Now Out in the Journal of Population Economics: How dreams matter for migration

Posted on July 10, 2019 by admin

The article provides evidence that countries with stronger beliefs that hard work leads to a higher social status (the ‘American Dream’) attract a higher proportion of high-skilled immigrants.

Read more in:

Claudia Lumpe: “Public beliefs in social mobility and high-skilled migration”
Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 32 (2019), Issue 3, pp. 981–1008.

Journal Website Issue. Paper Access.

GLO Fellow Claudia Lumpe

Author Abstract: This paper investigates how beliefs of the destination country’s population in social mobility may influence the location choice of high-skilled migrants. We pool macro data from the IAB brain-drain dataset with population survey data from the ISSP for the period 1987–2010 to identify the effect of public beliefs in social mobility on the share of high-skilled immigrants (stocks) in the main OECD immigration countries. The empirical results suggest that countries with higher “American Dream” beliefs, i.e., with stronger beliefs that climbing the social ladder can be realized by own hard work, attracted a higher proportion of high-skilled immigrants over time. This pattern even holds against the fact that existing social mobility in these countries is relatively lower.

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The Nativity Wealth Gap: What is it & what drives it? Now ONLINE & OPEN ACCESS in the Journal of Population Economics.

Posted on July 10, 2019 by admin

The paper studies the migrant-native differences in wealth among older households in Europe which is significant and to the advantage of the natives. The importance of origin country, age at migration, and citizenship status in reducing the gap is shown.

Read more in:

Irene Ferrari: “The nativity wealth gap in Europe: a matching approach “
Journal of Population Economics, online, issue forthcoming.

Journal Website. Download PDF of article for free – OPEN ACCESS

GLO Fellow Irene Ferrari

Author Abstract: This study uses a matching method to provide an estimate of the nativity wealth gap among older households in Europe. This approach does not require imposing any functional form on wealth and avoids validity-out-of-the-support assumptions; furthermore, it allows estimation not only of the mean of the wealth gap but also of its distribution for the common-support sub-population. The results show that on average there is a positive and significant wealth gap between natives and migrants. However, the average gap may be misleading as the distribution of the gap reveals that immigrant households in the upper part of the wealth distribution are better off, and those in the lower part of the wealth distribution are worse off, than comparable native households. A heterogeneity analysis shows the importance of origin, age at migration, and citizenship status in reducing the gap. Indeed, households who migrated within Europe, those who moved at younger ages rather than as adults, and those who are citizens of the destination country display a wealth gap that is consistently smaller over the entire distribution.

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Marriage, dowry, and women’s status in rural Punjab: Now ONLINE & OPEN ACCESS in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 9, 2019 by admin

Dowry is a common custom in South Asia with rising use and increasing amounts. The paper shows that a higher dowry amount, especially in terms of furniture, electronics, and kitchenware, is positively associated with women’s status in the marital household.

Read more in:
Momoe Makino: “Marriage, dowry, and women’s status in rural Punjab, Pakistan”
Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 32 (2019), Issue 3, pp. 769-797.

Journal Website. Download PDF of article for free – OPEN ACCESS

GLO FellowMomoe Makino

Author Abstract: Dowry is a common custom observed in South Asian countries. Despite alleged negative consequences caused by dowry and the legal ban or restrictions on its practice, the custom has been extended, and recently, dowry amounts seem to be increasing. Compared with public interest in and theoretical studies on dowry, empirical studies are relatively scarce mainly due to data unavailability and inadequacy. We conducted a household survey specifically designed to empirically investigate how dowry is associated with women’s status in the marital household in rural Punjab, Pakistan. The dataset is unique because it gathers information on disaggregated marriage expenses, which enables us to examine the relation between each itemized component of dowry and women’s status. Results show that a higher dowry amount, especially in terms of furniture, electronics, and kitchenware, is positively associated with women’s status in the marital household. The positive association of these illiquid items adds suggestive evidence that in rural Punjab, Pakistan, dowry serves as a trousseau that the bride’s parents voluntarily offer to their daughter.

