper examines the potential demand for formal risk mitigating mechanisms by studying some of the risks facing this community on both sides of the border, and provide greater understanding of their current informal risk management tools. |
| Keywords: | Financial Sector :: Remittances, Mexican Migrants, New York, Supply Side, Migrant-Linked Microinsurance models, Barriers to Access to Insurance, Products, Legal and Regulatory Barriers, Distribution Channels, Payments Channels, Demand Side, Transnationa, Microinsurance Products, remittances |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:9406&r=mig |
| By: | Aida Caldera Sánchez; Dan Andrews |
| Abstract: | Residential mobility is closely tied to housing market forces and has important implications for labour mobility and the efficient allocation of resources across the economy. This paper analyses patterns of residential mobility across OECD countries and the role of housing policies in enhancing or hampering residential mobility. Based on cross-sectional household data for 25 countries, the results suggest that differences in residential mobility across countries are partially related to differences in public policies. After controlling for household and country-specific characteristics, residential mobility is higher in countries with lower transaction costs, more responsive housing supply, lower rent controls and tenant protection. Residential mobility tends also to be higher in environments with greater access to credit, suggesting that financial deregulation – by lowering borrowing costs and facilitating access to mortgage finance – facilitates mobility. This cross-country evidence is supported by city and state-level evidence for the United States, which also highlights the potential risks that high leverage rates pose to residential mobility.<P>Déménager ou ne pas déménager : quels sont les déterminants des taux de mobilité résidentielle dans l'OCDE?<BR>La mobilité résidentielle est étroitement liée aux dynamiques du marché du logement et a des implications importantes pour la mobilité professionnelle et la répartition efficace des ressources dans l'économie. Ce document analyse les tendances de la mobilité résidentielle dans les pays de l'OCDE et le rôle des politiques du logement dans le renforcement ou l?obstruction de la mobilité résidentielle. Sur la base des enquêtes auprès des ménages pour 25 pays, les résultats indiquent que les différences dans la mobilité résidentielle entre les pays sont en partie liées aux différentes politiques des gouvernements. Après avoir contrôlé pour les caractéristiques du ménage et celles propres à chaque pays, la mobilité résidentielle est plus élevée dans les pays où les coûts de transaction, le contrôle des loyers et la protection des locataires sont plus faibles, et l'offre de logements plus elevée. La mobilité résidentielle est aussi plus élevée dans les environnements avec un plus grand accès au crédit, ce qui suggère que la déréglementation financière - en réduisant les coûts d'emprunt et en facilitant l'accès au financement hypothécaire - facilite la mobilité. Ces résultats sont soutenus par une analyse au niveau ville et États pour les États-Unis, qui met également en évidence les risques potentiels que posent un taux d'endettement élevé à la mobilité résidentielle. |
| Keywords: | housing market, residential mobility, transaction costs, rental market regulations, coût de transition, mobilité résidentielle, régulation du marché locataire, marché du logement |
| JEL: | H20 R21 R23 R34 R38 |
| Date: | 2011–02–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:846-en&r=mig |
| By: | C. Fritz Foley; William R. Kerr |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact that immigrant innovators have on the global activities of U.S. firms by analyzing detailed data on patent applications and on the operations of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms. The results indicate that increases in the share of a firm's innovation performed by inventors of a particular ethnicity are associated with increases in the share of that firm's affiliate activity in their native countries. Ethnic innovators also appear to facilitate the disintegration of innovative activity across borders and to allow U.S. multinationals to form new affiliates abroad without the support of local joint venture partners. Thus, this paper points out that immigration can enhance the competitiveness of multinational firms. |
| JEL: | F22 F23 J44 J61 O31 O32 O33 O57 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17336&r=mig |
| By: | Sandro Favre |
| Abstract: | Recent immigrants in Switzerland are overrepresented at the top of the wage distribution in high and at the bottom in low skill occupations. Basic economic theory thus suggests that immigration has led to a compression of the wage distribution in the former group and to an expansion in the latter. The data confirm this proposition for high skill occupations, but reveal effects close to zero for low skill occupations. While the estimated wage effects are of considerable magnitude at the tails of the wage distribution in high skill occupations, the effects on overall inequality are shown to be negligible. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, wage distribution, occupation groups, inequality |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:022&r=mig |
| By: | Melanie Ramjoue (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the patchwork of multilateral, regional and bilateral legal instruments through which migrants from Asia and the Pacific currently legally cross borders in search of employment. It concludes that the existing frameworks are very inadequate: in almost all the multilateral and preferential agreements focusing predominantly on trade (GATS Mode 4 and Preferential Trade Agreement), countries have made binding commitments only with respect to the temporary entry of high-skilled service providers. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Trade in Services, GATS Mode 4, Preferential Trade Agreements, Bilateral Labour Agreements |
| JEL: | F1 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unt:wpaper:swp311&r=mig |
