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on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Obi,Chinedu Temple |
| Abstract: | Refugee camps are believed to represent safe havens for forcibly displaced persons, but studies looking at refugees' quality of life in camps are few. This paper explores how Syrian refugees’ quality of life in camps in Jordan differs from that of Syrian refugees residing outside camps. Using data from the Syrian Refugee and Host Community Survey, the study measures life quality through indicators of subjective life experience and material living conditions. Data are analyzed using advanced statistical methods (difference-in-difference and propensity score matching) to control for selection bias that could skew estimates of causal effects. The results show that refugees living outside camps enjoy a higher quality of life than those living in camps. Out-of-camp refugees are less likely to live below the national abject poverty line or in overcrowded houses. They possess more household assets, are more satisfied with access to services, and report higher life satisfaction. Refugee camps appear to serve as safe havens for refugees who lack the capability to exit camps, and camps could be redundant for those who possess adequate capabilities and freedom to function in the urban and peri-urban areas. |
| Keywords: | Inequality,Gender and Economics,Gender and Poverty,Economics and Gender,Gender and Economic Policy,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Hydrology,Energy Policies&Economics |
| Date: | 2021–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9533&r=mig |
| By: | Shamsuddin,Mrittika; Acosta,Pablo Ariel; Battaglin Schwengber,Rovane; Fix,Jedediah Rooney; Pirani,Nikolas |
| Abstract: | An unprecedented number of Venezuelans have left behind the worsening economic and social crisis at home to look for better future prospects. Brazil is hosting about 261,000 Venezuelans as migrants, asylum seekers, or refugees, which, at 18 percent, constitutes the largest share of Brazil’s 1.3 million refugees and migrants population (as of October 2020). Although previous literature on other host countries found that Venezuelan refugees and migrants are struggling to secure high-paying jobs that are commensurate with their education, little is known about their access to education and social protection. This paper fills this gap by analyzing various administrative and census data to explore whether Venezuelan migrants and refugees face differential access to education, the formal labor market and social protection programs. It finds that even though there is minimum legal constraints and work permits are relatively easy to obtain, Venezuelan refugees and migrants face challenges integrating into the education system, social protection programs and the formal labor market. The results suggest that Venezuelan refugees and migrants have faced downgrading in grades at school and occupations at work. They are more likely to attend overcrowded schools than their host community counterparts and more likely to do inferior jobs characterized by temporality, lower wages and higher hours worked. Overall, the results suggest that improvement in school capacity, accreditation of Venezuelan education or degrees and relocation to places with favorable employment opportunities may facilitate integration. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Rural Labor Markets,Social Protections&Assistance,Labor Markets,Access&Equity in Basic Education,Educational Populations,Education for Development (superceded),Education For All |
| Date: | 2021–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9605&r=mig |
| By: | Bandiera,Antonella Agostina; Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana; Rozo Villarraga,Sandra Viviana; Schmidt-Padilla,Carlos; Sviatschi,Maria Micaela; Winkler,Hernan Jorge |
| Abstract: | Can repatriation inflows impact firm behavior in origin countries? This paper examines this question in the context of repatriation inflows from the United States and Mexico to El Salvador. The paper combines a rich longitudinal data set covering all formal firms in El Salvador with individual-level data on all registered repatriations from 2010 to 2017. The empirical strategy combines variation in the municipality of birth of individuals repatriated over 1995-2002—before a significant change in deportation policies—with annual variation in aggregate inflows of repatriations to El Salvador. The findings show that repatriations have large negative effects on the average wages of formal workers. This is mainly driven by formal firms in sectors that face more intense competition from the informal sector, which deportees are more likely to join. Repatriation inflows also reduce total employment among formal firms in those sectors. Given that most deportees spend less than a month abroad, these findings suggest that the experience of being detained and deported can have strong negative effects not only on the deportees, but also on their receiving communities. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Educational Sciences,Rural Labor Markets,Crime and Society,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Migration and Development,International Migration |
| Date: | 2021–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9521&r=mig |
| By: | Luong, Tuan Anh; Nguyen, Manh-Hung; Khuong Truong, N.T.; Le, Kien |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent to which exposure to climate volatility can in-fluence individual migration decisions in Vietnam, based on the historical rainfall data from 70 weather stations in Vietnam and the Vietnam Access to Resources House-hold Survey. Utilizing the exogenous variation in the rainfall deviation from the local norms within an individual fixed-effects framework, we uncover the negative associa-tion between rainfall and the probability of individual migration. Individual migration probability drops by 7.5 percentage points when the amount of rainfall relative to the long-run local average doubles. This reduction could potentially be driven by individ-uals who work in the agricultural sector and are less likely to migrate as more rainfall could increase their agricultural incomes. Furthermore, our heterogeneity analyses sug-gest that rainfall shocks could perpetuate gender inequality in Vietnam since women cannot cope with climatic shocks through migration. Policy-makers could shift their focus on flood control and water management in affected areas, where people’s liveli-hoods depend on agriculture, to efficiently address issues related to climate-induced internal migration. |
