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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Mustafa Özer; Jan Fidrmuc |
| Abstract: | Large-scale immigration waves can have adverse effects on physical and mental health of the natives. We investigate the impact of the unprecedented influx of Syrian refugees after 2011 on the mental health of native Turks. Our results suggest that immigration may adversely affects the mental health of natives. The adverse effects, however, are conditioned by the underlying political environment: they are strong in opposition-controlled provinces but limited in areas controlled by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of president Erdoğan. At the individual level, we observe adverse effects of immigration among married, older, less-educated, and employed women, for women with unemployed husbands, and for children with young or less-educated mothers or unemployed fathers. We believe these individual-level patterns reflect the combined effect of increased demand for health-care services and increased competition at the labor and marriage markets. |
| Keywords: | health, mental health, immigration, instrumental variable, natural experiment |
| JEL: | F22 I12 J15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11399 |
| By: | Diogo Baerlocher (University of South Florida); Gustavo Cortes (Warrington College of Business, University of Florida); Vinicios Sant'Anna (MIT) |
| Abstract: | When natural disasters strike, the impact on housing markets can be far-reaching. This paper explores the unique dynamics of natural disaster-induced migration on the housing market, focusing on the 1930s Dust Bowl migration to Los Angeles---the top migrant destination. We use U.S. Census-linked and geocoded address data to document that the arrival of Dust Bowl migrants significantly impacted the city's housing market. We show that houses inhabited by Dust Bowl migrants had lower price growth over the decade. Critically, we uncover valuation spillovers within highly granular neighborhoods, where houses inhabited by non-migrants experienced lower price growth modulated by how close they were to Dust Bowl migrants. Our analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that these effects were primarily driven by the economic vulnerability of migrants rather than generalized discrimination. Our research contributes to understanding how natural disaster-induced migration shapes housing markets and the dimensions in which climate refugees differ from other migrants. |
| Keywords: | Real Estate, Housing, Immigration, Disaster-induced displacement |
| JEL: | R21 R23 R31 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usf:wpaper:2024-05 |
| By: | Avi Woodward-Kelen |
| Abstract: | This paper seeks to explore the multifaceted incentives faced by potential migrants across developed countries, focusing on the empirical examination the drivers of, and barriers to, migration. Leveraging census microdata from OECD countries, this paper adapts methodologies from Clemens et al. (2019) to quantify wage disparities and employs a quasi-gravity trade model to analyze migration elasticity in relation to wage gaps, natural barriers (geographical and cultural differences), and policy constraints. A straightforward application of the Roy-Borjas model finds no evidence of selection bias on unobservable characteristics, although some migrant groups systematically outperform host-country natives. I find that migration patterns are highly similar to patterns of international trade in their sensitivity to distance, and my variance decomposition analysis finds that natural barriers are approximately as good as wage gaps are in predicting the variance in migration decisions. |
| JEL: | F22 F66 J61 J71 K37 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lis:liswps:884 |
| By: | James Cabral; Walter Steingress |
| Abstract: | The arrival of immigrants increases demand for housing and puts upward pressure on shelter prices. Using instrumental variables based on the ancestry composition of residents in US counties, we estimate the causal impact of immigration on local shelter prices. We show that the impact of immigrants is heterogeneous across locations. The increase in shelter prices is greater in counties where immigrants have higher levels of education and in counties that issue fewer building permits. We also find that the house prices respond more to immigration than rent prices do. The larger issuance of building permits for multi-unit homes than for single-unit homes can reconcile the different price reactions. Based on empirical estimates, we find that the predicted contribution of immigration to US shelter price growth is small, around 2%, because the arrival of immigrants accounts for a small share in local population changes. When we apply our estimates to population movements across counties within the United States, our model can predict 50% to 60% of observed shelter price growth over the past 30 years. |
| Keywords: | Housing; Inflation and Prices; International topics; Regional economic developments |
| JEL: | J61 R23 R31 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:24-40 |
