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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Tobias Stoehr |
| Abstract: | In many poor countries with high emigration rates elderly people are left behind without care when their children migrate. Without a functioning market in private care migrants face a difficult trade-off between working their way out of poverty and providing informal care once their parents become frail or sick. I develop a non-cooperative model of siblings' interactions that explains how chain migration can lead to a breakdown of traditional caregiving structures while an opposing endogenous effect increases family members' incentives to specialize as caregiver. The model's predictions are tested using novel data from Moldova and found to perform better than predictions of some established migration models. The empirical analysis suggests that migration and staying in order to provide care are strategic complements for children of elderly parents in most families. This is evidence of a promising resilience of families' informal security arrangements to large-scale migration |
| Keywords: | migration, elderly care, remittances, intra-family allocation,informal security networks |
| JEL: | F22 J14 I19 D10 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1858&r=mig |
| By: | Martin Junge (DEA (Danish Business Research Academy)); Martin D. Munk (Aalborg University); Panu Poutvaara (University of Munich, Ifo Institute, CESifo and IZA, CReAM) |
| Abstract: | We present theory and evidence on international migration of couples. Our main question is how migration decisions depend on partners’ education and earnings, and the number of children. We use register data on full Danish population from 1982 to 2010, focusing on opposite-gender couples in which the female is aged 23 to 37, and the male 25 to 39. We find that power couples in which both are highly educated are most likely to emigrate, but also most likely to return. The probability of emigration is increasing in male earnings, but does not depend much on female earnings. |
| Keywords: | International migration, Family migration, Education |
| JEL: | F22 J12 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nor:wpaper:2013018&r=mig |
| By: | Verena Dill |
| Abstract: | Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative data from 1996 to 2009, I investigate the question whether or not right-wing extremism of German residents is affected by the ethnic concentration of foreigners living in the same residential area. My results show a positive but insignificant relationship between ethnic concentration at county level and the probability of extreme right-wing voting behavior for West Germany. However, due to potential endogeneity issues, I additionally instrument the share of foreigners in a county with the share of foreigners in each federal state (following an approach of Dustmann/Preston 2001). I find evidence for the interethnic contact theory, predicting a negative relationship between foreigners’ share and right-wing voting. Moreover, I analyze the moderating role of education and the influence of cultural traits on this relationship. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic concentration, extreme right-wing voting, group threat, interethnic contact |
| JEL: | D72 R23 J15 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp565&r=mig |
| By: | Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina (San Diego State University, California); Sevilla-Sanz, Almudena (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses several decades of US time-diary surveys to assess the impact of low-skilled immigration, through lower prices for commercial child care, on parental time investments. Using an instrumental variables approach that accounts for the endogenous location of immigrants, we find that low-skilled immigration to the United States has contributed to substantial reductions in the time allocated to basic child care by college-educated mothers of non-school age children. However, these mothers have not reduced the time allocated to more stimulating educational and recreational activities with their children. Understanding the factors driving parental time investments on children is crucial from a child development perspective. |
| Keywords: | migration, time use, mother |
| JEL: | J01 J13 J61 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7501&r=mig |
| By: | Viola Angelini (University of Groeningen); Laura Casi (Bocconi University); Luca Corazzini (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We empirically assess the relationship between cultural assimilation and subjective well-being of immigrants by using the German Socio-Economic Panel, a longitudinal dataset including information on both the economic and non economic conditions of the respondents. We find that the more immigrants identify with the German culture and fluently speak the national language, the more they report to be satisfied with their lives. This result is robust to several potential confounding factors, including a large number of individual variables (demographic, educational, social, economic and health), labour market outcomes and the external social conditions of the immigrant. |
| Keywords: | assimilation, identity, life-satisfaction, immigration. JEL: J15, I31, Z10, F22. |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0168&r=mig |
| By: | Flordeliza H. Bordey (Philippine Rice Research Institute, Maligaya, Philippines); Cheryll C. Launio (Socioeconomics Division, Philippine Rice Research Institute); Eduardo Jimmy P. Quilang (Philippine Rice Research Institute, Maligaya, Philippines); Charis Mae A. Tolentino (Philippine Rice Research Institute, Maligaya, Philippines); Nimfa B. Ogena (Philippine Rice Research Institute, Maligaya, Philippines) |
