Voluntary Movers Research Articles

To move or not to move? Residential mobility of rural migrants in a medium-sized Chinese city: the case of Yangzhou

This article evaluates the residential mobility decisions of rural migrants with a history of living in urban villages in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu province. Many were displaced by its demolition–redevelopment policy (forced movers); some chose to move voluntarily to improve their housing utility (voluntary movers); others decided to stay put in substandard housing (voluntary non-movers). A survey of their current housing conditions revealed that, compared to voluntary non-movers, most forced movers had not become better-off. But the voluntary movers had done much better than both of the other groups, implying that a timely move could have led to their improved housing conditions. However, even voluntary moves proved to have a downside, namely, that voluntary migrants would likely end up living somewhere more remote from coveted facilities and locations of jobs in the inner city. Logistic regression analysis showed how differences in socio-demographic characteristics between voluntary movers and non-movers could explain why some decided to move. For those who decided to stay, the analysis also indicates how the advantages of the current location may compensate for housing deficiencies. These results correspond to the motives migrants expressed in supplementary in-depth interviews: migrants intending to become permanent residents were most likely to move for better housing. The findings also point to structural constraints on residential mobility. For poor migrants without a Jiangsu hukou, moving to better housing was simply not an option. This suggests that further hukou reform is needed if urban redevelopment is not only meant to improve the image of the city but also the migrants’ housing conditions.

Identifying bounded rationality with panel data: evidence from the labor markets of Italy and Germany

In this paper we question the hypothesis of bounded rationality against full rationality in the context of job changing behavior, via simple econometric explorations on microdata drawn from Worker Histories Italian Panel (WHIP) and Sample of Integrated Labor Market Biographies (SIAB). The identification strategy builds on a quasi-counterfactual experiment in which the performance of each voluntary mover is compared to the average performance of a peer-group of stayers of the same skill group, co-workers in the firm from which the movers’ job switch originated. Voluntary movers are identifiable in the WHIP and SIAB datasets, while it is not possible to do the same among the stayers. Full rationality suggests that the performance of voluntary movers should be superior to the stayers’ (both voluntary and involuntary) as the involuntary stayers have a smaller decision set from which to choose. In this exploration we find a clear opposite result, which we take as evidence of bounded rationality of the movers.

Is migration in later life good for wellbeing? A longitudinal study of ageing and selectivity of internal migration.

Migration scholarship has recently paid attention to lifecourse and non‐economic effects of moving house. Yet consideration of the effects of internal migration in later life has been relatively neglected despite their implications for social and spatial inequalities. Thus we address two questions: how trajectories of wellbeing in later life vary for movers and non‐movers, and how the event of moving affects wellbeing. In both cases we distinguish between “voluntary” and “involuntary” movers. We use 10 years (2002–2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) to analyse trends in wellbeing for age cohorts and to examine how wellbeing changes through the event of moving. The Control, Autonomy, Selfrealisation and Pleasure (CASP‐19) measure of wellbeing is used. We find that, after controls for demographic and socio‐economic characteristics, involuntary movers have lower levels of wellbeing than stayers or voluntary movers; and involuntary movers experience a stabilisation in the decline in wellbeing following migration which is not seen for voluntary movers. So, migration in later life is good for wellbeing, maintaining advantageous wellbeing trajectories for voluntary movers and improving wellbeing trajectories for involuntary movers. These findings imply a rich potential of ELSA and similar longitudinal datasets for examining residential mobility; the need for ageing inequalities studies to take more account of residential mobility; the need for internal migration scholarship to pay greater attention to reason for move; and for policy to consider the potentially beneficial effects of residential mobility in later life, particularly for those in adverse circumstances.

Social networks of rural–urban migrants after residential relocation: evidence from Yangzhou, a medium-sized Chinese city

This paper analyses the effects of residential relocation on China’s rural–urban migrants’ social networks in light of evidence from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province. Our study contrasts voluntary moves with forced moves driven by demolition-led redevelopment of urban villages. Based on data from a survey conducted between 2012 and 2013, the regression analysis shows that voluntarily relocated migrants are more likely than forced movers to use phone/computer to contact their former neighbours, and communication technology allows them to maintain the frequency of their contact. Furthermore, when moving to a gated neighbourhood, voluntary movers are more likely than forced movers to participate in public activities, to have more contact with new neighbours and thereby to get more help from the residents’ committee and new neighbours. The results suggest that forced moves have negative effects on migrants’ social networks in the neighbourhood and that the demolition-led redevelopment programmes do not promote the migrants’ integration in the city.

