Net Migration Flows Research Articles

Adapting to Climate Risk? Local Population Dynamics in the United States

Using a new composite climate-risk index, we show that population in high-risk counties has grown disproportionately over the last few decades, even relative to the corresponding commuting zone. We also find that the agglomeration is largely driven by increases in the (white) working-age population. In addition, we show that high-risk tracts have typically grown more than low-risk tracts within the same county, suggesting the presence of highly localized amenities. We also document heterogeneous population dynamics by degree of urbanization, region and type of natural hazard. Specifically, population has been retreating from high-risk, low-urbanization locations, but continues to grow in high-risk areas with high residential capital. Net migration flows have contributed to the higher growth of high-risk counties in the South and Northeast of the country, but the opposite has happened in the West and Midwest. Last, we provide evidence of microretreat in the case of coastal flooding: tracts with high levels of this risk have grown significantly less than other tracts in the same county, suggesting that residents are willing to relocate within short distances to avoid predictably risky locations.

Competitiveness of higher education systems: Exploring the role of migration flow

Intellectual capital is one of the most crucial determinants of long-term economic development. The countries compete for highly skilled labor and talented youth. State regulatory interventions aim to, on the one hand, facilitate the retention of foreign high-productivity intellectual capital in the host country, transforming ‘educational’ and ‘scientific’ migrants into residents, and on the other hand, prevent the outflow of their own qualified workforce. The paper aims to outline the role of the nation’s higher education system in the influx and outflow of labor resources. A two-stage approach is applied: 1) maximum likelihood—to cluster the EU countries and the potential candidates to become members of EU countries based on the integrated competitiveness of their higher education systems, considering quantitative, qualitative, and internationalization aspects; 2) logit and probit models—to estimate the likelihood of net migration flow surpassing baseline cluster levels and the probability of migration intensity changes for each cluster. Empirical findings allow the identification of four country clusters. Forecasts indicate the highest likelihood of increased net migration flow in the second cluster (66.7%) and a significant likelihood in the third cluster (23.4%). However, the likelihood of such an increase is statistically insignificant for countries in the first and fourth clusters. The conclusions emphasize the need for regulatory interventions that enhance higher education quality, ensure equal access for migrants, foster population literacy, and facilitate lifelong learning. Such measures are imperative to safeguard the nation’s intellectual potential and deter labor emigration.

Expecting Brexit and UK migration: Should I go?

This paper examines the impact of the 2016 UK referendum and expecting Brexit on migration flows and net migration in the UK. We employ a Difference-in-Differences strategy and compare EU migration to non-EU migration before and immediately after the UK referendum of June 2016. We also investigate the potential secondary effects of the referendum on non-EU migrants by using different methodologies and various robustness checks. Our results show that after the referendum (i) migration inflows from the EU declined, (ii) emigration of EU migrants increased and (iii) net migration flows from EU countries to the UK fell. Our results are not driven by the potential spillover impacts on non-EU migrant workers. Overall, the findings show that migration in the UK declined after the Brexit referendum, even before any policy change.

What Can District Migration Rates Tell Us about London’s Functional Urban Area?

In the early 1990s, Anthony Fielding coined the term ‘escalator region’ to describe how London and the South East attracted those with greater human capital by offering them superior career prospects and enhanced returns in the housing markets. When delineating a housing or labour market area, it is not uncommon to require high levels of migration and commuting within the market area relative to those that cross the area’s boundaries. Net migration flows to and from this escalator region change depending on the age range one examines, making migration across boundaries relatively high. It is proposed that focusing on age ranges that reflect younger adults would capture the extent of the market. In particular, the birth of a first child is likely to trigger migration, but that movement is constrained to be within the boundary of the market area. The decision to buy a dwelling would be made around the time of this event. This paper delineates market areas using spatial autocorrelation. This has the advantage of using a statistical criterion rather than a containment value. Broadly similar areas in the Greater South East are revealed using relative housing affordability measures, the movement of infants and the migration of 20- to 24-year-olds. It is argued that the time-varying patterns of migration of 30- to 39-year-olds is reflective of a change in housing affordability, forcing more households to migrate with children whilst renting.