| Abstract: | This study tests the hypothesis that climate change, through its rice productivity impacts, induces out-migration in the Philippines. Results show that climate change effects such as increasing night time temperature and extreme rainfall pattern, by way of reduction in rice yield and farm revenues, significantly increases the number of Overseas Filipino Workers. Findings also show that overseas migration of female workers is more sensitive to climate and rice productivity changes compared to male overseas migration. However, unlike overseas migration, the reduction in yield and farm revenues act as a constraint to domestic migration. |
| Keywords: | climate change, rice yield, migration, Philippines |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eep:report:rr2013033&r=mig |
| By: | Brian C. Cadena; Brian K. Kovak |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates that low-skilled Mexican-born immigrants' location choices in the U.S. respond strongly to changes in local labor demand, and that this geographic elasticity helps equalize spatial differences in labor market outcomes for low-skilled native workers, who are much less responsive. We leverage the wage rigidity that occurred during Great Recession to identify the severity of local downturns, and our results confirm the standard finding that high-skilled populations are quite geographically responsive to employment opportunities while low-skilled populations are much less so. However, low-skilled immigrants, primarily those from Mexico, respond even more strongly than high-skilled native-born workers. These results are robust to a wide variety of controls, a pre-recession falsification test, and two instrumental variables strategies. A novel empirical test reveals that natives living in cities with a substantial Mexican-born population are insulated from the effects of local labor demand shocks compared to those in cities with few Mexicans. The reallocation of the Mexican-born workforce among these cities reduced the incidence of local demand shocks on low-skilled natives' employment outcomes by more than 40 percent. |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19272&r=mig |
| By: | Sónia Cabral; Cláudia Duarte |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee data, we examine the wage gaps between immigrant and native workers in the Portuguese labour market in the 2002-2008 period. We use the relation between the Gelbach’s and Oaxaca-Blinder’s decompositions to split the unconditional average wage gap as the sum of a composition effect and a wage structure effect. Most of the wage gap is not due to worst endowments of the immigrants but to differences in the returns to those characteristics and to the immigrant status effect. In particular, education and foreign experience of the average immigrants are significantly less valued in the Portuguese labour market. Overall, the wages of immigrants do not fully converge to those of comparable natives as experience in the Portuguese labour market increases. The assimilation rates tend to be stronger in the first years after migration and for immigrants with higher levels of pre-immigration experience. Total immigrants are a heterogeneous group of different nationalities, with immigrants from the EU15 and China starring as the two extreme cases. |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201305&r=mig |
| By: | Lokanath Suar |
| Abstract: | The impact of drought, floods, severe weather and other effects of climate change may worsen in the future, contributing to growing human migration as vulnerable people seek safer more stable living conditions. This expected migration of thousands of people can negatively affect human well-being and political status. The paper presents the effect and its management. Key words: natural disasters, forced migration, population growth |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vor:issues:2013-5-13&r=mig |
| By: | LEHMANN, Etienne (CRED (TEPP), Universit´e Panth´eon-Assas & CREST); Simula, Laurent (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies); TRANNOY, Alain (Aix-Marseille Universit´e (Aix-Marseille School of Economics), CNRS & EHESS) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how the optimal nonlinear income tax schedule is modified when taxpayers can evade taxation by emigrating. We consider two symmetric countries with Maximin governments. Workers choose their labor supply along the intensive margin. The skill distribution is continuous, and, for each skill level, the distribution of migration cost is also continuous. We show that optimal marginal tax rates are nonnegative at the symmetric Nash equilibrium when the semi-elasticity of migration is decreasing in the skill level. When the semi-elasticity of migration is increasing in the skill level, either optimal marginal tax rates are positive everywhere or they are positive for the lower part of the skill distribution and then negative. Numerical simulations are calibrated using plausible values of the semi-elasticity of migration for top income earners. We show that the shape of optimal tax schedule varies significantly, depending on the profile of the semi-elasticity of migration over the entire skill distribution - a profile over which we lack empirical evidence. |
| Keywords: | Optimal Income Tax; Income Tax competition; Migration; Labor Mobility; Nash-Equilibrium Tax Schedules |
| JEL: | D82 H21 H87 |