Working in the for-profit versus not-for-profit sector: what difference does it make? An inquiry on preferences of voluntary and involuntary movers

We investigate the drivers of the for-profit/not-for-profit wage differential by comparing judgments of job characteristics of workers who voluntarily or involuntarily moved from the former to the latter sector. We define voluntary movers as those who applied for a job in a not-for-profit organization and, when successful, resigned from a for-profit position, while involuntary movers have either been laid off by their company or resigned without already having a job offer in the not-for-profit sector. We observe that a large share of voluntary movers do not end up with higher wages but, surprisingly, do have higher job satisfaction after the change. The vast majority of voluntary movers find significantly higher time flexibility, improved relationships with stakeholders and closer conformity to educational skills in their new jobs. Our findings support the forprofit/not-for-profit compensating differential hypothesis and shed light on mechanisms that are beyond the job donation behavior of intrinsically motivated workers.

Money and rank in the labor market

We analyze the gains/losses in wage and in rank position for workers switching firm. Voluntary movers enjoy a wage premium relative to stayers, but that premium declines with rank inside the new firm, indicating that movers are trading-off money and rank.

Working in the Profit Versus Not-For-Profit Sector: What Difference Does it Make? An Inquiry on Preferences of Voluntary and Involuntary Movers

We investigate what is behind the profit/not–for-profit wage differential by comparing judgments on job characteristics of workers who voluntarily or involuntarily moved from the former to the latter. We define voluntary movers as those who applied for a job in a not-for-profit organization and, when successful, resigned from their for profit position, while involuntary movers can either have been laid off by the company or have resigned without already having a job offer in the not-for-profit sector when leaving the firm. We observe that almost half of voluntary movers end up without higher wages, but with higher job satisfaction after the change. A vast majority of them exhibit significantly higher time flexibility, improved relationships with stakeholders, closer consistency with educational skills and higher satisfaction of intrinsic motivations in the new job. Our findings support the profit/no profit compensating differential hypothesis and shed light on mechanisms which are beyond the donative behaviour of intrinsically motivated workers.

Wage changes through job mobility in Europe: A multinomial endogenous switching approach

This paper presents evidence on the relationship between job mobility and wage mobility for various European countries using the European Community Household Panel (1994–2001). While much of the earlier research uses least-squares regression to predict wages for individuals with different labour market experience, we have found that it is important to take into account the possible non-random selection between job movers and stayers and between voluntary and involuntary movers. In this paper we focus on the effects of an unemployment spell on subsequent wages by estimating a multinomial endogenous switching model composed of two selection equations and three wage equations. Our results indicate that job mobility through unemployment has negative returns in all the analysed economies. As regards stayers, these losses range from 8% in Portugal to 21% in Germany while losses with respect to voluntary movers vary from 14% in Spain to 31% in Portugal.

Better LATE? Instrumental Variables Estimation of the Returns to Job Mobility during Transition

Abstract Recent theoretical contributions to the problem of job mobility decisions during the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy suggest that individuals self-select into specific forms of job mobility behaviour on the basis of their unobservable characteristics. In this case, standard results from both simple treatment-control comparisons of average income and from OLS regressions of reduced-form earnings equations do generally not identify any causal effect of job mobility on income. This paper addresses the endogeneity problem related to job mobility in a quasi-experimental framework and estimates the returns to (early) job mobility in the Eastern German transition process for the period 1990-96. Identification is based on instrumental variables estimation. Two instruments are suggested that account for some of the variation in the job mobility behaviour throughout transition. They allow further for a natural distinction between forced and voluntary movers on the basis of the local average treatment effect (LATE) interpretation of IV estimates. Estimation results contrast strongly with results from both simple treatment-control comparisons and simple OLS estimation. They suggest negative returns to forced job mobility as opposed to positive returns to voluntary job mobility early in transition, thus stressing the existence of heterogeneous returns to job mobility.

Women's perceived stress and well-being following voluntary and involuntary relocation

This study investigated the relationship between voluntary and involuntary relocation and women's perceptions of stress and amount of control, as well as their satisfaction with personal well-being. Results indicated that involuntary movers felt significantly less control and had lower levels of satisfaction with the relationship with their spouses than did voluntary movers. Educational level and employment status were also explored in relation to the dependent variables. Women with high school/trade school education had significantly higher levels of perceived stress, feelings of less control, and lower levels of satisfaction with family life than women with more education.

Residential search and choice of displaced households

Centrographic analysis is used to compare the residential search and choice behavior of 41 households who experienced either short-term or long-term displacement costs after moving out of the inner city of Saskatoon, with the behavior of 90 households who moved as if voluntarily. While the displaced households tended to search for housing in the same neighbourhoods as the voluntary movers, they chose a “new” home much farther away from their “old” home. By means of a logistic regression, the reasons for this more distant move are inferred to reflect both the tightness of the housing market and the housing search barriers that displaced households, who were more likely to be young or old renters, would have encountered.

Voluntary movers: A study of voluntary movement to a small southwestern community

Voluntary movers: A study of voluntary movement to a small southwestern community