Analysis of Fuzzy Time Series Forecasting for Migration Flows

The goal of this article is to forecast migration flows in Latvia. In comparison with many other countries with sufficiently symmetric emigration and immigration flows, in Latvia, migration flows are very asymmetric: the number of emigrants considerably exceed the number of immigrants. Since statistical data about migration are usually inaccurate, we employ fuzzy time series forecasting methods for prognosticating migration flows in Latvia forecasting. The use of this type of method is often useful not only for forecasting purposes. Three different methods for fuzzy time series forecasting are used. A detailed comparative analysis of the obtained results is given. Generalized forecasts of the expected net migration flow in the future are presented.

Моделювання впливу інтенсифікації міграційних процесів на соціально-економічну стабільність в Україні

The article is aimed at elaborating an adequate mathematical instrumentarium for the formation of migration flows to assess their impact on the socio-economic stability together with unshadowing the Ukrainian economy, as well as to identify efficient measures of the State-based policy directed towards regulating these flows to prevent risks of socio-economic destabilization. The article carries out an empirical analysis of the peculiarities of the development of migration processes in Ukraine and their impact on the socio-economic state in both the medium and the long term perspective. A system of complementary dynamic macromodels of the Ukrainian economy is developed, which includes a vector autoregression model and a separate complex of simulated submodels of systemic dynamics aimed at researching migration processes and their impact on the indicators of socio-economic stability. At this, the developed models of system dynamics can be combined into a single original simulation macromodel of Ukraine, and be used independently subject to the research goals. This allows to adequately describe complex nonlinear processes, systemically identify and examine the mechanisms of supply and demand formation in the labor market, taking into account the shadow component and assess their impact on the formation of the size of migration flows, as well as to research the consequences of increasing the intensity of migration processes on the socio-economic stability in Ukraine. The implementation of the developed complex of dynamic models has allowed, in particular, to calculate the annual value of the net migration flow in Ukraine through the aging chain of the population; to empirically confirm that migration flows in Ukraine are underestimated; to detect the dynamic structure of the net migration balance and a noticeable fading of the amplitude of migration processes over time, which indicates the presence of a balancing structure for the formation of migration flows.

Social insurance, demographics, and rural-urban migration in China

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of social insurance policy and demographic changes on rural-urban migration in China. Quantitative analyses indicate that different social insurance programs not only have differential effects on net migration flows but also on the age and income distribution of migrants. Enrolling migrants in urban pensions discourages rural-urban migration at young ages and reverse migration in old-age. In contrast, urban health insurance incentivizes rural-urban migration among low income groups at all ages while simultaneously disincentivizing reverse migration. These differences subsequently have important impacts on overall migration patterns and the macroeconomy. Incorporating population aging in the model also yields an increase in the working age migrant share as higher capital accumulation maintains significant upward pressure on urban wages. Overall, results indicate that general equilibrium effects matter and demographic and policy changes alter migration incentives differently at different stages of the life-cycle.

Social Insurance, Demographics, and Rural-Urban Migration in China

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of social insurance policy and demographic changes on rural-urban migration in China. Quantitative analyses indicate that different social insurance programs not only have differential effects on net migration flows but also on the age and income distribution of migrants. Enrolling migrants in urban pensions discourages rural-urban migration at young ages and reverse migration in old-age. In contrast, urban health insurance incentivizes rural-urban migration among low income groups at all ages while simultaneously disincentivizing reverse migration. These differences subsequently have important impacts on overall migration patterns and the macro-economy. Incorporating population aging in the model also yields an increase in the working age migrant share as higher capital accumulation maintains significant upward pressure on urban wages. Overall, results indicate that general equilibrium effects matter and demographic and policy changes alter migration incentives differently at different stages of the life-cycle.