| Date: | 2013–07–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2013_008&r=mig |
| By: | Zhiming Cheng; Russell Smyth; Gong Sun |
| Abstract: | Using a unique dataset from the Pearl River Delta in China we examine the factors associated with rural-urban migrants’ participation in, and expenditure on, illegal gambling. We find that similar demographic and lifestyle characteristics are associated with participation in, and expenditure on, the illegal lottery. The characteristics which have the largest marginal effects on participation and expenditure are gender, whether one also participates in the legal lottery and playing mah-jong and other card games. The amount of a normal sized bet placed by males is 30 per cent higher than that placed by females, based on the mean value of a normal bet. The corresponding figures for those who participate in the official lottery and those who play mah-jong or card games respectively are 48 per cent and 39 per cent higher. Policy implications and recommendations stemming from the major findings are discussed. |
| Keywords: | China; rural-urban migrant workers; illegal lottery |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2013-24&r=mig |
| By: | Nguyen, Cuong; Nguyen, Hoa |
| Abstract: | Using data from Vietnam Household and Living Standard Surveys in 2006 and 2008, the paper estimates the effect of the receipt of international remittances and internal remittances on education, labor and healthcare utilization of children in Vietnam. It shows that there are no statistically significant effects of receipt of remittances on school enrolment of children as well as child labor. However, receiving international remittances helps children increase the number of completed grades by around 2 percent of the average completed grade for children. Both international and internal remittances are positively associated with the number of outpatient health care contacts. |
| Keywords: | Remittances, children, education, child labor, healthcare, Vietnam. |
| JEL: | I23 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2013–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48672&r=mig |
| By: | Rehman Sobhan |
| Abstract: | The issue of introducing innovation in financing came into discussion at Monterrey in response to the recurring failure of most developed countries to live up to their commitment to enhance flows of official development assistance (ODA) to the developing countries in order to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This paper argues that attempts to identify such innovative sources have been neither innovative nor effective in meeting the needs of the developing countries. The paper indicates that in most countries in Asia domestic savings, foreign direct investment (FDI) and migrant remittances have, in recent years, overtaken ODA as the principal source of development finance. Any search for both innovation and additionality in development finance should accordingly focus on making more effective use of Asia’s growing external capital surpluses and inflows of migrant remittances in enhancing the region’s development capacity. |
| Keywords: | Innovative development finance, ODA, Monterrey Consensus, FDI, remittances |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdb:opaper:102&r=mig |
| By: | Marina Murat |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of university student ties on the FDI of the US and UK into 167 countries during the period 1999-2010. University ties are measured by international students flows and alumni associations worldwide. Studies on transnational social networks suggest that effects should be higher on the FDI directed to the developing economies. The paper’s main findings are that international student flows and alumni associations abroad exert a positive influence on the FDI from the US and UK into the students’ home countries. More specifically, their influence is strong and significant in the group of developing countries. Results, similar for the US and UK, are robust to different regressors and econometric specifications. |
| Keywords: | International students, alumni, bilateral FDI, education networks; |
| JEL: | F14 F20 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:091&r=mig |
| By: | Daldy, Bridget (University of Waikato); Poot, Jacques (University of Waikato); Roskruge, Matthew (University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | Despite considerable research on differences in labour market outcomes between native born New Zealanders and immigrants, the extent of discrimination experienced by the foreign born in the workplace remains relatively unexplored. We use micro data from the Confidentialised Unit Record File of the 2008 New Zealand General Social Survey (n = 8,721) to examine the determinants of self-reported discrimination in the workplace. We find that immigrants are significantly more likely than New Zealand-born employees to report that they experience discrimination in the workplace. There are noticeable gender differences in determinants of perceived discrimination, which interact with birthplace. The highest likelihood of self-reported workplace discrimination is found amongst migrants from Asia and the Pacific Islands. Discrimination is more likely to be reported by those with higher education and those who are mid-career. We test and correct for selection bias in measuring the impact of factors influencing perceived discrimination and find such bias to be present for men but not for women. |
| Keywords: | immigration, workplace discrimination, New Zealand, sample selection bias |
| JEL: | F22 J01 J71 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7504&r=mig |