Migration Destination Choices Research Articles

Can Thanksgiving Destinations Predict Climate Migration Patterns?

This research explores the relationship between climate-induced migration destination choice and social ties in the US, using anonymized smartphone data from SafeGraph. It shows that Thanksgiving travel patterns correlate with relocations following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Findings reveal a statistically significant positive correlation, suggesting that states with a greater change in visitors during Thanksgiving week compared to regular week are likelier destinations for post-disaster relocation, emphasizing social ties’ crucial role in such decisions. This research highlights the need for urban planning and emergency management to consider the spatial distribution of social networks, which could inform evacuation strategies and disaster recovery policies.

Human capital agglomeration, institutional barriers, and internal migration in China

AbstractThis paper investigates how human capital agglomeration interplays with institutional factors to affect migration destination choice in China. Over the last decades, China has experienced massive internal migration, substantial human capital investment, and the relaxation of its hukou system, thus providing us with a valuable opportunity to examine the role of human capital externality in migration choice. Based on rich data on province‐to‐province migration flows for different education and hukou groups, we find that migrants in China, especially highly educated and urban‐to‐urban migrants, have a strong preference to move to provinces with a high agglomeration of human capital. Further examination reveals that low‐skilled migrants in China are less likely to benefit from human capital agglomeration because of their lower ability to overcome hukou restrictions. Our findings raise the concern that labor migration under the skill‐biased hukou system would enlarge China's regional disparities in human capital and economic development.

The Role of Outgroup Network in the Choice of Migration Destination: Evidence from Turkey

We analyse the association between cultural contact and international migration decision drawing on the inter-group contact hypothesis. Using data on Turkish migrant stock in 22 countries and immigration from these countries to Turkey between 2000 and 2015, we find a strong association between the Turkish community's size and migration flow of host country nationals to Turkey. Our results are robust to country-specific and year-specific effects as well as to exclusion of different channels of cultural contact. Our research brings a new perspective to the importance of networks in migration destination as most research focuses on the presence of in-group national community in the target country. Our findings contribute to the improvement of extant theories of international migration providing insight in the role of cultural contact with the out-group in the choice of migration destination.

Bound to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia

ABSTRACT During the urbanization process in Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar (UB) became the most dominant metro-city in the nation and the most popular migration destination. We examined the changes in migration to UB during the economic transition of 2002–2017 and explored driving forces using the dataset from the Mongolia National Labor Survey. The results confirmed that relatively higher wages and lower unemployment positively influenced migration toward UB. Using the multinomial logistic regression, we find a 1% increase in the expected wage increases the likelihood of migration to core UB by 6.75%; a 1% increase in relative income increases the odds of migration to core UB by 3.17%; and a 1% increase in the expected unemployment rate decreases the odds of migration to core UB and peri-UB by 1.14% and 1.64%, respectively. We also confirmed the impact of environmental change and climate extremes on migration destination choice, as well as the influence of several demographic variables.

Factors affecting migration destination choices of international migrant workers in Slovakia

The main goal of this paper is to determine the main economic factors that influence the self-selection process of migrant workers when settling in Slovakia. Considering the growing number of migrant workers in Slovakia, it is necessary to determine which factors influence them most when choosing a final destination within the country. Paper deals with the allocation of migrant workers in Slovakia focusing on the mutual relationship between the total number of migrant workers and the average wage, and the number of vacancies in 2010 and 2020 in individual districts. The paper also analyses the domestic labour market with emphasis on internal and foreign labour migration. The study is based on migration and self-selection process theories. In the paper, we work with data from public institutions in Slovakia, especially the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, the National Bank of Slovakia and the Statistical Office. To achieve the goal, Spearman's coefficient is used and its significance and linear regression are tested. The results show that the correlation between the number of migrant workers in individual districts and the number of vacancies was stronger than the correlation between the number of migrant workers and the amount of average wage in both monitored years 2010 and 2020. URL: https://www.gcass.science.upjs.sk/

Co-ethnic networks and inter-provincial migration destination choice of ethnic minority migrants in China

ABSTRACT Previous research shows that co-ethnic networks are an important factor in explaining the concentrated pattern of distribution of ethnic minority migrants. This study uses pooled data from the National Migrant Dynamics Monitoring Survey, to examine the role co-ethnic networks play in ethnic minorities’ inter-provincial migration destination choices and how it is moderated by education in China. Conditional logit models reveal that except for Manchus, ethnic minority migrants are more likely to go to provinces with large co-ethnic networks. There are also group differences in the effect of co-ethnic network size, with it being greater for Tibetans and Dong than for the rest of minority groups in the study. It is further found that higher levels of education reduce the effect of co-ethnic networks on Tibetan and Korean migrants’ destination choice. For the rest of the ethnic minority groups in the study, education’s moderating effect is either positive or not statistically significant.

The Role of Out-group Network in the Choice of Migration Destination: Evidence from Turkey

The Role of Out-group Network in the Choice of Migration Destination: Evidence from Turkey

To Float or Not to Float? Internal Migration of Skilled Laborers in China.

