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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Lafortune, Jeanne (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Tessada, José (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Lewis, Ethan Gatewood (Dartmouth College) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the elasticity of substitution between capital and skill using variation across U.S. counties in immigration-induced skill-mix changes between 1860 and 1930. We find that capital began as a q-complement for skilled and unskilled workers, and then dramatically increased its relative complementary with skilled workers around 1890. Simulations of a parametric production function calibrated to our estimates imply the level of capital-skill complementarity after 1890 likely allowed the U.S. economy to absorb the large wave of less-skilled immigration with a modest decline in less-skilled relative wages. This would not have been possible under the older production technology. |
| Keywords: | immigration, capital-skill complementarity, skill-biased technical change, manufacturing, Second Industrial Revolution |
| JEL: | J24 N61 O33 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9217&r=mig |
| By: | Tuccio, Michele (University of Southampton); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | Does international return migration transfer gender norms? Focusing on Jordan, an Arab country where discrimination against women and emigration rates are high, this paper exploits unique data in which detailed information on female empowerment allows us to construct several measures of discriminatory social norms in Jordan on the role of women, female freedom of mobility, and female decision-making power. Controlling for both emigration and return migration selections, we find that women with a returnee family member are more likely to have internalized discriminatory gender norms than women in households with no migration experience. Further analysis shows that results are driven by returnees from conservative Arab countries, suggesting a transfer of negative norms from highly discriminatory destinations. We also show the implications of our results beyond perceptions for several economic and development outcomes, such as female labour force participation, education and fertility. |
| Keywords: | international return migration, gender inequality, transfer of norms |
| JEL: | F22 J16 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9216&r=mig |
| By: | Pedro Carneiro (Institute for Fiscal Studies and cemmap and UCL); Sokbae Lee (Institute for Fiscal Studies and cemmap and SNU); Hugo Reis (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | The vast majority of immigrants to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century adopted first names that were common among natives. The rate of adoption of an American name increases with time in the US, although most immigrants adopt an American name within the first year of arrival. Choice of an American first name was associated with a more successful assimilation, as measured by job occupation scores, marriage to a US native and take-up of US citizenship. We examine economic determinants of name choice, by studying the relationship between changes in the proportion of immigrants with an American first name and changes in the concentration of immigrants as well as changes in local labor market conditions, across different census years. We find that high concentrations of immigrants of a given nationality in a particular location discouraged members of that nationality from taking American names. Poor local labor market conditions for immigrants (and good local labor market conditions for natives) led to more frequent name changes among immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Americanization; culture; first name; identity; immigration |
| JEL: | J15 N32 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:cemmap:28/15&r=mig |
| By: | Krieger, Tim; Renner, Laura; Ruhose, Jens |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the effect of the relatedness of two countries, measured by their genetic distance, on educational migrant selection. We analyze bilateral country-level education-specific migration stocks from 85 sending countries to the 15 main destination countries in 2000 and show that country pairs with larger genetic distances exhibit more selected migrant stocks compared to country pairs with smaller genetic distances on average. The effect is driven by country pairs with genetic distances above the median, suggesting that genetic distance must be sufficiently large to constitute a barrier to migration for low-skilled migrants. Results are robust to the inclusion of sending and destination country fixed effects, bilateral control variables, and an instrumental variables approach that exploits exogenous variation in genetic distances in the year 1500. |
| Keywords: | Genetic Distance,International Migration,Selection,Culture |
| JEL: | F22 J61 Z1 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:201505&r=mig |
| By: | Claudio Fassio; Alessandra Venturini |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the French and the UK Labour Force Surveys and the German Microcensus to estimate the effects of different components of the labour force on innovation at the sectoral level between 1994 and 2005. The authors focus, in particular, on the contribution of migrant workers. We adopt a production function approach in which we control for the usual determinants of innovation, such as R&D investments, stock of patents and openness to trade. To address possible endogeneity of migrants we implement instrumental variable strategies using both two-stage least squares with external instruments and GMM-SYS with internal ones. In addition we also account for the possible endogeneity of native workers and instrument them accordingly. Our results show that highly-educated migrants have a positive effect on innovation even if the effect is smaller relative to the positive effect of educated natives. Moreover, this positive effect seems to be confined to the high-tech sectors and among highly-educated migrants from other European countries. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Migration, Skills, Human capital |
| JEL: | O31 O33 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2015/41&r=mig |
| By: | Claudio Fassio; Sona Kalantaryan; Alessandra Venturini |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyse the role of migrants in innovation in Europe. We use Total Factor Productivity as a measure of innovation and focus on the three largest European countries – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – in the years 1994-2007. Unlike previous research, which mainly employs a regional approach, we analyse the link between migration and innovation at the sectoral level. This allows us to measure the direct contribution of migrants in the sector in which they are actually employed. Moreover, it allows a distinction between the real contribution of migrants to innovation from possible inter-sectoral complementarities, which might as well foster innovation. We control for the different components of human-capital, such as age, education and diversity of origin. To address the possible endogeneity of migration we draw on an instrumental variable strategy originally devised by Card (2001) and adapt it at the sector level The results show that overall migrants are relevant in all sectors, but some important differences emerge across sectors: highly-educated migrants show a larger positive effect in the high-tech sectors, while middle- and low-educated ones are more relevant in manufacturing. The diversity of countries of origin contributes to innovation only in the services sectors, confirming that in empirical analyses at the regional or national level the diversity measure might capture the complementarity between sectors rather than the contribution of different national skills. This implies that the diversity should not guide the migration policy which instead should be linked to the specific demand for labour of firms and not to pursue a generic search for highly skilled migrants. |
