Migrant Effect Research Articles

Effects of internal migrants' health on economic resilience in China's Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration: moderating effects of basic public health services.

Internal migrants constitute a significant generality in the socioeconomic development of developing countries. With the frequent occurrence of major public health emergencies, obstacles to labor supply due to health issues among internal migrants not only affect their livelihood stability but also urban economic resilience. Moreover, the design of basic public health service systems tends to favor local residents over internal migrants, further exacerbating the health and employment risks of internal migrants. As a result, urban economic resilience faces significant challenges. The objective of this study was to deconstruct economic resilience into economic resistance and recovery abilities, investigate the net effect and its heterogeneity of internal migrants' health on economic resilience in China's Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (CYRD), and the mediating effect from labor participation rate and labor time supply, as well as the moderating effect of basic public health services. Based on the China Migrants Dynamic Survey data (CMDS), the study empirically estimated the effects of internal migrants' health on economic resilience in CYRD through microeconometric analysis methods, mediating and moderating effect model. Our findings indicate that internal migrants' health has a positive effect on economic resilience in CYRD. For each unit increase in migrants' health, it will drive up the average economic resistance ability by 0.0186 and the average recovery ability by 0.0039. Secondly, the net effects of migrants' health on economic resilience show significant structural differences, industry and city heterogeneity. The effect of migrants' health on economic resistance ability is significantly higher than that on economic recovery ability; The effect of migrants' health on economic resilience of the secondary industry is higher than that of the tertiary industry; The cities with high economic resistance and recovery abilities have more prominent positive effect from migrants' health. Thirdly, migrants' health not only has a direct effect on the economic resistance and recovery abilities, but also has a mediating effect on which through labor participation rate and labor time supply. Enhancing the accessibility and quality of basic public health services is beneficial for enhancing the positive effects of internal migrants' health on economic resilience.

Food Insecurity among International Migrants during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and the measures imposed to control it have impacted food security globally, particularly among vulnerable populations. Food insecurity, in turn, has repercussions on health, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities. This scoping review maps the literature describing associations between the COVID-19 pandemic and food insecurity among migrants, with a particular view toward health. A total of 909 papers were extracted through four electronic databases, and 46 studies were included. The migrant populations described originated mainly from Latin America (11/46) and were located in North America (21/46). Most studies included refugees and asylum seekers (20/46). The main challenges described were financial hardship (28/46), the effect of migrants' documentation status on using public food aid (13/46), and the suspension of or reduction in humanitarian assistance due to the economic recession (7/46). The impact of food insecurity on migrants' mental and physical health was described in 26 of the 46 studies. Authorities in all destination countries should focus their attention and efforts into ensuring nutrition security for migrants in a holistic way, including their economic and legal integration, to be better prepared for health crises in the future.

Business environment distance, absorptive capacity and innovation performance of EMNEs: evidence from China

PurposeThis paper investigates the effect of business environment distance on innovation performance of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) and explores the mediating effect of absorptive capacity between the two, and it further analyzes the moderating effect of skilled migrants in the relationship between business environment distance and absorptive capacity.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical analysis based on a fixed effect model is conducted using data of Chinese MNEs listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock that expand into developed markets from 2011 to 2018.FindingsThe results suggest business environment distance positively affects the innovation performance of EMNEs, and can enhance innovation performance by affecting absorptive capacity of EMNEs. In addition, skilled migrants strengthen the relationship between business environment distance and absorptive capacity of EMNEs.Practical implicationsChinese MNEs should fully exploit business environment distance to acquire the technology needed for innovation activities, and strengthen absorptive capacity to maximize the benefits from innovation. Chinese government needs to strengthen the construction of skilled migrants to facilitate knowledge and technology transfer.Originality/valueCombining springboard theory and institutional theory, this paper integrates macro and micro perspectives to explore whether and how business environment distance affects innovation performance of Chinese MNEs. The paper provides a good theoretical basis and important practical reference value for enhancing the technological innovation capability of Chinese MNEs and the overall technological innovation level of China.

Exploring the Effect of Health on Migrants' Social Integration in China.

There are 376 million migrants, which account for more than 25% of the population in China according to the newest national demographic census, most of whom are from undeveloped areas to developed urban regions. Migrants’ social integration was one of the most important issues when the country aimed to build an inclusive society. As a form of human capital, the effect of migrants’ health status on social integration has rarely been explored until now, especially empirically. Previous studies have usually ignored health indicators when discussing the determinants of migrants’ social integration, and understanding the role of migrants’ physical health and mental health on their social integration is significant for efforts to ensure inclusive urbanization. For filling this research gap, the China Migrants Dynamic Survey dataset was used to uncover the role of migrants’ health status, including physical health and mental health, in their degree of social integration, and a further comparison of impact was conducted among rural–urban and urban–urban migrants. Through the empirical analysis, our results indicated the following. First, both better physical and mental health lead to higher social integration levels, and a one-point increase in physical and mental health improves the odds of good social integration by 33.27% and 5.98% for belonging and 66.05% and 6.35% for harmony, respectively. Second, health status is equally important for rural–urban and urban–urban migrants’ social integration, and the significant positive effect was consistent across groups, although some other impact factors may exhibit differences. Third, the effect of health status on social integration was moderated by social participation, which was more obvious for mental health than physical health. According to our findings, we discuss the measures to promote migrants’ health status and additional countermeasures to improve their social integration level.

