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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Thiede, Brian C. (The Pennsylvania State University); Robinson, Abbie; Gray, Clark |
| Abstract: | The potential effects of climate change on human migration have received widespread attention, driven in part by concerns about possible large-scale population displacements. Recent studies demonstrate that climate-migration linkages are often more complex than commonly assumed, and climatic variability may increase, decrease, or have null effects on migration. However, the use of non-comparable analytic strategies across studies makes it difficult to disentangle substantive variation in climate effects from methodological artifacts. We address this gap by using census and survey micro-data from six Asian countries (n=54,987,838), which today are collectively home to nearly one-quarter of the world’s population, to measure climate effects on interprovincial migration. We examine climate effects overall and among sub-populations defined by age, sex, education, and country of residence. We also evaluate whether climate effects differ according to the distance and type of migration. We find non-linear precipitation effects across the sample, with exposure to precipitation deficits leading to substantively large reductions in out-migration. Both precipitation and temperature effects vary among focal sub-populations. Precipitation deficits reduce internal migration to both adjacent and non-adjacent provinces and, among the subset of samples with data on the reasons for migration, also reduce the probability of work-related moves. Temperature anomalies reduce work-, education-, and family-related moves. Our findings provide evidence of climate-related reductions in migration (i.e., trapped populations) and suggest these effects are driven largely by economic factors. Our analysis complements similar uses of harmonized data and methods in studies from South America and sub-Saharan Africa, which collectively reveal significant heterogeneity in demographic responses to climate variability around the world. |
| Date: | 2022–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:hxv35&r=mig |
| By: | Bruno Venditto (Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean – ISMed-CNR); Ndumba J. Kamwanyah (University of Namibia, UNAM); Christian H. Nekare (University of Namibia, UNAM) |
| Abstract: | Scientists are in agreement that climate change is a real threat to people and the planet, worldwide. Human activities are believed to be the primary cause for this change. In countries, such as Namibia, in which the majority of people in rural areas largely depend on rainfed agriculture and water resources for their livelihood, the rapid changing climate may mean that more people will likely move to the urban centres, no matter restrictive migration measures in place. The intricate relationship between climate change and human mobility, however, is a phenomenon not yet very well-articulated or established. In Namibia, while migrating to an urban area in some instances might offer potential opportunities -in the form of employment, better economic status and standard of living for migrants- but the move not only comes with negative effects and challenges for the migrants but also for urban governance in delivering services to the increasing urban masses. This study used a hybrid methodological approach by which a critical analysis and the consolidation of the existing literature on climate change, migration and urbanisation was combined and complemented with supplementary in-depth interviews carried out with 13 participants with a migratory background. The objective of the study was to investigates the nexus between climate change and migration, and subsequently examines the relevance of climate induced rural-urban mobility in Namibia. The findings of the study indicate that Namibia’s increasing changing climate patterns magnifies the existing problems of rural-urban migration, resulting in Namibia’s internal migration phenomenon to be determined by more than the usual factors of rural-urban migration. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, urbanisation, migration, Namibia |
| JEL: | O15 O55 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awm:wpaper:14&r=mig |
| By: | Mood, Carina; Jonsson, Jan O. (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | Marriages or consensual unions across ethnic groups (exogamy) is a strong indicator of social integration, whereas in-group relations (endogamy) signal social seclusion. With a large and diverse foreign-background population, Sweden provides an interesting case for studying partnering across origin groups, defined by own or parental country of origin. Using population register data covering marriages and consensual unions we find clear endogamy in all origin groups, especially those with background in the Middle East and Somalia. ‘Pan-ethnic’ cohabitation is common for those with origin in the Middle East and the Balkans, and transnational partnering is surprisingly frequent in some groups – these phenomena contribute to endogamy rates up to 70%. Exogamous cohabitation is particularly rare among women with background in the Middle East and Somalia, who are much less likely than their brothers to live with a partner of Swedish origin. Endogamy decreases with time spent in Sweden and increases with more co-ethnics in the local area, but neither of these factors accounts for more than a small part of the differences in endogamy. Culturally attracting and/or repelling mechanisms in partner choice are likely to be a major factor behind endogamy. |