This paper uses data from job-recruiting platforms to study the distribution patterns and migration destination choices of a skilled internal migrant population. We find that, in most first-tier cities and most emerging second-tier cities, more than half of the skilled jobseekers do not hold local household registration. The most important finding of this paper is the heterogeneity of attributes prioritizations between intra- and inter- provincial migrants. Intra-provincial skilled migrants put more value on employment opportunities than on amenity attributes, while their inter-provincial counterparts prioritize amenity over employment aspects.

At Europe’s frontline: factors determining migrants decision making for onwards migration from Greece and Turkey

ABSTRACT Limited research has been conducted on migrants’ decision making factors in transit and this is an important area of investigation that goes beyond the origin-destination country dichotomy most commonly represented in migrant decision making. This paper examines the decision making factors for onwards migration or stay of migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria in Greece and Turkey. This paper is based on a unique dataset of surveys collected with 1056 migrants in Athens and Istanbul from May- July 2015. The decision for onwards migration or stay is examined through a probit regression analysis. Four categories of influencing variables are discussed: the country of origin, current conditions in the transit country, the initial migration destination choice and previous onwards migration attempts. The results demonstrate that first; the majority of respondents in both countries seek to migrate onwards (75% in Greece and 63% in Turkey) and that conditions in the transit country are highly significant in influencing onwards migrate decisions including their current subjective living conditions, employment, experiences of abuse, and speaking the local language. This paper contextualizes the findings and highlight the complexity of factors influencing migrants’ decision making in Greece and Turkey.

Correction to: How socioeconomic and environmental factors impact the migration destination choices of different population groups in China: an eigenfunction-based spatial filtering analysis

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The names of Yaojun Zhang and Xiwei Wu were inadvertently interchanged.

How socioeconomic and environmental factors impact the migration destination choices of different population groups in China: an eigenfunction-based spatial filtering analysis

Understanding how different factors impact migration destination choices is one of the main research themes in demographic studies. The current study uses relative intrinsic attractivity (RIA) as a measure for a place’s attractivity and attempts to apply an eigenfunction-based spatial filtering (ESF) approach to investigate the relationships between a place’s attractivity and 12 socioeconomic and natural condition factors in China at the prefecture level. Results suggest that the ESF approach may provide a potentially more robust way to account for how various factors impact different groups of people’s migration destination choices than non-spatial and spatial autoregressive models. The ESF approach is able to adequately address the spatial effects on data analysis when using geographic data and provide easily interpretable results. Places with better accessibility by roads, better economic opportunities (jobs and wages), and cooler average annual temperature are more attractive to all subgroups of migrants. Different sub-groups of migrants, however, are also attracted to places with different priorities and characteristics. The current study uses an ESF approach for the first time to investigate how factors impact different groups of people’s migration destination choices.

Migration decisions and destination choices

We used data collected from a face-to-face interview survey of 395 randomly selected farm households in Central Nepal’s Chitwan district to understand the migration decision-making processes and migration destination choices. This district was chosen because it represents the microcosm of whole Nepal due to the presence of migratory population from all over the country within the tropical and sub-tropical climatic districts. We used probit and multinomial logit regression models to discern the individual and family migration decision-making behaviors and to understand what determines the choice of migration destinations. Results suggested that migration decision-making is based on (a) the presence of a large number of young males in the family; (b) having fewer males with secondary education; (c) having more females with secondary education; and (d) higher household wealth. These ‘a–d’factors positively affect migration decision-making. Destination choice is generally dictated by individual characteristics and the economic potential of a destination site. Young, unmarried, male heads of families with a relatively large number of adult males but relatively low land holdings and wealth status choose Malaysia; older people from families with a fewer number of educated females and low land holdings choose India, and relatively less-educated females from families with less-educated heads of households but higher land holdings choose the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as their migration destination.

A “Good Enough” Choice: Bounded Rationality in Migration Destination Choice

A “Good Enough” Choice: Bounded Rationality in Migration Destination Choice

Explaining geographic patterns of small group internal migration

AbstractInternal migration plays a key role in shaping the demographic characteristics of areas. In this paper, data from the 2011 England and Wales census are used to assess the geographic patterns of migration for 4 small cultural groups that each constitute about 0.5% of the population—Arabs, Chinese, Jews, and Sikhs—with a White British “benchmark” group. It examines the sensitivity of the scale of intercommunity moves to distance, having controlled for other migrant characteristics, through the development of spatial interaction models. The analysis finds that, where a choice exists, Jews are more averse to making a longer move than other small groups, all of whom favour shorter moves than the White British. The paper also investigates the influence of origin location and socioeconomic characteristics on the choice of migration destination using multinomial logistic regression. It finds that the influence of student status, age, qualifications, and home tenure vary by group though a number of patterns are shared between groups. Finally, it probes the presence in these smaller groups of patterns found historically in the wider population, such as counter‐urbanisation. Overall, this paper broadens the understanding of minority group migration patterns by examining, for the first time, Arabs (identified separately only in the 2011 census) and 2 groups based on religion (Jews and Sikhs) and by revisiting, with new questions, the White British and Chinese groups using the latest census data.