Migrants and access to health care in Costa Rica

• The paper examines access to health care in Costa Rica by Nicaraguan migrants. • It confronts two opposing views - Nicaraguan migrants overuse public health services and they are discriminated • Based on administrative and unique survey data there is no support for either view. • The incidence of migrant health care use is lower than their share in the population. • There is no evidence of systematic discrimination in access to health care against Nicaraguans based on their nationality. As in most immigrant-receiving countries in the global North, countries in the South face challenges regarding migrant access to social rights and the effect of migrants on the sustainability of the welfare state. In the Latin American context, this holds especially for countries such as Costa Rica, which has one of the strongest social policy regimes in the South and the highest (Nicaraguan) immigrant stock in Latin America. Set in the context of Costa Rica, this paper assesses two views which seem hard to reconcile, and, are common in the country. First, it is claimed that Nicaraguan migrants use public health services disproportionately, thereby threatening the country’s welfare system. Second, pro-migrant rights non-governmental organizations and academics are concerned, primarily based on qualitative studies, that access to health services for Nicaraguan immigrants is limited, and that they are discriminated based on nationality. This paper relies on administrative data and a unique data set representative of Nicaraguan born individuals residing in Costa Rica to examine the validity of both these claims. We do not find support for either. The incidence of migrant health care use is lower than their share in the population and at the same time there is no evidence of discrimination in health care access for migrants based on their nationality. The paper underlines the need for more informed migration debates.

The Effect of Internal Migrants on the Economic Lives of the Leftbehind Elderly in Vietnam

By analysing the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey in 2012 (VHLSS2012), which contained the data on remittances sent by the migrants to the households, the study discovered that internal migrants had a positive impact on poverty reduction and living conditions of the elderly left behind. Besides, the study also proved that the internal remittances made the income per capita distribution enlarge the inequality between the elderly household group receiving domestic remittances and the other groups. Although there were recently three consecutive surveys of 2014, 2016, and 2018, but these consisted of only the information on the migrant definition and had no precise details on remittance.

Liberation Nation? Queer Refugees, Homonationalism and the Canadian Necropolitical State

Abstract This paper presents an overview of the Canadian state’s refugee determination processes for persons lodging asylum claims in Canada on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity expression (SOGIE). Canada has an international reputation for being a welcoming nation to SOGIE (as well as other categories of) refugees, a reputation that is much promoted by the Canadian government and mainstream media. However, in my ethnographic research with SOGIE refugee claimants navigating the Canadian refugee determination process, I reveal that claimants must quickly learn how to construct an ‘authentically’ gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender narrative that meets refugee adjudicators’ standards of credibility, or risk being identified as a ‘fake’ refugee, and thus face incarceration and/or deportation. I argue that sexuality now forms a crucial component of the nation-state’s gate-keeping apparatus, with uneven effects for queer migrants.

Do internal migrants crowd out employment opportunities for urban locals in China?—Reexamining under the skill stratification

The relationship between internal migrants and local workers in urban labor market is the particularity of the transformation and development of China’s labor market. The analysis of which is helpful to accurately grasp the current situation and future of labor market. Based on the micro data of the fifth and sixth National Census and 1% National Sample Survey in 2005, this paper empirically tests the net effect and its heterogeneity characteristics of internal migrants on the employment of urban local workers. The results show that the effect of migrants on local workers’ employment is not a complete substitution effect, but there is a complementary effect on the employment of local workers. Specifically, the employment substitution effect is only manifested in low-skilled local workers, while the complementary effect is manifested in medium-skilled and high-skilled local workers. The micro mechanism of employment complementary effect can be explained by scale economy, skills complementarity, externalities of consumption and human capital. In addition, the impact of migrants on the employment of local workers depends significantly on the degree of division of the labor market that still exists. The reform of labor marketization and the mode of resource allocation guided by marketization are beneficial to balance urban and rural labor resources, promote skills complementarity and division between migrants and local workers, and finally realize a good situation of mutual benefit and win–win situation.