| By: | Michal Burzynski; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | We analyze the implications of non-EU immigration for wage distribution and inequality among European workers, by focusing on their migration across local labor markets and within- and across-occupational mobility. To quantify the role of each channel, we build a multi-region, multi-occupation and multi-sector model of labor markets that replicates the regularities of labor mobility across spatial and occupational cells in Europe observed in the data. We find that non-EU immigration increases wages of the majority of European workers, while generating significant sorting across occupations (job upgrading) and inducing negative self-selection of natives into inactivity. The overall level of income inequality rises (especially the between-occupation component), fueled by natives’ mobility across jobs. The sorting of native workers across regions induced by immigration is of lesser importance for welfare and inequality, but shapes the spatial distribution of overall effects. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; Welfare; Sorting; Self-selection |
| JEL: | C68 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2024-09 |
| By: | Jackson, Bella |
| Abstract: | The Age of Mass Migration saw unprecedented flows of Italian migrants to the US and Argentina, mostly directed to NYC and Buenos Aires. Droller, Fizsbein and Pérez claim that Italians in Argentina were more skilled than those in America. If so, why did higher-skilled Italians move to Argentina over America when real wages were higher in America than Argentina? I assemble datasets using Argentine and American censuses and wage data to compare literacy rates and occupational compositions of Italian immigrants between these countries and cities. I create a regression model to contrast the returns to skills between Italians in Argentina and America and I determine skill premia for both Italian cohorts using income data. I find that Italian immigrants in Argentina were more skilled than Italian immigrants in America, due to higher literacy rates and a higher-skilled occupational composition. I argue that the skill scarcity in Argentina, and higher returns to skills and skill premia than America, explains the greater appeal of Argentina for skilled Italian migrants. I stress the importance of considering returns to skills and skill premia when studying migratory flows between destination countries. |
| Keywords: | gender pay gap; gender equality; economic growth; human development; South Korean growth; marital status; trade unions |
| JEL: | J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2024–10–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125829 |
| By: | Silvia Albrizio; Hippolyte W. Balima; Bertrand Gruss; Eric Huang; Colombe Ladreit |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates public perceptions and support for policies aimed at integrating immigrant workers into domestic labor markets. Through large-scale surveys involving 6, 300 respondents from Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom, we provide new insights into attitudes toward migrant integration policies and the impact of different information provisions on belief updating. We identify three key factors that shape policy support: pre-existing stereotypes about immigrants, awareness of labor market integration policies for migrants, and, most critically, the perceived economic and social impact of these policies. Our findings reveal that providing information about the economic effects of integrating immigrants in the labor market significantly alters perceptions and increases support for these policies. Notably, explanations of the economic mechanisms underlying these policies are more effective than simply presenting policy effects or real-life stories of integration challenges. The survey also identifies the primary barriers to policy support, with fairness considerations toward unemployed native workers emerging as the top concern. It reveals that addressing individuals’ specific concerns through tailored mitigation measures can enhance support for policies aimed at better integration migrants. Nevertheless, a significant challenge remains in overcoming mistrust in the government’s commitment and ability to effectively implement these policies and accompanying measures. |
| Keywords: | Labor market integration policies; Survey; Perceptions; Immigration; Online experiment; Political Economy; integration policy; shape policy support; policy effect; mitigation policy; support variable; integration migrant; Migration; Labor markets; Labor market policy; Global |
| Date: | 2024–10–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2024/217 |
| By: | Jan Fidrmuc; Maksym Obrizan; Piotr Stanek |
| Abstract: | We analyze the wellbeing socio-economic characteristics of Ukrainian refugees in Poland and compare them with their co-nationals who remained in Ukraine. Specifically, we identify the determinants of happiness, trust and self-declared health, and the patterns of self-selection into becoming a refugee in Poland. We focus on how having experienced violence in the course of the current conflict affects socio-economic outcomes of refugees and stayers. We find that the refugees are less well-off both economically and in terms of their general wellbeing (happiness). Having experienced violence does not seem to compel Ukrainians to become refugees, suggesting that they move preemptively, due to the threat of violence, and not after having experienced it. Having suffered violence, however, has a lasting adverse impact on the happiness, trust and health of Ukrainians in Poland and Ukraine alike. |
| Keywords: | refugees, violence, happiness, trust, health, Ukraine |
