3 research outputs found
The psychic costs of migration: evidence from Irish return migrants
Within the economics literature, the 'psychic costs' of migration have
been incorporated into theoretical models since Sjaastad (J Polit Econ 70:80
93, 1962). However, the existence of such costs has rarely been investigated
in empirical papers. In this paper, we look at the psychic costs of migration by
using alcohol problems as an indicator. Rather than comparing immigrants and
natives, we look at the native-born in a single country and compare those who
have lived away for a period of their lives and those who have not. We use data
from the first wave of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing which is a large,
nationally representative sample of older Irish adults. We find that men who
lived away are more likely to have suffered from alcohol problems than men
who stayed. For women, we again see a higher incidence of alcohol problems
for short-term migrants. However, long-term female migrants are less likely
to have suffered from alcohol problems. For these women, it seems that
migration provided psychic benefits, and this is consistent with findings fro