Measuring ethnic linkages among migrants (original) (raw)
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Ethnic networks and location choice of immigrants
IZA world of labor, 2016
Immigrants can initially face significant difficulties integrating into the economy of the host country, due to information gaps about the local labor market, limited language proficiency, and unfamiliarity with the local culture. Settlement in a region where economic and social networks based on familiar cultural or language factors ("ethnic capital") exist provides an effective strategy for economic integration. As international migration into culturally diverse countries increases, ethnic networks will be important considerations in managing immigration selection, language proficiency requirements, and regional economic policies. AUThoR'S MAin MeSSAGe Ethnic enclaves facilitate the economic integration of new immigrants by providing social networks and economic resources. Research shows that ethnic networks provide employment and self-employment opportunities for immigrants within the specialized ethnic economy, leading to added economic activity. Accordingly, immigration selection policies based on highly-skilled or business criteria, language proficiency, and diversity of origin countries are more likely to strengthen ethnic communities and thus lead to greater economic activity and enhanced long-term economic and social integration of immigrants. ethnic networks and location choice of immigrants Ethnic capital produced by local concentration of immigrants generates greater economic activity
Immigrant Location Decisions and Outcomes
The majority of the most recent waves of immigration has gone to only a handful of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. The robust economic performance of these "immigrant centers" has sparked a debate within a number of economically lagging metropolitan areas as to the merits of attracting foreign-born immigrants as part of a strategy to stem population loss and spur economic growth. However, any policy decisions would require a solid information base including a better understanding of the nature and spatial implications of immigrants' location decisions. This article contributes to the information base. It proposes a non-linear model that uses two key individual location decision factors to predict the distribution of foreign-born citizens among metropolitan areas at three (U.S. Census) points in time: 1980, 1990, and 2000. The proposed non-linear model enables examination of the consequences in time of spatial distribution of immigration based on the assumptions, supported by literature, that immigrants' location decisions are driven by two key factors representing economic and social concerns.
2010
How do networks influence the location and occupation decisions of immigrants? If so, is this influence long-lasting? This paper addresses these questions by analyzing immigrant flows to the United States between 1900 and 1930. We compare the distributions of immigrants both by intended and actual state of residence to counterfactual distributions constructed by allocating the national-level flows using network proxies. The distribution of immigrants by intended state of residence is most closely approximated by a distribution that allocates them where migrants of their own ethnicity, irrespective of their occupation, had settled. Meanwhile, the actual distribution of immigrants is better approximated by the location of previous immigrants of the same ethnicity and occupation, but only for the first 5 years of a migrant's stay. These results are consistent with migrants using networks as a transitory mechanism while they learn about their new labor markets and not consistent with alternatives.
Papers in Regional Science, 2014
We examine the local determinants of destination choices of foreign immigrants to the Madrid metro area using data for 2005 and 2009 from the Spanish annual municipal-level registers of inhabitants. Taking advantage of the equivalence relation between conditional logit and Poisson, we estimate a location-choice model using the Poisson fixed-effects estimator. Origin-destination fixed effects are incorporated to account for the persistent spatial structure of the immigrants' settlement patterns and to control for potential violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption. The Poisson regression model is estimated for seven different groups of immigrants according to world regions or countries of origin. Our modelling strategy has important empirical implications, with magnitudes and/or signs of the estimated coefficients changing in the expected directions. It is found that newly arriving immigrants tend to settle in low-to-middle-income locations in the suburban reaches of the Madrid metro area. Moreover, the effects of the size of local communities of established immigrants are found to be insignificant and even negative in several instances, reflecting hetero-local settlement preferences and/or the saturation of local networks causing in-group job rivalry, respectively. JEL classification: C33, C35, J61, O15
Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 2011
This research empirically examines differences in the socioeconomic correlates of Mexican migrants to the southern region of the United States. More specifically, the research considers differences between Mexican immigrants choosing the South and those choosing other U.S. destinations. Using general estimating equations, the study provides evidence that several characteristics distinguish the stream of recent migrants choosing southern destinations. Notably, rural origins as well as rural destinations have substantial explanatory power. The results also show that immigrants to the South are likely to be pioneers in the sense that they do not have strong family-specific migration capital and are likely to be from a community without a long history of sending migrants to the United States. Immigrants choosing the South are also more likely to be undocumented. Additionally, they are far more likely to have arrived following implementation of NAFTA. Ownership of houses is also a distinguishing feature of these migrants.