| JEL: | Q26 Q54 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–10–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:127429&r=mig |
| By: | Markowsky, Eva; Wolf, Fridolin; Schäfer, Marie |
| Abstract: | We compare the earnings of monolingual and competent bilingual immigrants in Germany. A joint discussion of language skills as human capital or social capital and theories of ethnic marginalisation leads us to expect heterogeneous returns to bilingualism. To track this potential divergence, we differentiate effects by gender, language group, immigrant density in respond- ents' areas of residence, and communication intensity of their occupations. Doing so reveals sizeable differences in the returns to bilingualism. We find positive effects for the largest immigrant community in Germany, the Turkish population, while other language groups do not seem to benefit from retaining their heritage language. Individuals with a Turkish migration background have higher earnings when proficient in their heritage language and German. We discuss how the size of the immigrant community and the bilingualism premium might be related and pursue two alternative explanations: Specialised labour demand due to the wide dissemination of the Turkish-speaking population in Germany and ethnic social networks that are open only to those with proficiency in the heritage language. Our data indicate that both are important but operate in gender-specific ways. Turkish bilingual men experience an earnings premium only in occupations with high communication intensity, while there is no statistical relationship for women. The social capital channel is also much more potent for men, while bilingual German-Turkish women do not seem to profit from heritage-language networks for labour market success to the same degree. We discuss differences by gender in activating social capital and cultural influences as drivers of this gap. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:uhhwps:68&r=mig |
| By: | Leefmans,Naomi; Oomes,Nienke; Rojas Romagosa,Hugo Alexander; Vervliet,Tobias; Berthiaume,Nicolas |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the migration transition hypothesis that emigration flows first increase and later decrease with a country’s economic development. Using a migration version of the gravity model, this hypothesis is tested on a global panel data set comprising 180 origin and destination countries and a 50-year timeframe (1970-2020). This is the most extensive panel data set used so far to test the migration transition hypothesis. The results confirm the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between development and emigration within a cross-country panel setting. Nevertheless, the migration hump cannot be interpreted as a causal relationship: for a given low-income country, an increase in economic development is not found to lead to higher emigration. For a subsample of 44 countries that have transitioned from low-income to middle-income status, emigration has rather declined with economic development. The migration transition hypothesis is therefore unfounded. Instead, the migration hump appears to be driven by an underlying cross-sectional pattern that cannot be fully controlled: middle-income countries tend to exhibit higher emigration rates than low- or high-income countries. The findings of this paper have important policy implications: development programs can simultaneously promote economic development and reduce emigration. |
| Keywords: | Migration and Development,International Trade and Trade Rules,Social Cohesion,Natural Disasters |
| Date: | 2021–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9518&r=mig |
| By: | Andersson, Fredrik W. (Statistics Sweden); Wadensjö, Eskil (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | The Russian war in Ukraine has led to many fleeing the country. The Temporary Protection Directive applies to those from Ukraine but also those who received a residence permit in Ukraine as a refugee before 24 February 2022, as those who have fled from Belarus to Ukraine in recent years. We can therefore expect that many refugees will come to Sweden from Ukraine, but also to a lesser extent indirectly from Belarus. For refugees originating in these two countries, reception may be facilitated by that people from the same countries have arrived before. Whether those who came earlier can be of help to refugees who come now in terms of finding employment depends, among other things, on the labor market position of the former migrants in Sweden. Do they have work and if so what kind of work? In which parts of Sweden do they live? In this paper, we try to answer these questions. |
| Keywords: | Ukraine, Belarus, Swedish labor market, employment, migrants |
| JEL: | F22 F51 J15 J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15642&r=mig |
| By: | Kalin, Salla; Kauppinen, Ilpo; Kotakorpi, Kaisa; Pirttilä, Jukka |
| Abstract: | While evidence on the impact of taxation on the international migration of certain special groups of workers has expanded, evidence on the links between taxes and migration of the general population is extremely limited. We aim to fll this gap by estimating the impact of taxation on the migration decisions of the entire working population in a high-tax source country, Finland. We fnd that the average domestic elasticity of migration with respect to the domestic tax rate is very small (around 0.001). This holds for various occupational and income groups of interest. We also provide a frst empirical implementation of the theoretical results of Lehmann et al. (2014), who show that if a fully nonlinear income tax schedule at the top is used, the key suÿcient statistic for the optimal tax is a semi-elasticity of migration. Our estimates indicate that the migration responses increase for top earners, but remain very small, at least up to the top per mille of income earners. |