Economic freedom and migration: A metro area‐level analysis

AbstractWe examine the determinants of intra‐U.S. population migration at the metropolitan area level (MSA), with an emphasis on the presence of policies that are consistent with economic freedom. We are the first to produce a multivariate regression analysis of migration and economic freedom at the local level. Combining a 1993–2014 unbalanced panel of MSA‐to‐MSA migration data from the Internal Revenue Service with a new economic freedom index for U.S. metropolitan areas, we find that a 10% increase in economic freedom of a destination MSA, relative to the economic freedom of an origin MSA, was associated with a 27.4% increase in net migration from the origin MSA to the destination MSA. If we use mean net migration flows as a benchmark, we would expect a 10% increase in relative economic freedom to increase net migration to the destination MSA by 22 workers per year from each other MSA.

Trends and Challenges for Population Health and Migration - China, 2015-2050.

What is already known about this topic? Along with the quick change of society and health transformation, as well as the continued expansion of urbanization, the health risk and its variation of migrants in China would became more complicated. What is added by this report? Although a decreasing net migration flow trend was presented from 2015 to 2050, an increasing pace of aging and younger-age trend of migrants would pose serious challenges for population health in China. Deepening aging trend of migrants contributes to the increment of the disease burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and disabilities, and the upward trend of young-age migrant patients with infectious diseases remain a threat to the future intervention and prevention of infectious diseases. What are the implications for public health practice? Health policies to eliminate the adverse effects of migration on population health should pay more attention to meet the health care demands of highly vulnerable migrant populations, such as very older and very young migrants.

Human capital spillovers and the churning phenomenon: Analysing wage effects from gross in- and outflows of high-skilled workers

The article estimates human capital externalities on wages originating from internal gross migration flows of high-skilled workers. We draw on rich administrative micro panel data that allow us to disentangle externalities from sorting and labour market supply and demand effects through an extensive set of time-varying fixed effects. We show that regional inflows and outflows of high-skilled workers occur simultaneously and that both are positively correlated. Given the existence of such a churning phenomenon, looking only at net migration flows might be misleading. Our econometric analysis indicates that inflows of high-skilled workers increase the wages of locals, whereas outflows decrease those wages. Although externalities from outflows outweigh those from inflows in the short run, the opposite holds in the long run. Our results suggest that human capital externalities are transmitted through the productivity effects of local personal networks, which, for newcomers, develop over time.

Migracje wewnętrzne w Niemczech i ich determinanty

Przedmiot badań: Przedmiotem badań jest analiza migracji wewnętrznych w Niemczech.
 Cel badawczy: Celem artykułu było wskazanie rozmiarów i kierunków przepływów migracyj­nych między landami Niemiec w latach 2005–2016 oraz ocena stopnia zależności między tymi przepływami a determinantami ekonomicznymi.
 Metoda badawcza: W analizie wykorzystano opisowe metody analizy zróżnicowania przepły­wów migracyjnych, płac i stóp bezrobocia w czasie i przestrzeni oraz metody ekonometrii prze­strzennej: metody najmniejszych kwadratów (MNK), uogólnionej metody momentów (UMM), modeli logistycznych oraz modeli z efektami indywidualnymi.
 Wyniki: Na podstawie wyników analizy wykazano, że beneficjentami przepływów imigracyj­nych netto było sześć landów, w tym cztery landy zachodnie (Bawaria, Badenia-Wirtembergia, Hamburg, Szlezwik-Holsztyn) i dwa wschodnie (Berlin i Brandenburgia). Stwierdzono również, że największy wpływ na migracje między landami miały odległość geograficzna i czas przejazdu, a następnie możliwość znalezienia pracy.

A SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION: HETEROGENEOUS WELFARE AND MIGRATION EFFECTS FROM THE SINGLE MARKET AND THE BREXIT

We use a quantitative model to study the implications of European integration for welfare and net migration flows across 1,280 European regions. The model suggests that an increase of trade barriers to the level of 1957 reduces welfare by about 5%–8% on average, depending on the presumed trade elasticity. However, remote regions may face initial welfare losses of up to 10%. These heterogeneous welfare effects cause estimated net migration of 1.9% of the population to the European geographic center implying that the dismantling of trade barriers in Europe has led to a more homogeneous spatial distribution of economic activity. With regard to the Brexit, we find moderate welfare losses for the United Kingdom of 1.05% in the most pessimistic scenario while continental Europe's welfare declines by 0.41%. (JEL F15, R12, R13, R23)