The Location Choice of Employment-based Immigrants among U.S. Metro Areas*
Journal of Regional Science, 2005
This paper examines the initial location choice of legal employment-based immigrants to the United States using Immigration and Naturalization Service data on individual immigrants, as well as economic, demographic, and social data to characterize the 298 metropolitan areas we define as the universal choice set. Focusing on interactions between place characteristics and immigrant characteristics, we provide multinomial logit model estimates for the location choices of about 38,000 employment-based immigrants to the United States in 1995, focusing on the top 10 source countries. We find that, as groups, immigrants from nearly all countries are attracted to large cities with superior climates, and to cities with relatively well-educated adults and high wages. We also find evidence that employment-based immigrants tend to choose cities where there are relatively few immigrants of nationalities other than their own. However, when we introduce interaction terms to account for the sociodemographic characteristics of the individual immigrants, we find that the estimated effects of location destination factors can reverse as one takes account of the age, gender, marital status, and previous occupation of the immigrants.
Testing Network Theory through an Analysis of Migration from Mexico to the United States
https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/99-01.pdf, 1999
Very recently several writers in the study of international migration have recognized the role of social networks, or ‘migrant networks’, as an important force in explaining the perpetuity of international migration (Massey, 1987; Boyd, 1989; Massey et al., 1993, 1994; Portes, 1995). However this network effect has never been directly empirically examined. Traditional analysis using logit/logistic models makes unrealistic assumptions of the unmeasured common causes and, more often, does not control for relevant measured characteristics which may be correlated to the individuals in the network (Massey and Palloni, 1992). In order to avoid these estimation problems a multi-state event history model, developed by Alberto Palloni and Douglas Massey, is employed using household level data from the Mexican Migration Project and the parameters of a Weibull function are estimated. This study specifically looks at the relationship between father and eldest son. For simplicity, the states are specified as unidirectional. State one is defined as both father and son reside in Mexico and have never migrated; state two is defined as when only the father has migrated to the United States; state three is defined as when only the eldest son has migrated to the United States; and state four is defined as when both father and son have migrated to the United States. A set of controls are added to the analysis, namely education, occupation and age, period effects, common conditions, as well as controls for unmeasured heterogeneity—which control for unmeasured 'common causes' between the pairs under examination. Predicted probabilities are then compared and contrasted and life tables are created. When examining the migration experience between father-son pairs, the effects of social networks maintain as the most significant force in affecting the risk of migrating after controlling for selection and common causes, both measured and unmeasured. In particular, the probability of migrating is higher for those fathers whose son had migrated first transition compared to households where the father migrated first. The hazard is also higher for those sons whose father had migrated first compared to those where the son migrated first, net of individual effects and community characteristics.
Disaggregating Mexican Migrant Networks: The Parts are Greater Than the Whole
2001
In this paper, we explore the role of social networks in the migration decision focusing on the distinct influence networks have on domestic and international migration. The analysis focuses particular attention on the composition of migrant networks in order to improve our understanding of how network composition influences the migration decision. Using data from rural Mexico, we consider migration in a multiple-choice context allowing for the possibility that individuals can migrate within Mexico for agricultural and non-agricultural employment as well as to the United States. Our principle result is that the parts are greater than the whole; using disaggregated measures of social networks highlights the complexity of network effects on migration decisions. When modeling the migration choice with aggregate measures of migrant networks, US migrant networks appear more important then Mexico migrant networks for the choice of migration to the respective countries. Once networks are disaggregated by kinship, however, Mexican migrant networks become very important to the Mexico migrant decision. Further, the impact of migrant networks in the decision to migrate is not homogeneous; the closer the kinship bond, the more important the impact. The effect of migrant networks is non-linear and depends upon the type of relationship and destination choice. Finally, US and Mexico ejido level migration assets serve as substitutes in terms of US migration, and complements for Mexico migration.
Social Networks, Place Attachments and Mexican Urban Migration
ATHENS JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2016
By using qualitative data and a representative survey of Valle de Chalco-Solidaridad, a municipality on the periphery of Mexico City, this article provides fresh information on urban migration to the U.S. and the role of social networks in urban settings. The article critically reviews previous theoretical assumptions about the nature of Mexican migration regarding the role of social networks in organizing migration flows that were largely based on rural-origin datasets and case studies. The article demonstrates that variations on the socio-demographic profile of the would-be emigrants of the US are found depending on the household´s social networks. In other words, not everyone is susceptible to emigration, despite structural adjustments in the economy and a general landscape of relative privation. Our data suggests that urban females may organize their own autonomous social networks, the higher educated in cities value their future in Mexico (and only try the adventure further north when they have the support of social networks), and the irrelevance of territorial attachments for understanding urban migration from Mexico.