| Keywords: | taxation, emigration, Social security, taxation and inequality, Labour markets and education, J61, H31, fi=Verotus|sv=Beskattning|en=Taxation|, |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:150&r=mig |
| By: | Ginzinger, Felix Sebastian Veit |
| Abstract: | Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a rapid population increase and growing urbanization rates in recent years and is bound to have the world's largest urban population. If no steps are taken against it, the fast rise in the urban population will result in severe consequences for urban localities in the developing countries located in this region. Along with the natural population increase, internal migration is one prime reason for a fast-rising urbanization process. Since this type of migration is very common in developing countries, this following paper conducts a spatial analysis of inter-regional migration with special reference to Ghana. Specifically, it analyzes the Ghana's migration patterns in Ghana by visualizing the regional differences in net migration and the major migration flows from one region to another. Data for this analysis were collected from a population census and a household survey. A cross-sectional regression analysis was conducted to examine which factors explain inter-regional migration flows in the country. The regression model employed in the analysis is based on the gravity model of migration, which explains how the size of and the distance between two places affects the movement between them, and added the rate of urbanization as well as the average annual income per capita of both regions. The regression results reveal that the distance between two administrative regions in Ghana and the birth region's urbanization rate refrain people from migrating to other regions. In contrast, the urbanization rate and the average income of the destination region are positively associated with the inflow of migrants. Nevertheless, due to the data's limitations, the nexus between migration flows and regional disparities cannot be fully investigated. Therefore, this paper calls for more research to be done in this field. |
| Keywords: | Inter-regional migration, Urbanization, Spatial analysis, Gravity model of migration, Ghana |
| JEL: | O1 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:114945&r=mig |
| By: | Dražanová, Lenka; Gonnot, Jérôme; Heidland, Tobias; Krüger, Finja |
| Abstract: | Public attitudes toward immigration have attracted much scholarly interest and extensive empirical research in recent years. Despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature, no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the factors affecting immigration opinion. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis derived from the literature regarding immigration attitudes from the top journals of several social science disciplines in the years 2009-2019 and based on a population of 1185 estimates derived from 144 unique analyses on individual-level factors affecting attitudes to immigration. The metaanalytical findings show that two individual-level characteristics are most significantly associated with attitudes to immigration - education (positively) and age (negatively). Our results further reveal that the same individual characteristics do not necessarily explain immigration policy attitudes and attitudes towards immigrants' contribution. The findings challenge several conventional micro-level theories of attitudes to immigration. The meta-analysis can inform future research when planning the set of explanatory variables to avoid omitting key determinants. |
| Keywords: | meta-analysis,attitudes toward immigration,public opinion,migration,intergroup relations |
| JEL: | F22 J15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:2235&r=mig |
| By: | Riillo, Cesare Fabio Antonio; Peroni, Chiara |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the empirical link between migrations and entrepreneurship in European countries, for the first time drawing from a large sample of individuals sourced from the cross-country GEM survey. Specifically, the paper studies the impact of individuals' immigration status on entrepreneurial outcomes at all stages of the entrepreneurial process: interest in starting a new business, effectively starting, running a new business and managing an established company. The analysis uses a sequential probit model with sample selection to capture the dependence between entrepreneurial stages. It also distinguishes between different typologies of entrepreneurs (necessity and opportunity-driven, European and non-European; recent and long-standing immigrants). Additionally, it implements heteroscedasticity based instruments to address potential endogeneity issues. The study finds evidence that immigration has a positive effect on entrepreneurship. Immigrants are more willing to engage in entrepreneurship. Among those who started a new business, however, immigrants have lower chances than natives to succeed in the following stages of entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Immigration; Sequential Logit; Probit; sample selection; GEM. |
| JEL: | C25 D0 F22 J15 J6 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:114580&r=mig |
| By: | Aziz, Nusrate; Aziz, Ahmed; Mahar, Gerry |
| Abstract: | This study estimates international and interprovincial migrants' impact on interprovincial trade using panel data from 1981- 2016 for Canadian provinces. Estimated results show that migration plays a significant role in determining Canadian interprovincial trade. Although the stock of interprovincial migrants is smaller than the stock of immigrants in Canadian provinces, the earlier plays a consistently positive and significant role in interprovincial trade, but the latter is not consistently significant across estimators. Trade openness, population-weighted distance, and language proximity are also significant factors of interprovincial trade creation. Our results are robust to different estimation methods, model specifications, and alternative measures of migrants' stock in Canadian provinces. |
| Keywords: | interprovincial migration,immigration,interprovincial trade,gravity model,IV approach |