| Date: | 2022–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:w6dmv&r=mig |
| By: | Ferwerda, Jeremy; Finseraas, Henning |
| Abstract: | Many European countries have implemented mandatory integration courses for refugees and asylum seekers. While evaluations suggest that these programs can improve short-term economic outcomes, little is known about their effectiveness in promoting social and political integration over the long run. In this paper, we focus on the Norwegian Introductory Program, an intensive policy intervention which requires two years of full-time coursework. To identify the causal effect of the program, we leverage quasi-random variation in refugees' arrival dates during the roll-out period. Although we find positive effects on economic integration, we find that the program did not meaningfully influence social or political integration over the long run, as measured via annual administrative data on residential patterns, union membership, intermarriage, citizenship, and validated turnout in local and national elections. This conclusion is further supported by an analysis of the effect of the program on political and social attitudes. Our findings suggest that while introductory programs may improve refugees' economic situation, mandatory coursework is nevertheless ineffective at promoting integration across other domains. |
| Date: | 2022–10–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:87w6e&r=mig |
| By: | Oussama Ben Atta (EPEE - Centre d'Etudes des Politiques Economiques - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - Université Paris-Saclay, TREE - Transitions Energétiques et Environnementales - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Isabelle Chort (TREE - Transitions Energétiques et Environnementales - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IUF - Institut Universitaire de France - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, IZA - Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit - Institute of Labor Economics); Jean-Noël Senne (RITM - Réseaux Innovation Territoires et Mondialisation - Université Paris-Saclay) |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the impact of immigrant and asylum seeker inflows on the size of the informal sector in host countries from a macroeconomic perspective. We use two indicators of informality provided by Medina and Schneider (2019) and Elgin and Oztunali (2012) combined with migration data from the OECD International Migration Database and data on asylum seeker flows from the UNHCR for the period 1997-2017. We estimate a first-difference model, instrumenting immigrant and asylum seeker flows by their predicted values derived from the estimation of a pseudo-gravity model. Results suggest that both immigrant and asylum seeker inflows increase the size of the informal sector at destination, but the size of the effect is very small: a one percentage point increase in the stock of immigrants as a share of population leads to an increase of the informal sector as a share of GDP of 0.05-0.06 percentage points. Unsurprisingly, the effect is about four times larger for asylum seeker flows, but remains economically insignificant. We investigate several potential channels, and find that integration policies do matter. We find no impact of imported norms or institutions, but rather that the effect is larger in destination countries with a large informal sector. A larger diversity in incoming flows is associated with a smaller impact on the informal sector. Finally, we document the dynamics with a VAR model. |
| Keywords: | migration,informal economy,asylum seekers,integration policies,shadow economy |
| Date: | 2022–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03822494&r=mig |
| By: | Fedeli, Emanuele; Triventi, Moris |
| Abstract: | The educational system is a crucial institutional arena for the long-term successful integration of the children of immigrants into destination countries. We study the consequences of the presence of students with a migration background on various student outcomes in Italy, a country that experienced a rapid increase in immigration fluxes. We enrich the literature in several ways: 1) we analyze not only students’ competencies but also their well-being and social integration; 2) we investigate the joint effects of two dimensions of migrants’ presence in the classroom, namely immigrant concentration and ethno-linguistic diversity; 3) we develop an analytical design to make exposure to a level of immigrant share and ethnolinguistic diversity conditionally random. We use data collected by the National Institute for the Evaluation of the Italian School System on the entire population of students enrolled in the fifth grade (primary education) in 2014–15 (INVALSI, 2015) (n=222,365) Our findings suggest that immigrant concentration and ethno-linguistic diversity in the classroom have limited detrimental effects on student outcomes; their minor effects are widely independent of each other and approximately linear. There is weak evidence of heterogeneous impacts across students with different migration backgrounds; the impact is tiny and appears to be concentrated exclusively on first-generation students. Implications for theoretical debate and educational policies are discussed in relation to the findings. |
| Date: | 2022–07–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:uk73m&r=mig |
| By: | Martin Guzi; Martin Kahanec; Lucia Mýtna Kureková |
