Determinants of migration intentions in the European Union

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Determinants of migration intentions in the
European Union

• Exodus or bounded mobility?
• Didier Fouarge Peter Ester
• Tilburg University
• The Netherlands
• ESPA Conference on Migration and Social Policies
  in Europe, Universidad Pública de Navarra,
  Pamplona, Spain, June 8-10, 2006

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Research questions

• Background
• next decade East/West migration landslide in
  Europe?
• new migration dynamics due to European
  enlargement?
• 2006 European Year of Mobility, Europeans need
  to be more mobile
• Crucial issue what are the social-demographic,
  cultural labor related determinants of
  cross-border migration intentions?
• Main determinants of intended between-country
  migration?
• Relation to past mobility?
• New Member States and EU15?
• Barriers and triggers to intended cross-border
  migration?

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Structure of the presentation

• 1. Theory and literature
• Push and pull factors
• Self selection effects
• 2. Basic expectations on migration intentions
• 3. Migration intention data used
• 4. Descriptive results
• 5. Modeling migration intentions
• Individual level variables
• Macro level variables
• 6. Main conclusions

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Theory

• The migration decision

Ui. Utility of person i in country of origin
(A) or destination (B). Ci Costs of
migration from A to B. U depends on economic
(Ei.), demographic (Di.), and social attributes
(Si.) and their value in A and B. Utility also
depends on macro-economic condition (M). C
consists of out of pocket costs equal to all (f),
and individual costs relating to the distance of
the move (d), and psycho-cultural costs (c).
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Literature (1) Motives for mobility

• Pull factors
• Immediate employment and wage opportunities
  (Harris Todaro, 1970)
• Future employment and wage prospects (Sjaastad,
  1962 Chiswick, 1978)
• Social security benefits (Borjas, 1999)
• Housing market (OECD, 2005)
• Social networks (Massey et al., 1994 Zavodny,
  1997 Hatton Williamson, 2002)
• Demographic events (Coppin et al., 2006)
• Migration as a household decision (Mincer, 1978
  Stark, 1991).
• Push factors
• High unemployment and low GDP (Hatton
  Williamson, 2002 Pedersen et al., 2004)
• Past mobility (Liebig Sousa-Poza, 2004)
• Taxation (Boadway Wildasin, 1984)
• Social unrest.

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Expectations

• The intention to migrate is more likely if
• 1. Expected returns are high (higher educated)
• 2. Pay-back period for costs is long (younger
  people)
• 3. No children
• 4. No partner
• 5. One has positive attitudes towards migration
  
• 6. One has been mobile in the past
• 7. Past mobility was job-related rather than
  family-related
• 8. Does not perceive negative effects for
  employment
• 9. Does not perceive negative effects for social
  ties
• 10. Economic prospects in home country are bad
• 11. For the higher educated when income
  inequality is low
• 12.The mobility distance is relatively short

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Migration intention data (1)

• Eurobarometer Mobility Survey (EB 64.1)
• All 25 EU countries
• Data Sept. 2005 1,000 cases per country
• N appr. 24,500 CAPI
• Best available source on EU wide migration
  intentions
• Do you think that in the next five years you are
  likely to move?
• In the same city/town/village
• To another city/town/village but in the same
  region
• To another region but in the same country
• To another country in the European Union
• To another country outside the European Union
• You dont think you will move.

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Migration intention data (2)

• Psychological decision and attitude theory
  intentions only under certain conditions predict
  actual behavior (Fishbein Ajzen, 1975).
• Intentions do have a predictive value for future
  behavior (Manski, 1990).
• We assume here that intentions are a monotonic
  function of the true (unobserved) future
  behavior.
• Several other research use migration intentions
  data
• Tidrick (1971), Finifter (1976), Chiquiar and
  Hanson (2002) for the US
• Burda et al. (1998) for Germany
• Liebig and Sousa-Poza (2004) in an international
  comparative survey
• Krieger (2004) for accessing and candidate EU
  countries.

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Descriptive results (1) Intention to migrate to
another EU country ()
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Descriptive results (2) Intention to migrate by
demographics ()
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Migration intentions and GDP
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Migration intentions and GDP growth
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Migration intentions and long-term unemployment
rate
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Migration intentions of the low educated and
income inequality
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Migration intentions of the high educated and
income inequality
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Composition of the pro-migration group
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Model for migration intentions (1)
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Model for migration intentions (2)
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Model for migration intentions (3)
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Barriers and triggers to mobility

• Pro-migration intentions Men Youth
• Young people adventure seeking, exploring
  experiencing new environments
• Little can motivate the low educated to migrate
• Movers tend to stay movers pro-migration
  attitudes
• Perceived erosion of social networks
• Language barriers

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Conclusions

• Exodus?
• Long distance residential migration is not a
  widespread phenomenon in terms of percentages
• But potentially large absolute numbers (e.g.
  Poland EU migration intention of 7)
• Especially higher educated workers / students
  (brain drain?).
• Bounded mobility?
• Past experience with mobility
• Job/income opportunities are drivers
• Demographics (children), social ties, and
  language are main barriers

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Conclusions

• The future of cross-border EU migration
• Age, period or cohort?
• A cognitive experiment

Didier Fouarge Peter Ester