| Keywords: | Migration, innovation, highly skilled migrants, low skilled migrants, Total Factor Productivity. |
| JEL: | F22 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2015/43&r=mig |
| By: | Farré, Lídia (University of Barcelona); Ortega, Francesc (Queens College, CUNY); Tanaka, Ryuichi (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically analyzes the effects of immigration on the schooling decisions of natives. We employ household-level data for Spain for years 2000-2012, a period characterized by a large immigration wave and a severe recession. Our estimates reveal that Spanish households responded to immigration by increasing their educational expenditures. This result was mainly driven by an important native flight from tuition-free schools toward private ones. We also find strong evidence of cream-skimming: only the more educated native households switched to private schools in response to immigration. Finally, our simulations suggest that the reduction in household income due to the Great Recession mitigated the flight toward private schools triggered by immigration but was not enough to offset it. We argue that these findings are driven by several factors: school assignment rules, concerns over negative peer effects, and political economy forces. |
| Keywords: | education, public school, recession, immigration |
| JEL: | D7 F22 H52 H75 J61 I22 I24 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9234&r=mig |
| By: | Nikias Sarafoglou; William A. Sprigg |
| Abstract: | The contribution of Steinbeck in the late-1930’s concerning motives and decisionmaking for environmental migrations did much to influence research in social science. The Tiebout’s hypothesis and theoretical model of migration, published in 1956, permitted evaluation of urban public policy implications. The impact of these two pioneers in migration theory set the stage for new models and new methods in migration research having advantage of much more data from many more environmental, economic and social sectors applied to many more accumulating, often tragic, examples. This paper looks at the state of the science as these two influential authors left it and how the public health part of the 1930’s Dust Bowl migration to California contributes to our understanding of this complex human, decision-making system. Finally, Garfield's scientometric propagation of scientific thinking was utilized for migration theories. |
| JEL: | A12 B16 H10 I18 J61 O18 Q5 R38 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:712&r=mig |
| By: | Connelly, Rachel (Bowdoin College); Maurer-Fazio, Margaret (Bates College) |
| Abstract: | Migration of any distance separates family members for long periods of time. In China, an institutional legacy continues to privilege the migration of working-age individuals who often leave children and elders behind in the rural areas. Up to now, the literature has treated children and elders analogously, labeling each group "left-behind". We argue that analysis of elder stayers needs to be more nuanced, distinguishing among differing groups of elders. Of these groups, those living alone without any adult children in the village are most at risk of negative consequences of migration, while those living with other non-migrant children are much less affected by migration. We find evidence, when focusing on the consequences of migration on elders, that an elder-centric analysis is preferable to a migrant-child-centric analysis. |
| Keywords: | living arrangements, aging, China, rural, elderly, left behind, at risk, migration |
| JEL: | J12 J14 J21 J26 O53 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9213&r=mig |
| By: | Li, Wenchao (National University of Singapore); Yi, Junjian (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | This paper first finds a clear pattern of child gender difference in family migration in China. Specifically, our estimates show that on average, the first child being a son increases the father's migration probability by 25.2 percent. We hypothesize that the family's competitive earning incentive for sons drives this child gender effect on family migration: parents migrate to earn more money in an attempt to improve their sons' relative standing in response to the ever-rising pressure in China's marriage market. This competitive-earning-incentive hypothesis is then supported by additional empirical evidence. We further find that, facing heavier financial pressure from the marriage market, parents spend less on their sons' education and more on marriage and buying houses and durable goods. This gender difference in resource allocation, together with the absentee-father problem resulting from paternal migration, may unexpectedly adversely affect boys' long-run human capital development in China. |
| Keywords: | competitive earning incentive, sex ratio, migration |
| JEL: | J11 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9214&r=mig |
| By: | Andrees, Beate; Nasri, Alix; Swiniarski, Peter |
| Keywords: | migrant worker, recruitment, trafficking in persons, forced labour, migration policy, role of ILO, case study, travailleur migrant, recrutement, trafic d'êtres humains, travail forcé, politique migratoire, rôle de l'OIT, étude de cas, trabajador migrante, contratación, trata de personas, trabajo forzoso, política migratoria, papel de la OIT, estudio de casos |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:488085&r=mig |
| By: | Gordon, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | The paper suggests an approach that reshapes the market for recruitment services by engaging with employers in destination countries at the top of the labour supply chain, who could play a key role in influencing the recruitment business worldwide. It presents several case studies through which this approach was tested through regulatory efforts, such as the Philippines, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, several Canadian provinces; and in three agreements negotiated with employers by United States agricultural workers’ organizations to govern the terms of recruitment for migrant workers further down the chain. This paper draws on these public and private sectors’ case studies to propose regulatory and market approaches that promote fair recruitment practices. |
| Keywords: | international migration, labour migration, recruitment, migration policy, workers rights, labour contract, legal aspect, case study, migration internationale, migrations de main-d'oeuvre, recrutement, politique migratoire, droits des travailleurs, contrat de travail, aspect juridique, étude de cas, migración internacional, migraciones laborales, contratación, política migratoria, derechos de los trabajadores, contrato de trabajo, aspecto jurídico, estudio de casos |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:487848&r=mig |
| By: | Jones, Katharine |
| Keywords: | international migration, migrant worker, women workers, domestic work, recruitment, employment service, regulation, business strategy, Bangladesh, Jordan, Lebanon, migration internationale, travailleur migrant, travailleuses, travail domestique, recrutement, service de l'emploi, réglementation, stratégie d'entreprise, Bangladesh, Jordanie, Liban, migración internacional, trabajador migrante, trabajadoras, trabajo doméstico, contratación, servicio de empleo, reglamento, estrategia empresarial, Bangladesh, Jordania, Líbano |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:488087&r=mig |