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Mental Health, Schooling and Genetic Predisposition: June GLO Discussion Paper of the Month and other June GLO Research Papers

Posted on July 9, 2019 by admin

Does schooling attenuates the genetic predisposition to poor mental health. The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of June 2019  provides some empirical support, but the findings are not robust.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS, EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs downloadable for free.

GLO Discussion Paper of the Month: June

GLO Discussion Paper No. 362, 2019

Mental Health, Schooling Attainment and Polygenic Scores: Are There Significant Gene-Environment Associations? – Download PDF
by Amin, Vikesh & Behrman, Jere R. & Fletcher, Jason M. & Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Kohler, Hans-Peter

GLO Fellows Jere Behrman, Carlos Flores and Alfonso Flores – Lagunes

Author Abstract: It is well-established that (1) there is a large genetic component to mental health, and (2) higher schooling attainment is associated with better mental health. Given these two observations, we test the hypothesis that schooling may attenuate the genetic predisposition to poor mental health. Specifically, we estimate associations between a polygenic score (PGS) for depressive symptoms, schooling attainment and gene-environment (GxE) interactions with mental health (depressive symptoms and depression), in two distinct United States datasets at different adult ages- 29 years old in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and 54 years old in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS). OLS results indicate that the association of the PGS with mental health is similar in Add Health and the WLS, but the association of schooling attainment is much larger in Add Health than in the WLS. There is some suggestive evidence that the association of the PGS with mental health is lower for more-schooled older individuals in the WLS, but there is no evidence of any significant GxE associations in Add Health. Quantile regression estimates also show that in the WLS the GxE associations are statistically significant only in the upper parts of the conditional depressive symptoms score distribution. We assess the robustness of the OLS results to omitted variable bias by using the siblings samples in both datasets to estimate sibling fixed-effect regressions. The sibling fixed-effect results must be qualified, in part due to low statistical power. However, the sibling fixed-effect estimates show that college education is associated with fewer depressive symptoms in both datasets.

GLO Discussion Papers of June 2019

364 Hate at first sight? Dynamic aspects of the electoral impact of migration: The case of Ukip – Download PDF
by Levi, Eugenio & Mariani, Rama Dasi & Patriarca, Fabrizio

363 The Gender Pay Gap in the US: A Matching Study – Download PDF
by Meara, Katie & Pastore, Francesco & Webster, Allan

362 Mental Health, Schooling Attainment and Polygenic Scores: Are There Significant Gene-Environment Associations? – Download PDF
by Amin, Vikesh & Behrman, Jere R. & Fletcher, Jason M. & Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Kohler, Hans-Peter

361 Technological change and occupation mobility: A task-based approach to horizontal mismatch – Download PDF
by Aepli, Manuel

360 Economic Uncertainty and Fertility – Download PDF
by Gözgör, Giray & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Rangazas, Peter

359 The evolution of tax implicit value judgements, redistribution and income inequality in the UK: 1968 to 2015 – Download PDF
by van de Ven, Justin & Hérault, Nicolas

358 Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India – Download PDF
by Kumar, Santosh & Kumar, Kaushalendra & Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Nandi, Arindam

357 Do Private Household Transfers to the Elderly Respond to Public Pension Benefits? Evidence from Rural China – Download PDF
by Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan

356 What do student jobs on graduate CVs signal to employers? – Download PDF
by Van Belle, Eva & Caers, Ralf & Cuypers, Laure & De Couck, Marijke & Neyt, Brecht & Van Borm, Hannah & Baert, Stijn

355 Technology and employment in a vertically connected economy: a model and an empirical test – Download PDF
by Dosi, G. & Piva, M. & Virgillito, M. E. & Vivarelli, M.

354 Will You Marry Me … if Our Children Are Healthy? The Impact of Maternal Age and the Associated Risk of Having a Child with Health Problems on Family Structure – Download PDF
by Gutierrez, Federico H.

GLO DP Team
Senior Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University).
Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of Groningen. DP@glabor.org  

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Internal migration affects the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind in China. New research published in the Journal of Population Economics.

Posted on July 9, 2019 by admin

A new study examines how migration of an adult child affects the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind in China. It finds that migration reduces happiness and leads to more loneliness among the elderly.

Read more in:

Juliane Scheffel & Yiwei Zhang: How does internal migration affect the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind? Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 32 (2019), Issue 3, pp. 953-980.