| JEL: | C33 C36 F16 F22 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:341r&r=mig |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A. (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Conditional Cash Transfers are increasingly used by development aid agencies to reduce the incentives for migration from low-income countries. The evidence to date suggests that such transfers typically increase the rate of migration when they are conditional on investment, such as investment in education. They do this primarily by facilitating acquisition of human capital and by lowering capital constraints—increasing both migration aspirations and the means to achieve them. But with certain design features, particular transfer programs have reduced the incentive to migrate. Broadly speaking, migration can be deterred by transfer programs that are conditional on presence in the origin country—provided that the condition is strict, targeted, and lengthy. |
| Keywords: | migration, emigration, irregular, refugee, cash, transfer, income, assistance, aid, insurance, CCT, education, selection, policy, asylum, migrant, immigrant |
| JEL: | F22 F35 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izapps:pp191&r=mig |
| By: | Bossavie,Laurent Loic Yves; Garrote Sanchez,Daniel; Makovec,Mattia; Ozden,Caglar |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the impact of immigration to Western Europe on the exposure of native-born workers to economic and health risks created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks, it first shows that immigrant workers, especially those coming from lower-income member countries of the European Union or from outside the European Union, are more exposed to the negative income shocks relative to the natives. The paper then examines whether immigration has an impact on the exposure of natives to COVID-19-related risks in Western Europe. A Bartik-type shift share instrument is used to control for potential unobservable factors that would lead migrants to self-select into more vulnerable occupations across regions and bias the results. The results of the instrumental variable estimates indicate that the presence of immigrant workers had a causal impact in reducing the exposure of natives to COVID-19-related economic and health risks in European regions. Estimated effects are stronger for high-skilled native workers than for low-skilled natives and for women relative to men. The paper does not find any significant effect of immigration on wages and employment, which indicates that the effects are mostly driven by a reallocation from less safe jobs to safer jobs. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Indigenous Peoples Law,Indigenous Peoples,Indigenous Communities,Health Care Services Industry,Human Migrations&Resettlements,International Migration,Migration and Development |
| Date: | 2020–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9500&r=mig |
| By: | Tabuga, Aubrey D.; Vargas, Anna Rita P.; Baino, Madeleine Louise S. |
| Abstract: | In spite of the significant contribution of international migration to the Philippine economy, there has not been any government survey that can provide a nationally representative information on such phenomenon until 2018 with the conduct of the National Migration Survey (NMS) by the Philippine Statistics Authority. The 2018 NMS provides a reliable dataset that can be used to characterize migration phenomenon including international migration. This study took advantage of the presence of such data and examined the characteristics of international migration behavior of Filipinos for purposes of developing stylized facts and putting forward policy insights for improving migration-related and other development policies. The results show that Filipinos have a greater tendency for international migration when compared to the global average. Filipino international migrants move when at their prime ages. Some subnational regions like Ilocos Region, ARMM, Cagayan Valley, and NCR have a greater tendency or capacity for sending international migrants than others. Compared to the general population, international migrants are relatively more educated. International migration by Filipinos is mainly driven by economic reasons. Many Overseas Filipino Workers, particularly women, engaged in elementary occupations (61% of total). Majority of migrants leave children behind, many of whom are minors. Nearly half of first-time migrants did not have a job prior to movement. Not all of the migrants used work visas in entering their destination. Some used tourist visas while others did not need visas. An interesting finding is that majority of tourist visa holders who stayed at their destination for at least 3 months eventually changed their visas to work visas while at their destination. In terms of recruitment, although the most common way was through private recruitment agencies (59%), a non-negligible 34.2 percent were directly hired by their overseas employers. Surprisingly, despite the need for written contracts, some (12.6% of the total) still risk going abroad to work without a written contract. Having a written contract seems to be more prevalent among those who have achieved relatively higher educational attainment than those with lower attainment. There is also a greater tendency of not getting a written contract among those who were directly hired by the employer, those who did not need a visa to enter the destination, and those who went abroad using tourist visas. In terms of reintegration, a non-negligible proportion (35%) of all returning migrants find it difficult to find jobs in the country upon return. Given these findings, it is important to create relevant policies and interventions that can reduce potential negative impacts of migration and risks. It is important to effectively raise awareness and educate prospective migrants on the work conditions on-site (for the sizable portion of migrant workers who are young, less educated, and may not have adequate pre-migration experience and preparation) as well as the importance of having written, clear contracts prior to international migration. Comments to this paper are welcome within 60 days from the date of posting. Email publications@pids.gov.ph. |
| Keywords: | international migration; Philippine migration; Migration policy; OFW; migration behavior |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2021-40&r=mig |