Migrant Networks in the Urban Labour Market: Evidence from India

This paper analyses the informal channels of the job search process through migrant networks in the urban labour markets in developing countries. Using a novel approach and nationwide sample survey, we measure various aspects of migrant networks such as size, diversity, efficiency and experience content and estimate their effect on probability of employment. Our findings suggest that migrant stock (having experience content) has an inverted-U relationship with the probability of finding a job for a migrant. The share of employed workers in a migrant network (efficiency) and different origin identity (diversity) positively affect the employment outcome through weak ties. Further, the migrant network effect is more active in larger cities as compared to smaller urban areas. The implications of this study indicate towards the importance of non-market informal channels in job searches and the need for integrating labour markets to harness the benefits of larger positive network externalities.

Late-career international migration and reproductive work. A comparison between Peruvian and Ukrainian women in the Southern Europe

Research on the relationship between reproductive work and women´s life trajectories including the experience of labour migration has mainly focused on the case of relatively young mothers who leave behind, or later re-join, their children. While it is true that most women migrate at a younger age, there are a significant number of cases of men and women who move abroad for labour purposes at a more advanced stage, undertaking a late-career migration. This is still an under-estimated and under-researched sub-field that uncovers a varied range of issues, including the global organization of reproductive work and the employment of migrant women as domestic workers late in their lives. By pooling the findings of two qualitative studies, this article focuses on Peruvian and Ukrainian women who seek employment in Spain and Italy when they are well into their forties, or older. A commonality the two groups of women share is that, independently of their level of education and professional experience, more often than not they end up as domestic and care workers. The article initially discusses the reasons for late-career female migration, taking into consideration the structural and personal determinants that have affected Peruvian and Ukrainian women’s careers in their countries of origin and settlement. After this, the focus is set on the characteristics of domestic employment at later life, on the impact on their current lives, including the transnational family organization, and on future labour and retirement prospects. Apart from an evaluation of objective working and living conditions, we discuss women’s personal impressions of being domestic workers in the context of their occupational experiences and family commitments. In this regard, women report varying levels of personal and professional satisfaction, as well as different patterns of continuity-discontinuity in their work and family lives, and of optimism towards the future. Divergences could be, to some extent, explained by the effect of migrants´ transnational social practices and policies of states.

The Migrant Effect: An Evaluation of Native Academic Performance in Qatar

Recent data have suggested that despite massive outlays on educational reform Qatar consistently ranks as one of the least academically proficient countries in key areas of literacy. Of the seventy-four countries that participated in PISA 2009 Qatar ranked between sixty-seven and sixty-nine in mathematics, reading and science literacy. Although this is a very dismal level of performance when compared to other countries, for the native Qatari population even these low rankings are biased upward. This study shows that a major reason for overestimation of native academic performance in Qatar is the presence of a large foreign component in the student population. The bias persists even after controlling for demographic differences such as age, gender, grade and socioeconomic status. An estimate of the bias which can be used to obtain correct estimates of true native academic performance is provided.

The Migrant Wage Premium in Professional Football: A Superstar Effect?

SummaryUsing panel data on professional footballers and their teams over a seven year period we find a substantial wage premium for migrants which persists within teams and is only partially accounted for by players' on‐field labour productivity. We show that the differential partly reflects the superstar status of migrant workers. This superstar effect is apparent in migrant effects on team performance and crowd attendance.

The composition of wage differentials between migrants and natives

We consider the role of unobservables, such as differences in search frictions, reservation wages, and productivities for the explanation of wage differentials between migrants and natives. We disentangle these by estimating an empirical general equilibrium search model with on-the-job search due to Bontemps et al. (1999) on segments of the labour market defined by occupation, age, and nationality using a large scale German administrative dataset.The native-migrant wage differential is then decomposed into several parts, and we focus especially on the component that we label “migrant effect”, being the difference in wage offers between natives and migrants in the same occupation-age segment in firms of the same productivity. Counterfactual decompositions of wage differentials allow us to identify and quantify their drivers, thus explaining within a common framework what is often labelled the unexplained wage gap.

Migration and US agricultural competitiveness

Agriculture has one of the highest shares of foreign-born and unauthorized workers among US industries; over three-fourths of hired farm workers were born abroad, usually in Mexico, and over half of all farm workers are unauthorized. Farm employers are among the few to openly acknowledge their dependence on migrant and unauthorized workers, and they oppose efforts to reduce unauthorized migration unless the government legalizes currently illegal farm workers or provides easy access to legal guest workers. The effects of migrants on agricultural competitiveness are mixed. On the one hand, wages held down by migrants keep labour-intensive commodities competitive in the short run, but the fact that most labour-intensive commodities are shipped long distances means that long-run US competitiveness may be eroded as US farmers have fewer incentives to develop labour-saving and productivity-improving methods of farming and production in lower-wage countries expands.

