|
on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Chen, Mingyu (Amazon); Howell, Jessica; Smith, Jonathan (Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | Recent immigration policies have created massive uncertainty for international students to obtain F-1 visas. Yet, before the COVID-19 pandemic, student visa applicants already faced an approximately 27 percent refusal rate that varies by time and region. Using data on the universe of SAT takers between 2004 and 2015 matched with college enrollment records, we examine how the anticipated F-1 visa restrictiveness influences US undergraduate enrollment outcomes of international students. Using an instrumental variables approach, we find that a higher anticipated F-1 student visa refusal rate decreases the number of international SAT takers, decreases the probability of sending SAT scores to US colleges, and decreases international student enrollment in the US. The decreases are larger among international students with higher measured academic achievement. We also document academic achievement of international students and show that over 40 percent of high-scoring international SAT takers do not pursue US college education. |
| Keywords: | Immigration policy, migration, international student, F-1 visa, student visa, China |
| JEL: | I21 I23 F22 J15 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15184&r= |
| By: | Costas-Fernández, Julián (University College London); Morando, Greta (University College London) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers new evidence of the role of immigration in shaping the educational and labour market outcomes of natives. We use administrative data on the entire English higher education system and exploit the idiosyncratic variation of foreign students within university-degree across four cohorts of undergraduate students. Foreign peers have zero to mild effects on natives' educational outcomes, such as graduation probability and degree classification. Large effects are found on displacement across universities and degree types after enrolment, although these outcomes are rare occurrences. In line with the mild effects on education outcomes, we also find little effect of foreign peers affecting early labour market outcomes of native graduates. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, higher education, immigration |
| JEL: | F22 I21 I23 I24 I26 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15187&r= |
| By: | Deiana, Claudio (University of Essex); Giua, Ludovica (European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre); Nistico, Roberto (University of Naples Federico II) |
| Abstract: | This paper establishes a new fact about immigration policies: legalization has long-term effects on formal employment of undocumented immigrants and their assimilation. We exploit the broad amnesty enacted in Italy in 2002 together with rich survey data collected in 2011 on a representative sample of immigrant households to estimate the effect of regularization in the long run. Immigrants who were not eligible for the amnesty have a 14% lower probability of working in the formal sector a decade later, are subject to more severe ethnic segregation on the job and display less linguistic assimilation than their regularized counterparts. |
| Keywords: | undocumented immigrants, amnesty program, formal employment, discrimination, segregation |
| JEL: | J15 J61 K37 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15189&r= |
| By: | Michael Bailey; Drew Johnston; Martin Koenen; Theresa Kuchler; Dominic Russel; Johannes Stroebel |
| Abstract: | We use de-identified data from Facebook to study the social integration of Syrian migrants in Germany, a country that received a large influx of refugees during the Syrian Civil War. We construct measures of migrants’ social integration based on Syrians’ friendship links to Germans, their use of the German language, and their participation in local social groups. We find large variation in Syrians’ social integration across German counties, and use a movers’ research design to document that these differences are largely due to causal effects of place. Regional differences in the social integration of Syrians are shaped both by the rate at which German natives befriend other locals in general (general friendliness) and the relative rate at which they befriend local Syrian migrants versus German natives (relative friending). We follow the friending behavior of Germans that move across locations to show that both general friendliness and relative friending are more strongly affected by place-based effects such as local institutions than by persistent individual characteristics of natives (e.g., attitudes to-ward neighbors or migrants). Relative friending is higher in areas with lower unemployment and more completed government-sponsored integration courses. Using variation in teacher availability as an instrument, we find that integration courses had a substantial causal effect on the social integration of Syrian migrants. We also use fluctuations in the presence of Syrian migrants across high school cohorts to show that natives with quasi-random expo-sure to Syrians in school are more likely to befriend other Syrian migrants in other settings, suggesting that contact between groups can shape subsequent attitudes towards migrants. |
| Keywords: | integration, immigration, social networks, place effects |
| JEL: | F22 J15 K37 D85 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9680&r= |