Migration Destination Choice as a Criterion of Self-Identification

Migration Destination Choice as a Criterion of Self-Identification

A newly discovered wildlife migration in Namibia and Botswana is the longest in Africa

AbstractMigrations of most animal taxa are declining as a result of anthropogenic pressures and land-use transformation. Here, we document and characterize a previously unknown multi-country migration of Burchell's zebraEquus quaggathat is the longest of all recorded large mammal migrations in Africa. Our data from eight adult female zebras collared on the border of Namibia and Botswana show that in December 2012 all individuals crossed the Chobe River and moved due south to Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana, where they spent a mean duration of 10 weeks before returning, less directly, to their dry season floodplain habitat. The same southward movements were also observed in December 2013. Nxai Pan appeared to have similar environmental conditions to several possible alternative wet season destinations that were closer to the dry season habitat on the Chobe River, and water availability, but not habitat or vegetation biomass, was associated with higher-use areas along the migratory pathway. These results suggest a genetic and/or cultural basis for the choice of migration destination, rather than an environmental one. Regardless of the cause, the round-trip, straight-line migration distance of 500 km is greater than that covered by wildebeestConnochaetes taurinusduring their well-known seasonal journey in the Serengeti ecosystem. It merits conservation attention, given the decline of large-scale ecological processes such as animal migrations.

Measuring the Income-Distance Tradeoff for Rural-Urban Migrants in China

Rural-urban migrants in China appear to prefer nearby destination cities. To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we build a simple model in which migrants from rural areas choose among potential destination cities to maximize utility. The distance between a migrant's home village and destination city is explicitly included in the utility function. Using recent survey data, we first estimate an individual's expected income in each potential destination city using a semi-parametric method, controlling for potential self-selection biases. We then estimate the indirect utility function for rural- urban migrants in China based on their migration destination choices. Our baseline estimates suggest that to induce a migrant to move 10 percent further away from home, the income of this migrant has to increase by 15 percent. This elasticity varies very little with migration distance; it is slightly higher for female than male migrants; it is not affected by the migrant's age, education, or marital status. We explore possible explanations of these results and discuss their policy implications.

The Choice of Migration Destination: A Longitudinal Approach using Pre‐Migration Outcomes

AbstractI use longitudinal data to examine the relationship between individual and household outcomes prior to emigration and choice of migration destination. In addition, I have separately pooled data on Nicaraguans in the destination countries. These two types of data together provide a rich description of the determinants of choice of destination for Nicaraguan emigrants. For emigration to both the United States and Costa Rica, patterns of emigration are consistent with individual wage gains. The main finding, though, is that emigrants to Costa Rica have characteristics similar to non‐emigrants and that emigration to Costa Rica is based relatively more on the current economic condition of the sender household. In contrast, emigration to the United States is based on the accumulated pre‐emigration labor market success of emigrants' households in Nicaragua. These findings suggest that household pre‐migration factors may be more important than individual factors as determinants of the location decision.

A Social Proximity Explanation of the Reluctance to Assimilate

SUMMARYThe pursuit of migration is an extreme example of the severing of ties with, or a distancing from, one's friends and home. The ‘failure’ of migrants to assimilate cannot plausibly be attributed merely to an urge to stay close to their friends, or they might not have migrated to begin with. Non‐assimilation arises from a fear of enhanced relative deprivation if they reduce their distance from the natives as a reference group. Fundamentally, migration is a change of those with whom people associate. But it would be wrong to infer that a change of associates crowds out a change of behavior, given the associates. Through their actions, migrants can elect to associate more with some groups, less with others. However, when actions to keep in check the weight accorded to the rich natives as a reference group are not viable, the very choice of migration destination could be affected in an unexpected way: a country that is not so rich could be preferable to a country that is rich; migrants will protect themselves from an unfavorable comparison by not migrating to where the comparison, when unavoidable, would be highly unfavorable. Relatedly, the variance in the assimilation effort of migrants across host countries could arise from the variance in the income distance with the natives: the richer the natives, the weaker the effort to assimilate, other things held the same.

Who is the counter‐urban mover? Evidence from the Swedish urban system

AbstractThis study analyses differences between counter‐urban movers and movers heading for other destinations. Through the elaboration of a spatial model based upon settlement structure and functional hinterlands, counter‐urban migration can be measured on the ground throughout the urban system. Empirical analysis of the counter‐urban mover is rendered possible by access to a comprehensive longitudinal micro‐database that contains demographic, socio‐economic and detailed geographic information for all Swedish citizens. Binomial and multinomial logit models are estimated to capture the partial effects of variables related to the individual, the household, the labour market, life course events, and regional economic conditions on the choice of migration destination. The results of the analyses show that counter‐urban movers are more likely to be older, born in Sweden or any other Scandinavian country, less well‐off, having a university qualification, living single, being outside the labour force, and becoming unemployed close to the migration event. The emerging picture of the Swedish counter‐urban mover reveals an individual who may be striving for other qualities in life, where career and earnings are of minor importance. Somewhat unexpectedly, the counter‐urban movers show no systematic differences depending on their place of departure. No clear hierarchy‐specific effects across the urban system can be found. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.