Reversal of migration flows: A fresh look at the German reunification

We investigate the dynamic effects of interregional labor market integration on migration flows, capital formation, and the price for housing services. The co-evolution of these variables depends on initial conditions at the time of labor market integration. In an initially capital-poor economy, there may be a reversal of migration flows during the transition to the steady state, while housing costs are increasing over time. Although capital may accumulate while labor emigrates early in the transition, the causal effect of immigration on capital investments and housing costs is positive. We present new data on the evolution of net migration flows and rental rates for housing in East Germany after 1990. Our results are consistent with the presented evidence in the reverse migration scenario.

Decomposition of regional convergence in population aging across Europe

In the face of rapidly aging population, decreasing regional inequalities in population composition is one of the regional cohesion goals of the European Union. To our knowledge, no explicit quantification of the changes in regional population aging differentiation exist. We investigate how regional differences in population aging developed over the last decade and how they are likely to evolve in the coming three decades, and we examine how demographic components of population growth contribute to the process. We use the beta-convergence approach to test whether regions are moving towards a common level of population aging. The change in population composition is decomposed into the separate effects of changes in the size of the non-working-age population and of the working-age population. The latter changes are further decomposed into the effects of cohort turnover, migration at working ages, and mortality at working ages. European Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)-2 regions experienced notable convergence in population aging during the period 2003–2012 and are expected to experience further convergence in the coming three decades. Convergence in aging mainly depends on changes in the population structure of East-European regions. Cohort turnover plays the major role in promoting convergence. Differences in mortality at working ages, though quite moderate themselves, have a significant cumulative effect. The projections show that when it is assumed that net migration flows at working ages are converging across European regions, this will not contribute to convergence of population aging. The beta-convergence approach proves useful to examine regional variations in population aging across Europe.

Education, migration, and earnings of Puerto Ricans on the island and US mainland: Impact, outcomes, and consequences of an economic crisis

A long-standing and ongoing severe economic crisis, which was exacerbated in 2006 with the expiration of federal corporate income tax breaks, sharply deteriorating economic conditions, and the implementation of an unprecedented sales tax, resulted in a mass exodus of over half a million residents from Puerto Rico to the mainland between 2006 and 2014. This dramatic population shift has economic, demographic, and social implications for both the island and mainland, particularly if the net outmigration is not skill-neutral. Our study addresses whether higher-skilled or lower-skilled migrants were disproportionately represented in the net outmigration flow. Using public-use microdata from the American Community Survey and the Puerto Rican Community Survey, our findings suggest that the recent migration wave has not been characterized by a select group of highly educated individuals. Instead, the skill levels among migrants between the island and mainland have been volatile with respect to both observable and unobservable skills and other characteristics after 2006 (the latter being measured in terms of unexplained earnings differentials with non-Hispanic whites). Our findings also point to how rapidly net migration flows respond to changing economic and sociopolitical conditions between the island and mainland, and how skill-based migration continues to depend on systemic conditions between the regions.

Governance quality and net migration flows

This paper shows that governance quality promotes positive net inflows of high-skilled migrants. Home and foreign institutions influence both inflows and outflows, thus determining the net flows of college graduate migrants. Therefore, institutions can affect human capital through migration flows. Our empirical strategy is based on a random utility model from which we derive the net balance of migrants and an exclusion restriction to control for the selection of migrants. We test the predictions of the model using comprehensive matrices of migration by education level and a synthetic indicator of governance quality. We account for endogeneity concerns by means of an instrumental strategy and we disentangle the effect of the quality of domestic and foreign institutions on both inflows and outflows.

Bayesian population reconstruction of female populations for less developed and more developed countries

We show that Bayesian population reconstruction, a recent method for estimating past populations by age, works for data of widely varying quality. Bayesian reconstruction simultaneously estimates age-specific population counts, fertility rates, mortality rates, and net international migration flows from fragmentary data, while formally accounting for measurement error. As inputs, Bayesian reconstruction uses initial bias-reduced estimates of standard demographic variables. We reconstruct the female populations of three countries: Laos, a country with little vital registration data where population estimation depends largely on surveys; Sri Lanka, a country with some vital registration data; and New Zealand, a country with a highly developed statistical system and good quality vital registration data. In addition, we extend the method to countries without censuses at regular intervals. We also use it to assess the consistency of results between model life tables and available census data, and hence to compare different model life table systems.