| Abstract: | Across European Union (EU) labor markets, immigrant and native populations exhibit disparate labor market outcomes, signifying widespread labor market hierarchies. While significant resources have been invested in migration and integration policies, it remains unclear whether these contribute to or mitigate labor market hierarchies between natives and immigrants. Using a longitudinal model based on individual-level EU LFS and country-level DEMIG POLICY and POLMIG databases, we explore variation in changes of immigration and integration policies across Western EU member states to study how they are associated with labor market hierarchies in terms of unemployment and employment quality gaps between immigrant and native populations. Our findings imply that designing less restrictive policies may help mitigate immigrant-native labor market hierarchies by reducing existing labor market disadvantages of immigrants and making the most of their potential. |
| Keywords: | decomposition, immigrant-native gaps, labor market, DEMIG POLICY database, immigrant integration, hierarchies |
| JEL: | J15 J18 J61 K37 |
| Date: | 2022–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cel:dpaper:62&r=mig |
| By: | Dany Bahar; Bo Cowgill; Jorge Guzman |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that providing undocumented immigrants with an immigration pardon, or amnesty, increases their economic activity in the form of higher entrepreneurship. Using administrative census data linked to the complete formal business registry, we study a 2018 policy shift in Colombia that made nearly half a million Venezuelan undocumented migrants eligible for a pardon. Our identification uses quasi-random variation in the amount of time available to get the pardon, introducing a novel regression discontinuity approach to study this policy. Receiving the pardon has small initial effects but raises formal firm formation to close to parity with native Colombians by 2022. This impact is concentrated on individuals active in the labor force, and on sole proprietorships rather than sociedades (limited liability entities). The new firms created include both employer and non-employer firms and are relatively low on assets. In panel data specifications, the effect of the pardon on firm formation is twice the effect of migration. Our heterogeneous effects suggest a mechanism whereby legalization induces greater investments of time in developing new firms. |
| JEL: | J26 K37 L26 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30624&r=mig |
| By: | Zhou, Peng (Cardiff Business School); Tzivanakis, Nikolaos; Wang, Tuanfeng; Lu, Yao; Liu, Peng |
| Abstract: | Immigrants and offshore workers become important disturbing factors of domestic employment in the globalized economy. In this study we build a model with this feature to test how the three groups of workers in the labor force interact using a panel data of 155 countries over the period 1990-2015. We find that while immigrants replaced native workers (especially highly skilled ones), offshore workers who produce intermediate input imports do not. The productivity effect of offshoring is stronger for developed economies while the substitution effect of immigration is stronger for developing countries. Furthermore, the productivity effects of immigration and offshoring are stronger when governments impose less restrictions on international trade and domestic labor market. |
| Keywords: | immigration; offshoring; intermediate input imports; domestic employment; skill-bias effect |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2022/18&r=mig |
| By: | Kai Gehring; Joop Adema; Panu Poutvaara; Joop Age Harm Adema |
| Abstract: | Immigration is one of the most divisive political issues in many countries today. Competing narratives, circulated via the media, are crucial in shaping how immigrants’ role in society is perceived. We propose a new method combining advanced natural language processing tools with dictionaries to identify sentences containing one or more of seven immigrant narrative themes and assign a sentiment to each of these. Our narrative dataset covers 107,428 newspaper articles from 70 German newspapers over the 2000 to 2019 period. Using 16 human coders to evaluate our method, we find that it clearly outperforms simple word-matching methods and sentiment dictionaries. Empirically, culture narratives are more common than economy-related narratives. Narratives related to work and entrepreneurship are particularly positive, while foreign religion and welfare narratives tend to be negative. We use three distinct events to show how different types of shocks influence narratives, decomposing sentiment shifts into theme-composition and within-theme changes. |
| Keywords: | narrative economics, immigration, media, newspapers, voting |
| JEL: | F22 J15 C81 Z13 D72 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10026&r=mig |
| By: | Panichella, Nazareno; Cantalini, Stefano |
