Socioeconomic Driving Forces of International Migration

Dennis Wesselbaum

doi:10.1515/jgd-2017-0017

Article

Socioeconomic Driving Forces of International Migration

Dennis Wesselbaum

Published/Copyright: May 18, 2018

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From the journal Journal of Globalization and Development Volume 8 Issue 2

Abstract

This paper makes a contribution to the literature on the driving forces of international migration. In contrast to the existing literature we consider the effect of socioeconomic variables (population dynamics, education and health, and openness) on migration flows. Especially the effects of openness of a society have not received much attention in the scientific debate.We use a panel data set of bilateral migration flows between 16 destination and 198 origin countries over the time span from 1980 to 2015. Most importantly, we find that our socioeconomic variables significantly affect the migration decision. Including socioeconomic variables does affect the size of the effects of the commonly used variables in the literature.Further, we find robust evidence that the socioeconomic variables at hand have non-linear effects on migration. For example, we find that the effect of human capital on migration follows an inverted U-shaped pattern.

Keywords: Education; International Migration; Population

JEL Classification: F22; I25; O15

Appendix

Table 7:

List of all countries in our sample, destination countries in bold.

Afghanistan	Burundi	Estonia	Italy	Micronesia	Romania	Tanzania
Albania	Cambodia	Ethiopia	Jamaica	Moldova	Russia	Thailand
Algeria	Cameroon	Fiji	Japan	Monaco	Rwanda	Togo
American Samoa	Canada	Finland	Jordan	Mongolia	St. Kitts and Nevis	Tonga
Andorra	Cape Verde	France	Kazakhstan	Morocco	St. Lucia	Trinidad and Tobago
Angola	Central African Rep.	French Guiana	Kenya	Mozambique	St. Vincent and the Gr.	Tunisia
Anguilla	Chad	French Polynesia	Kiribati	Myanmar	Samoa	Turkey
Antigua and B.	Chile	Gabon	Korea	Namibia	San Marino	Turkmenistan
Argentina	China	Gambia	Kuwait	Nauru	Sao Tome and Principe	Tuvalu
Armenia	Colombia	Georgia	Kyrgyzstan	Nepal	Saudi Arabia	Uganda
Australia	Comoros	Germany	Laos	Netherlands	Senegal	Ukraine
Austria	Congo	Ghana	Latvia	New Caledonia	Serbia	United Arab Emirates
Azerbaijan	Costa Rica	Greece	Lebanon	New Zealand	Seychelles	United Kingdom
Bahamas	Cote d’Ivoire	Grenada	Lesotho	Nicaragua	Singapore	USA
Bahrain	Croatia	Guatemala	Liberia	Niger	Slovakia	Uruguay
Bangladesh	Cuba	Guinea	Libya	Nigeria	Slovenia	Uzbekistan
Barbados	Cyprus	Guinea-Bissau	Liechtenstein	Norway	Solomon Islands	Vanuatu
Belarus	Czech Republic	Guyana	Lithuania	Oman	Somalia	Venezuela
Belgium	DPR Korea	Haiti	Luxembourg	Pakistan	South Africa	Viet Nam
Belize	DR Congo	Honduras	Macedonia	Palau	Spain	Western Sahara
Benin	Denmark	Hong Kong	Madagascar	Palestine	Sri Lanka	Yemen
Bhutan	Djibouti	Hungary	Malawi	Panama	Sudan	Zambia
Bolivia	Dominica	Iceland	Malaysia	Papua New Guinea	Suriname	Zimbabwe
Bosnia and Herz.	Dominican Rep.	India	Maldives	Paraguay	Swaziland
Botswana	Ecuador	Indonesia	Mali	Peru	Sweden
Brazil	Egypt	Iran	Malta	Philippines	Switzerland
Brunei	El Salvador	Iraq	Mauritania	Poland	Syria
Bulgaria	Equatorial Guinea	Ireland	Mauritius	Portugal	Taiwan
Burkina Faso	Eritrea	Israel	Mexico	Qatar	Tajikistan

Table 8:

Summary statistics.

Variable	Obs	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min	Max
Migration	19,234	1356.09	7363.45	0	415,399.2
ln Distance	24,704	8.64	0.89	4.09	9.88
Border	25,344	0.02	0.12	0	1
Language	25,344	0.14	0.35	0	1
Colony	25,344	0.09	0.28	0	1
ln GDP_j	25,344	10.6	0.32	9.77	11.41
ln GDP_i	21,984	8.29	1.52	5	11.89
ln Population_j	25,344	16.68	1.2	14.97	19.59
ln Population_i	24,736	15.32	2.22	8.95	21.02
Pop Density_j	24,552	123.53	131.61	1.97	502.82
Pop Density_i	24,176	271.58	1332.41	1.15	19,153.5
Young Pop_j	22,176	0.21	0.03	0.15	0.28
Young Pop_i	20,544	0.26	0.03	0.15	0.36
lnAid_ji	13,059	14.06	2.47	7.6	22.33
Trade_j	23,562	−7.25e⁹	1.09e¹¹	−6.55e¹¹	2.69e¹¹
Trade_i	19,761	7.61e⁸	3.88e¹⁰	−6.55e¹¹	3.58e¹¹
Tourism_j	12,870	1.73e⁷	1.7e⁷	1,535,500	6.7e⁷
Tourism_i	14,240	4,779,997	1.07e⁷	1000	8.45e⁷
Internet_j	15,840	44.63	33.14	0.09	94.58
Internet_i	15,488	15.65	23.41	0	95.83
School_j	22,176	10.52	1.49	7.09	13.24
School_i	12,320	7.11	3.07	0.25	13.24
Tertiary_j	22,176	22.27	10.85	2.8	55.6
Tertiary_i	12,320	10.37	10.09	0.01	63.1
Human Cap_j	22,176	2.89	0.42	2.03	3.76
Human Cap_i	12,320	2.14	0.68	1.03	8
Life Exp_j	25,344	78.33	2.63	72.97	83.49
Life Exp_i	23,856	66.99	9.95	29.27	84.28
Exp_j	16,434	165.81	73.03	30.26	386.8
Exp_i	21,344	206.72	324.04	1.01	8105.08
Imp_j	21,344	198.61	189.86	5.35	1341.9
Imp_i	16,434	165.51	67.87	23.07	331.43

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Published Online: 2018-5-18

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https://doi.org/10.1515/jgd-2017-0017

Keywords for this article

Education; International Migration; Population