| By: | Qendrai, Pamela (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the introduction of a novel residence permit for working purposes – the so-called Blue Card introduced in August 2012 – has affected entry-level wages of non-EU migrants in Germany. The Blue Card was targeted at non-EU university graduates with degrees received or recognized in Germany. It provided immediate residence to students with a working contract that pays above clearly-announced and regularly-updated wage thresholds. We leverage a difference-in-difference approach and unique data on national and international graduates in Germany between 2011-2014. We find that the introduction of the Blue Card increases entry-level wages of non-EU graduates relative to the control group by approximately 2 percent of the pre-treatment entry-level wages. We provide suggestive evidence that these results are not driven by more or better-quality non-EU graduates staying in Germany, but rather because the Blue Card wage threshold acts as a reference point. |
| Keywords: | work permit, foreign students, highly-educated migrants, wages |
| JEL: | J60 J61 J63 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15191&r= |
| By: | Raluca E. Buia (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari); Mesfin G. Genie (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen); Cristina Elisa Orso (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Department of Economics, University of Verona); Giacomo Pasini (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; NETSPAR) |
| Abstract: | We used retrospective information from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to analyze the utilization patterns of preventive care around the time of migration of a representative sample of migrants in Europe. We find heterogeneous behaviours across different types of preventive care. Migrants increase the utilization of dental care significantly as soon as they reach the host country compared to the years immediately before migration, while migrant women increase their use of blood pressure tests, gynaecological visits, and mammogram tests progressively after migration. Other types of care do not exhibit particular patterns in relation to the migration episode. We also observe relevant differences in preventive care use around migration by country of origin. Our results suggest that preventive care use by migrants cannot be given for granted and is intimately linked to the process of integration in the host country. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Preventive care, SHARE, event study |
| JEL: | I12 I14 J15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2022:04&r= |
| By: | Wilson, Riley (Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | I document a new empirical pattern of internal mobility in the United States. Namely, county-to-county migration and commuting drop off discretely at state borders. People are three times as likely to move to a county 15 miles away, but in the same state, than to move to an equally distant county in a different state. These gaps remain even among neighboring counties or counties in the same commuting zone. Standard economic explanations, which emphasize differences in utility or moving costs, have little explanatory power. Cross-border differences in observables, amenities, state occupational licensing, taxes, or transfer program generosity do not explain this border effect. However, county-to-county social connectedness (as measured by the number of Facebook linkages) follows a similar pattern, and there is suggestive evidence that this is driven by a so-called "home state bias," rather than alternative explanations such as information frictions or network ties. I show that this reluctance to cross state lines has real economic costs, resulting in local labor markets that are less dynamic after negative economic shocks. |
| Keywords: | internal migration, commuting, social networks, border discontinuities |
| JEL: | J6 R1 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15193&r= |
| By: | David C Maré (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Jacques Poot (Te Ngira: Institute for Population Research, University of Waikato) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we introduce a measure of cultural diversity that takes ‘social difference’ between country of birth and ethnic groups into account. We measure social difference using exploratory factor analysis of subjective identity, attitude and value responses in Aotearoa New Zealand’s 2016 General Social Survey. We examine the level of, and change in, our social difference-based measure of cultural diversity in 31 urban areas between 1976 and 2018, using census data. We compare these patterns with those derived from a standard fractionalisation measure of diversity based on population composition by country of birth and ethnicity. We find that the two diversity measures are highly correlated across the urban areas. Diversity increased everywhere between 1976 and 2018, whether social difference is taken into account or not. However, the social difference-based measure increased much faster than the standard measure in all but one of the urban areas. This suggests that growth in the fractionalisation measure of diversity is likely to have underestimated the trend in experienced social difference. Both measures also show evidence of spatial convergence in diversity: urban areas with low diversity in 1976 – which tended to be in the South Island – exhibited faster increases. Population diversity increased strikingly in Queenstown, which was the 19th most diverse urban area in 1976, in terms of social difference, but second only to Auckland in 2018. |
| Keywords: | Cultural diversity; social difference; fractionalisation; New Zealand; urban |
| JEL: | J15 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:22_04&r= |