Migrants' remittances and economic voting in the Mexican countryside

This study advances and tests hypotheses about the effects of migrants' remittances on political behavior. Analyzing new survey data from Mexico, I find that despite being very poor, respondents who receive remittances tend to view their income as more stable than neighbors who do not receive this money. As a result, remittance recipients have relatively fewer economic grievances and tend to feel more optimistic about economic matters than neighbors who do not receive remittances. According to the economic voter thesis, citizens who are more satisfied with the economy are also less likely to pressure and oppose politicians, particularly incumbents. Analyses indicate that respondents in this sample who receive remittances are indeed less likely to lobby local officials for economic assistance. They were also less likely to mobilize against and punish the incumbent party in the 2006 Mexican presidential election.

How does Conflict in Migrants’ Country of Origin Affect Remittance-Sending? Financial Priorities and Transnational Obligations among Somalis and Pakistanis in Norway

This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants’ remittance-sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi-structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance-senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in-depth comparison to explore the differences in how Somali and Pakistani migrants decide about remittance-sending. Second, we use survey data on all 10 migrant groups to evaluate whether the differences that are not explained by socioeconomic characteristics, may partly reflect whether or not there is ongoing conflict in the country of origin. In our analyses we differentiate between (1) the effect of migrants’ capacity to remit and their prioritizing of local and transnational expenditures, and (2) the impact of state collapse and absence of human security on migrants’ and refugees’ desire to remit. We find that ongoing conflict in the country of origin exerts an upward pressure on remittance-sending.

REMITTANCES AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT: SUBSTITUTES OR COMPLEMENTS IN ECONOMIC GROWTH?

ABSTRACTRecent studies indicate that the effect of migrants’ remittances on the economic growth of receiving countries depends negatively on the level of development of the domestic financial sector. In this paper, we introduce a new indicator of financial development to measure the efficiency of the domestic banking system, and find the existence of complementarity between remittances and bank efficiency in economic growth, such that remittances promote growth only in countries whose banks function well. This result is robust to controls for other traditional measures of financial depth and institutional quality indicators.

Social Exclusion: Residential Segregation in Bolivian Cities

This study analyzes the impact of ethnic-based residential segregation on income and education outcomes in Bolivian cities. Three results stand out in the analysis. First, we find significant and negative segregation effects on income generation in both across-city and intra-city comparisons. Second, we find individual and neighborhood-level interactions between ethnicity and segregation to be significantly and negatively correlated with income and schooling attainment. Finally, we find positive social capital effects for recent migrants and young workers and negative human capital effects for non-migrants and older workers. We attempt to control for selection biases with three instruments for residential segregation. We also include potential intergenerational determinants of income and schooling through expanded measures of parental human and social capital.

Assimilation and Trade between the Middle East, Europe, and North America

How are immigration and trade related? Migration leads to the formation of social networks across borders, driving down trade costs. Immigrants may also retain a preference for their native country's products, creating a local market for exports. I examine these two competing theories by estimating the immigration-trade linkage separately for migrants moving from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to Europe and North America. While these two groups originate in the same location and have similar preferences, they are quite different in terms of both income and education, with migrants to North America tending to be less numerous but more educated. The greater degree of economic assimilation for North American migrants should strengthen migrant network effects, but greater cultural assimilation weakens both network and preference effects. I find the migration-trade link to be stronger for migrants to Europe, with the strongest effect for imports. The link is stronger for differentiated goods than for homogeneous goods and strongest for differentiated goods imports into Europe. These results suggest that while network effects matter, immigrant preferences for native country goods are the key factor driving the migration-trade link.

Assimilation and Trade: Explaining the Migration-Trade Relationship with Middle Eastern Migration to Europe and North America

Why are immigration and trade flows positively related? While many studies have documented this complementary relationship, we cannot definitively say what factors drive this relationship. On one hand, migration leads to the formation of social networks across borders, driving down trade costs. On the other hand, immigrants may retain a preference for their native country's products, creating a local market for exports. This study examines these two competing theories by estimating the immigration-trade linkage separately for migrants moving from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to both Europe and North America. While these two groups originate in the same location and have similar preferences, they are quite different in terms of both income and education, with MENA migrants to North America tending to be less numerous but more educated. While the greater degree of economic assimilation for North American migrants should strengthen migrant network effects, the fact that these migrants are more culturally assimilated should weaken both network and preference effects. I find that the migration-trade link is stronger for migrants to Europe, with the strongest effect for imports. The migration-trade link is stronger for differentiated goods than for homogeneous goods, and strongest for differentiated goods imports into Europe. These results suggest that while network effects matter, immigrant preferences for native country goods are the key factor driving the migration-trade link. The results in this study also provide quantitative evidence of weaker assimilation among MENA migrants to Europe, a widely accepted result that has had little empirical support in the existing literature.