| Abstract: | Geographical mobility is a major driving force underlying demographic and social change, but surprisingly fewer studies have focused on how it influences occupational success and the intergenerational reproduction of social inequalities. This work studied the effect of internal mobility on occupational status in Italy, investigating if male and female occupational status benefited from South-to-North migration, and if the migration benefit or disadvantage changed according to the family status and the social class of origin. Empirical analyses are based on the Italian Household Longitudinal Survey by means of a set of fixed effects linear regression panel models combined with the coarsened exact matching (CEM). Results show that only men experience a migration benefit, whereas women experience a migration disadvantage, which increases when they move after the union formation and the transition to parenthood. Finally, the effect of geographical mobility differs according to the social class of origin only for men, since those coming from the upper classes experience a much higher migration benefit than those from the medium and the lower ones. We thus show that geographical mobility is an additional source of advantage for individuals from the upper classes, and its positive effect on male occupational success cumulates with the family-related one, increasing the social distances between individuals located in different social strata. |
| Date: | 2022–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sep2x&r=mig |
| By: | Ferrer, Ana M.; Mascella, Allison |
| Abstract: | Current and future well-being and economic prosperity of children depend in large part on the nuances of decisions made by parents with respect to familial resources, an important part of which regard the time spent in the company of children. We estimate differences in the time that immigrant and Canadian-born parents allocate to child-care activities relative to other activities using the time diaries from the General Social Survey. We find that mothers born abroad spend more time at work and less time in leisure but there is no significant difference in time devoted to household production or child service between them and Canadian-born mothers. Despite not finding differences by immigration status in the total care-time parents provide for their children, we do find significant differences - by immigrant status - in time specifically devoted to human capital investment activities with children: African, Asian, European and South-Central American mothers spend up to 30 more minutes daily in these activities than the Canadian born. We further assess the patterns of time use of second-generation young adults and find that they spend more time on education and homework compared to third generation or higher young adults. This supports a plausible effect of the time invested in children's human capital generating activities by immigrant parents on their Canadian-born children. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:clefwp:48&r=mig |
| By: | Ferrer, Ana M.; Pan, Annie; Schirle, Tammy |
| Abstract: | The behaviour of married immigrant women regarding fertility and labour markets is an essential piece to understand the economic and cultural integration of immigrant households. However, the contribution of married immigrant women to the Canadian labour market was - until recently - considered of secondary importance and their labour market choices studied within a framework of temporary attachment to the labor force. Recent research, however, finds that a significant fraction of married immigrant women make labor supply decisions (and face barriers) similar to those of native-born married women. We show that this is the case in Canada as well, by estimating the progress of immigrant women over the 2000s. We use traditional measures of labour market attachment, such as participation, employment and wages, but also novel measures of labour market dynamics, such as transitions across labour market states. Differences in transition rates can reveal higher fragility of work for immigrant women, or reveal the extent to which immigrant women respond to family income shocks - the added worker effect. Results show that immigrant women are less likely to transition into employment - more likely to transition out of employment to either unemployment or inactivity - and more likely to respond to income shocks than the Canadian born. There is evidence of a gradual convergence with years spent in Canada to the outcomes of the Canadian born, which is much slower for immigrant women than immigrant men. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:clefwp:47&r=mig |
| By: | Dodini, Samuel (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Løken, Katrine (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Willén, Alexander (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | This paper isolates the impact of labor market competition on firms, workers, and communities. A shock to labor mobility from Sweden to Norway caused a substantial increase in labor competition for Swedish firms on the border with Norway. Using unique register data linked across the two countries, we show that Swedish firms respond by raising wages and reducing their workforces. The retained workers are of lower quality, resulting in a drop in value added and an increasing probability of market exit. Communities experience population flight, declining business activity, increased inequality, and increased support for worker protection parties. Norwegian firms benefit through cheaper labor costs, and there is evidence of Norwegian workers being displaced. The communities see increased support for anti-integration parties. We conclude that shocks to labor market competition, while benefiting certain workers, may have detrimental effects on local communities due to adverse effects on firm survival and business activity. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market Competition; Outside Options; Labor Mobility; Inequality; Community Development |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J42 J61 J62 |
| Date: | 2022–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2022_017&r=mig |