Relative Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrants in Croatia

IntroductionThe main focus of the present paper is on the relative labour market outcomes of immigrant population in Croatia. When discussing migration flows, the focus in Croatia is predominately on the problem of emigration and in particular related to the recent adverse effects of the economic crisis on the local labour market. Consequently, increased negative net migration flows have recently been detected in the official statistical data, although concerns that unofficial emigration is even larger have been raised. Since Croatia joined European Union, questions of potential emigration of Croatian citizens to other member states became increasingly interesting (Vidovic and Mara, 2015). Within this situation, the first impression might be that the pressing need is related to the analysis of the emigration, rather than immigration determinants in Croatia. However, recent migration flows towards all European Union economies, and possible large numbers of immigrants on the Croatian territory, will call for active immigration policy, including the possibility to integrate immigrants on the Croatian labour market. To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first attempt to quantitatively analyse relative position of immigrants on the labour market in Croatia.Croatia is faced with relative unfavourable trends on the labour market, with many population subgroups facing risk of poverty (Government of Croatia, 2014). At the same time, similar to other European Union countries, Croatia is facing demographic aging and potential skills shortages that could adversely affect potential economic growth. Such considerations have been actively discussed in European Union countries, where frequent empirical analysis on the labour market outcomes of immigrant population has resulted in vast literature volumes.Theoretical concepts related to the immigrants' outcomes on the labour markets are connected with over-assimilation and under-assimilation hypothesis, referring to different subgroups of immigrants according to their personal characteristics (Chiswick, 1978; Borjas, 1985). Recent empirical results claim that the immigrants usually belong to the vulnerable sub-groups on the host country labour markets (Bevelander and Irastorza, 2014; Jean et al., 2010; de la Rica, Glitz and Ortega, 2013; Peracchi and Depalo, 2006). Kahanec and Zaiceva (2008) point to the fact that this is relatively widely researched topic in the European Union countries, but indicate that there might be large differences between old and new member states. In the event of immigrants' successful integration, studies indicate that they will positively contribute to net economic and fiscal position of the host country (Algan et al., 2009). Croatia, as the newest EU member state has not been previously included in these empirical estimations. Therefore, we have no prior knowledge on the subject, beyond assuming that the situation in Croatia is similar to other new member countries.In the empirical analysis of the relative labour market outcomes of immigrant versus native population, the most straightforward approach is to include the immigrant status as the explanatory variable in the labour market outcome regression (Kahanec and Zaiceva, 2008; Botric, 2009). Peracchi and Depalo (2006) analyse labour market outcomes in eight old EU members for the cohort of immigrants that migrated before the mid1990s based on European Community Household Panel data. For each labour market outcome they consider models for the pooled data (when immigration is a dummy variable) and separate models for immigrants and natives. They find significant differences between the two population subgroups, especially for the immigrants coming from non EU-15 countries. Interesting fact is that the predictors of each status in each subgroup are similar. They also find that the differences diminish as the length of stay in the country increases, thus emphasising the effect of assimilation hypothesis. …

Indirectly Estimating International Net Migration Flows by Age and Gender

Although data for the total number of international migrant flows is now available, no global dataset concerning demographic characteristics, such as the age and gender composition of migrant flows, exists. This article reports on the methods used to generate the CDM-IM dataset of age- and gender-specific profiles of bilateral net (not gross) migrant flows. The researchers employ raw data from the United Nations Global Migration Database and estimate net migrant flows by age and gender between two time points around the year 2000, accounting for various demographic processes (fertility, mortality). The dataset contains information on 3,713 net migrant flows. Validation analyses against existing datasets and the historical, geopolitical context demonstrate that the CDM-IM dataset is of reasonably high quality.