Journal Website. Download PDF of article for free – OPEN ACCESS

GLO Fellow Juliane Scheffel

Author Abstract: The ageing population resulting from the one-child policy and massive flows of internal migration in China pose major challenges to elderly care in rural areas where elderly support is based on a traditional inter-generational family support mechanism. We use data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to examine how migration of an adult child affects the emotional health of elderly parents left-behind. We identify the effects using fixed effects and IV approaches which rely on different sources of variation. We find that migration reduces happiness by 6.6 percentage points and leads to a 3.3 percentage points higher probability of loneliness. CES-D scores of elderly parents are severely increased pushing average scores close to the cut-off indicating clinical levels of depressive symptoms. As emotional health is a key determinant of the overall health status, our findings have significant impacts on economic development in China.

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Your spouse is fired! How much do you care? New Research Published in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 9, 2019 by admin

Unemployment reduces the life satisfaction of the partner! However, while wives’ life satisfaction does not recover even two years after their partners becoming unemployed, husbands only react to their wives’ joblessness during the first year of unemployment.

Read more in:
Milena Nikolova & Sinem H. Ayhan: Your spouse is fired! How much do you care?
Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 32 (2019), Issue 3, pp. 799-844.

Journal Website. Download PDF of article for free – OPEN ACCESS

GLO Fellows Milena Nikolova and Sinem H. Ayhan

Author Abstract: This study is the first to provide a causal estimate of the cross-spouse subjective well-being consequences of unemployment. Using German panel data on married and cohabiting partners for 1991–2015 and information on exogenous unemployment entry due to workplace closure, we show that one spouse’s unemployment experience reduces the life satisfaction of the other partner. The estimated spillover is at least one quarter of the effect of own unemployment and is equally pronounced among female and male partners. In addition, while wives’ life satisfaction does not recover even two years after their partners becoming unemployed, husbands only react to their wives’ joblessness during the first year of unemployment. Our results are insensitive to income controls and the couple’s position in the income distribution, thus reflecting the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment. Although the income loss hardly explains the negative spillover effects of unemployment on spousal life satisfaction, we document large declines in spousal satisfaction with household income and living standards. This finding supports the argument that the costs of unemployment borne by indirectly affected spouses extend beyond the loss of consumption opportunities and might be rather related to social values attached to market work. Being robust to a battery of sensitivity checks, our findings imply that public policy programs aimed at mitigating unemployment’s negative consequences need to target not only those directly affected but also cohabiting spouses.

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Migrants Reduce the Work Health Risks of Natives – New Research Findings Published in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 5, 2019 by admin

The value of immigrants for the UK has played an important role in the Brexit debate. A recent GLO Discussion Paper explores the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risk using data for England and Wales.
Migrants seem to reduce the risks for UK-born workers and they report report lower injury rates than natives. The paper is now published in the Journal of Population Economics and available online. See also below.

GLO Discussion Paper now published in the Journal of Population Economics, July 2019, Volume 32, Issue 3, pp 1009–1042; already 2.4k downloads on July 5, 2019!

See online on the Journal website.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 215, 2018.

Immigration and the Reallocation of Work Health Risks – Download PDF
by Giuntella, Osea & Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Nicodemo, Catia & Vargas-Silva, Carlos

GLO Fellows Osea Giuntella, Fabrizio Mazzonna, Catia Nicodemo & Carlos Vargas-Silva

Author Abstract: This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003–2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterized by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels. We also find that that immigration led to an improvement self-reported measures of native workers’ health. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries.

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John Gardner on ‘Intergenerational altruism: Evidence from the African American Great Migration’ online in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 4, 2019 by admin

Intergenerational altruism explains between 24 and 42% of the Northward migration!

Read more in:

John Gardner: Intergenerational altruism in the migration decision calculus: evidence from the African American Great Migration, forthcoming in the Journal of Population Economics.

See Online First on the Journal website.