| By: | Kea Tijdens (AIAS / FEB, Universiteit van Amsterdam); Maarten Klaveren (AIAS, Universiteit van Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Are overeducation and undereducation more common for migrants compared to domestic workers? If so, is overeducation and undereducation similar across migrants from various home countries and across various host countries? This paper aims at unravelling the incidence of skill mismatch of domestic and migrant workers employed in 13 countries of the European Union, namely Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Here migrants are defined as workers not born in the country where they are currently living. They originate from more than 200 countries, thereby reflecting a heterogeneous group, ranging from migrants for economic reasons and refugees, to expats, intercultural married, and others. Concerning overeducation, most of the literature points to explanations related to job allocation frictions. The theoretical explanations for overeducation all refer to job allocation frictions. They apply to workers in general at first job entry, to particular groups of workers at fi rst job entry such as re-entering housewives or workers who have experienced unemployment spells and involuntary quits, to workers accepting a lower-level job if the probability of promotion is higher, to imperfect information from the employer’s side associated with a lack of transparency of diplomas or of transferability of credentials, to poor abilities of individual workers, and to labour market discrimination. Six hypothesis have been drafted for empirical testing. One hypothesis has been made for undereducation. This is assumed to be the case for workers with higher abilities, here defined as workers in supervisory positions. This paper builds on statistical analyses of the data of the large _WageIndicator_ web-survey about work and wages, posted at all national _WageIndicator_ websites and comparable across all countries. Using the pooled annual data of the years 2005-20010, we used 291,699 observations in the analysis. The large sample size allows a break-down of migrant groups according to country of birth in order to better capture the heterogeneity of migrants. Logit analyses have been used to estimate the likelihood of being overqualified compared to having a correct match or being underqualified. Similar estimations have been made for underqualification compared to having a correct match or being overqualified. <br /> One of five workers asseses to be overqualified (20%). When comparing the domestic and migrant workers, overqualification occurs less often among domestic workers than among migrant workers (19% versus 24%). The analyses show that overeducation occurs indeed more often among migrant workers. Yet, the analyses also reveals that the overeducation occurs substantially more often in the old EU member states compared to newly accessed EU member states, regardless being a domestic worker or a migrant. The model shows that the heterogeneity of the migrant groups should be taken into account. Of all migrant and domestic groups, the odds ratio of being overqualified is highest for migrants working in EU15 and born in EU12. The odds ratio decreases for the migrants from USA, Canada and Australia. The odds ratio of being overeducated increases with educational attainment. It decreases with hierarchical level within the occupation, with the the corporate hierarchical levels, and with the skill level of the job. The hypothesis regarding job allocation frictions are confirmed. The odds ratios of being overqualified increase for recent labour market entrants, for workers with an employment spell, for female workers, for migrants who arrived at an adult age thus challenging the transparency of credetials in the host country, and for for 1st and 2nd generation migrants and ethnic minorities thus challenging discrimination in the labour market. No support was found for the hypothesis that workers with presumably poor language abilities are more likely to be overeducated. Concerning undereducation, the analyses confirm that having a supervisory position increases the odds ratio of being underqualified. This suggest that underqualified workers with higher capabilities provide internal career ladders. This study in part confirms the existing literature, in particular the job allocation frictions for the entire labour market. It expands existing empirical findings concerning the reasons why migrants are more likely to be overeducted. |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aia:aiaswp:wp110&r=mig |
| By: | John P. Haisken-DeNew; Maren M. Michaelsen |
| Abstract: | This study estimates separate selectivity bias corrected wage equations for formal and informal workers in rural and urban Mexico using data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS). We control for diff erent potential selection patterns using Probit and Multinominal logit models in the fi rst step in which health, personality traits and family characteristics serve as exclusion restrictions for working per se and working in the formal sector. Oaxaca-Blinder Decompositions show that rural-urban wage inequality in the formal and informal sector is determined by diff erences in observable human capital. In the informal sector, the wage diff erential is mainly explained by diff erences in returns to experience. Furthermore, we analyse rural-to-urban migrants‘ labour market performance. The fi ndings suggest that rural-to-urban migration will continue and the informal sector will further increase. |
| Keywords: | Returns to experience; rural-urban wage diff erentials; informality; internal migration; Mexico |
| JEL: | J24 J31 R23 Q15 |
| Date: | 2011–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rwi:repape:0263&r=mig |
| By: | Paola Bertolini; Valentina Toscano; Linda Tosarelli |
| Abstract: | Given the deep economic and social differences of the Italian territories, the aim of the paper is to examine if there is a relationship between the territorial features of the Italian provinces and the school participation of young immigrants. The analysis focuses on the education experiences of young immigrants, especially on school participation in different levels, noting also the experiences of failure and higher education choices. The descriptive analysis of school participation and the economic-social characteristics has as objective to verify if there is a relationship between the latter and school participation. The analysis shows that the presence of foreign children in kindergarten is high and, in some regions, it is even higher than Italian children ones. Regarding the presence of immigrants in mandatory school, the turnout is above 90% in all regions. The participation rate of students in high school is commonly very low and compared with immigrants peers, the Italian school participation is widely higher. The presence of immigrant students has been analyzed considering the participation in different types of high school. In general, they prefer the vocational school. Moreover, the geographical distribution of participation in vocational schools is higher in northern region, where there is a significant industrial development and high employment rate. A statistical analysis of the determinants influencing the migrants’ choices has been made using some socio-economic indicators able to describe the economy of the different areas, especially in terms of sector-based specialization, presence of industrial districts, dynamics of labour market and households’ income. The results underline that the economic context is able to influence the individual choices; in particular the presence of manufacturing, the wealth of agriculture and the presence of schools exercise a positive influence. At the opposite, GDP per capita and agricultural orientation of the economy play a negative influence of immigrants school attendance. |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:cappmo:0087&r=mig |
