Choosing Your Country: Networks, Perceptions and Destination Selection among Georgian Labour Migrants

Abstract

Existing literature demonstrates that social networks play a key role in international migrants' selection of destinations. But how do such networks begin? The Republic of Georgia is an example of a country from which migrants travel to many different destination countries, most of which had no Georgian population before the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paper uses a combination of nationally representative survey data and semi-structured interviews to identify the patterns and logic of men's and women's destination choices. I find that a wide variety of micro- and macro-level factors influence the desirability of destinations and that perceived gender differences in the labour market demands of the destination countries and variation in the accessibility of different countries explain much of the variation in destination selection among migrants. Social networks play a vital role in shaping perceptions of destination countries, which can be highly localised and changeable in the early stages of migration.