GLO Fellow John Gardner

Author Abstract: It is widely believed that many migrations are undertaken at least in part for the benefit of future generations. To provide evidence on the effect of intergenerational altruism on migration, I estimate a dynamic residential location choice model of the African American Great Migration in which individuals take the welfare of future generations into account when deciding to remain in the Southern USA or migrate to the North. I measure the influence of altruism on the migration decision as the implied difference between the migration probabilities of altruistic individuals and myopic ones who consider only current-generation utility when making their location decisions. My preferred estimates suggest that intergenerational altruism explains between 24 and 42% of the Northward migration that took place during the period that I study, depending on the generation.

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Anti-Minaret Votes and Migrants’ Location Choices in Switzerland – New Research Findings Published in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 3, 2019 by admin

A recent GLO Discussion Paper explores the vote on the Swiss minaret initiative in 2009 as a natural experiment to identify the effect of newly revealed reservations towards immigrants on their location choices. The research finds that the probability of  immigrants to relocate to  a municipality that unexpectedly revealed stronger negative attitudes towards them is significantly reduced in the time after the vote. The effect seems to apply to all immigrant groups – Muslim, non-European and European -, and to be stronger for high-skilled immigrants. The paper is now published in the Journal of Population Economics and available online. See also below.

GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of January 2019 published in the Journal of Population Economics, July 2019, Volume 32, Issue 3, pp 1043–1095!

See online on the Journal website.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 305, 2019.

The Deterrent Effect of an Anti-Minaret Vote on Foreigners’ Location Choices – Download PDF
by Slotwinski, Michaela & Stutzer, Alois

GLO Fellows Michaela Slotwinski & Alois Stutzer

Abstract: In a national ballot in 2009, Swiss citizens surprisingly approved an amendment to the Swiss constitution to ban the further construction of minarets. The ballot outcome manifested reservations and anti-immigrant attitudes in regions of Switzerland which had previously been hidden. We exploit this fact as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of negative attitudes towards immigrants on foreigners’ location choices and thus indirectly on their utility. Based on a regression discontinuity design with unknown discontinuity points and administrative data on the population of foreigners, we find that the probability of their moving to a municipality which unexpectedly expressed stronger reservations decreases initially by about 40 percent. The effect is accompanied by a drop of housing prices in these municipalities and levels off over a period of about 5 months. Moreover, foreigners in high-skill occupations react relatively more strongly highlighting a tension when countries try to attract well-educated professionals from abroad.

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Return migrants transfer social norms: Evidence on female genital mutilation in Mali just published in the Journal of Population Economics

Posted on July 1, 2019 by admin

A recent GLO Discussion Paper found that girls living in localities with return migrants in Mali are less likely to be circumcised. This effect is driven mainly by the returnees from Côte d’Ivoire, suggesting that, in addition to punitive action against those who practice Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or information campaigns, having lived in an African country where FGM practice is not customary is equally influential. This is evidence for the relevance of social remittances through return migration here by improving social norms. The paper is now accepted for publication in the Journal of Population Economics and already available online. See also below.

GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of March 2019 now forthcoming in the Journal of Population Economics!

See online on the Journal website.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 329, 2019.

Female genital mutilation and migration in Mali. Do return migrants transfer social norms? – Download PDF
by Diabate, Idrissa & Mesplé-Somps, Sandrine

GLO Fellow Sandrine Mesplé-Somps.

Abstract:   In this paper, we investigate the power of migration as a mechanism in the transmission of social norms, taking Mali and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as a case study. Mali has a strong FGM culture and a long-standing history of migration. We use an original household-level database coupled with census data to analyze the extent to which girls living in localities with high rates of return migrants are less prone to FGM. Malians migrate predominantly to other African countries where female circumcision is uncommon (e.g. Côte d’Ivoire) and to countries where FGM is totally banned (France and other developed countries) and where anti-FGM information campaigns frequently target African migrants. Taking a two-step instrumental variable approach to control for the endogeneity of migration and return decisions, we show that return migrants have a negative and significant influence on FGM practices. More precisely, we show that this result is primarily driven by the flow of returnees from Cote d’Ivoire. We also show that adults living in localities with return migrants are more informed about FGM and in favor of legislation. The impact of returnees may occur through several channels, including compositional effects, changes in return migrants’ attitudes toward FGM, and return migrants convincing stayers to change their FGM practices.

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