| JEL: | F22 F51 I10 I30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11393 |
| By: | Renato P. Colistete |
| Abstract: | This article presents new estimates of the number of enslaved workers, immigrants, and nationals employed in coffee production in the province of São Paulo during the years 1886-1887, just a few months before the Abolition and the beginning of mass European immigration. Drawing on slave labor, the expansion of coffee in the Paraíba Valley and the new areas of western São Paulo also incorporated different forms of free labor, whose numbers, distribution, and importance, however, remain an enigma and a subject of divergent and even opposing views. The main challenge is the scarcity – or lack – of quantitative data on each group of workers, especially in the case of free labor. This difficulty is exacerbated because the proportion of enslaved, immigrants, and nationals engaged in coffee cultivation may have varied substantially between different regions and periods of coffee expansion in São Paulo. As an alternative, this article adapts the method used by Van Delden Laërne (Brazil and Java, 1885) to estimate the distribution of the workforce on rural properties, using a variety of sources and data – such as the 1886 provincial census, the 1887 slave register (“matrícula de escravos†), reports from railway companies and farm records, as well as information from contemporary observers. The estimates indicate that, in 1886-1887, just over half of the labor force in São Paulo’s coffee agriculture was composed of enslaved workers. Thus, while the slave labor regime continued to be predominant on the province’s coffee farms, free labor (including freedmen) played a significant role on the eve of the Abolition and even before the Great Immigration began in the early months of 1887. The composition of this free labor was not limited to European immigrants. On the contrary, the importance of Brazilian workers appears to have been even greater than that of immigrants across the coffee farms of the time. The distribution of coffee labor also varied between regions, according to the timing of agricultural frontier expansion, with western São Paulo exhibiting a relative participation of enslaved workers in coffee cultivation almost identical to that of the Paraíba Valley. What distinguished the two traditional regions was the composition of free labor: in the older region, nationals made up almost half of the workforce engaged in coffee, while in the West free labor was distributed approximately equally between immigrants and nationals. In the new areas of coffee agriculture in the New West and the Frontier zones, with a relatively smaller number of immigrants and nationals, enslaved workers composed the dominant workforce until the beginning of the Great Immigration in 1887 and the collapse of slavery. |
| Keywords: | Coffee agriculture; Enslaved workers; Immigrants; Nationals; São Paulo; 1886-1887 |
| JEL: | N56 N36 N96 |
| Date: | 2024–11–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2024wpecon27 |
| By: | Brian J. Asquith (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research); Evan Mast (University of Notre Dame) |
| Abstract: | Local population decline has spread rapidly since 1970, with half of counties losing population between 2010 and 2020. The workhorse economic models point to net out-migration, likely driven by changing local economies and amenities, as the cause of this trend. However, we show that the share of counties with high net out-migration has not increased. Instead, falling fertility has caused migration rates that used to generate growth to instead result in decline. When we simulate county populations from 1970 to the present holding fertility at its initial level, only 10 percent of counties decline during the 2010s. |
| Keywords: | fertility, population decline, migration, counties, simulations |
| JEL: | J11 J13 N92 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:24-406 |
| By: | Wicht, Alexandra; Protsch, Paula; Menze, Laura; Weßling, Katarina |
| Abstract: | Spatial mobility plays a crucial role in shaping social stratification processes. While previous research focused on adult workers’ monetary returns from commuting or relocating, early career gains in occupational status may be more significant from a life course perspective. We examine whether spatial mobility yields status returns for labor market entrants and, if so, how such returns might be stratified by young people’s local opportunity structures and their level of schooling. We use longitudinal data from the German National Educational Panel Study merged with fine-grained regional information and focus on transitions from school to Vocational Education and Training (VET). As a novel approach to address the methodological challenge of self-selection into spatial mobility, we propose incorporating young people’s occupational aspirations into the regression analysis. We show that mobile young people are more likely to get higher-status VET positions. Yet, being spatially mobile only pays off if young people commute or move away from structurally weak regions and for those with higher levels of schooling who are already privileged in status attainment. We conclude that young people can potentially overcome regional disadvantages through spatial mobility, while spatial mobility also tends to widen the gap in status attainment between educational groups. |
| Date: | 2024–10–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:cm324 |