| By: | Anja Vatterrott (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | In the twenty years since the reunification of Germany, we have seen a convergence of total fertility rates in the eastern and western parts of the country, but differences remain in the timing, number and spacing of births. Our aim in this paper is to better understand the persistence of these differences by studying the fertility behaviour of migrants from the East to the West. Millions of people have followed this migration path in recent decades, mainly in response to the unfavourable economic conditions in the East. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel of the years 1990 to 2009. Using event history modelling, we analyse whether the first and second birth behaviours of female East-West German migrants resemble the patterns of one of the non-mobile populations in the eastern or western parts of the country. We find that migrants’ first and second birth risks lie in between those of non-mobile eastern and western Germans. Socio-economic characteristics, value orientations and partners’ characteristics are employed as explanatory variables, but do not fully account for the differences between the three groups. We investigate whether the special behavioural patterns of migrants can be explained by the fact that they are a selected group, but do not find support for this hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | Germany, fertility, internal migration |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2011-013&r=mig |
| By: | Abbott, Michael G.; Beach, Charles M. |
| Abstract: | This study uses longitudinal IMDB micro data to document the annual earnings outcomes of Canadian immigrants in four major admission categories (skill-assessed independent economic principal applicants, accompanying economic immigrants, family class immigrants, and refugees) and three annual landing cohorts (those for the years 1982, 1988, and 1994) over the first ten years following their landing in Canada as permanent residents. The findings provide a ten-year earnings signature for the four broad immigrant admission categories in Canada. The study’s first major finding is that skill-assessed economic immigrants had consistently and substantially the highest annual earnings levels among the four admission categories for both male and female immigrants in all three landing cohorts. Family class immigrants or refugees generally had the lowest earnings levels. An important related finding is that refugees exhibited substantially the highest earnings growth rates for both male and female immigrants in all three landing cohorts, while independent economic or family class immigrants generally had the lowest earnings growth rates over their first post-landing decade in Canada. The study’s second major finding is that economic recessions appear to have had clearly discernible negative effects on immigrants’ earnings levels and growth rates; moreover, these adverse effects were much more pronounced for male immigrants than for female immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant earnings, admission categories, Canadian immigrants |
| JEL: | J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2011-20&r=mig |
| By: | Sebastian Braun; Toman Omar Mahmoud |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the employment effects of the influx of millions of German expellees to West Germany after World War II. The expellees were forced to relocate to post-war Germany. They represented a complete cross-section of society, were close substitutes to the native West German population, and were very unevenly distributed across labor market segments in West Germany. We find a substantial negative effect of expellee inflows on native employment. The effect was, however, limited to labor market segments with very high inflow rates. IV regressions that exploit variation in geographical proximity and in pre-war occupations confirm the OLS results |
| Keywords: | Forced migration, employment, post-war Germany |
| JEL: | J61 J21 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1725&r=mig |
| By: | Manuel Orozco |
| Abstract: | Study on the Latin American transnational migration patterns and their relationship with development. |
| Keywords: | Financial Sector :: Remittances, remittances, globalization, transnational, Telecommunication, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Trade, remesas, globalización, transnacional, telecomunicación, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuado |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:8722&r=mig |
| By: | Bouton, Lawrence; Paul, Saumik; Tiongson, Erwin R. |
| Abstract: | Thousands of Moldovans emigrated for work abroad over the last few years following nearly a decade of economic stagnation in their home country. At about 30 percent of the labor force, Moldova's emigrant population is in relative terms among the largest in the world. This study uses a unique household survey to examine the impact of emigration on wages in Moldova. The authors find a positive and significant impact of emigration on wages and the result is robust to the use of alternative samples and specifications. The size of the emigration coefficient varies depending on the sample and model specification, but the baseline result suggests that, on average, a 10 percent increase in the emigration rate is associated with 3.2 percent increase in wages. At the same time, there is evidence of significant differences across economic sectors in the estimated effect of emigration on wages. The authors speculate and provide some evidence that offsetting changes in labor demand, as revealed by information on employment growth by sector, may help explain some of the heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Population Policies,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement,Human Migrations&Resettlements |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5764&r=mig |