Occupational Choice of Return Migrants in Moldova

This paper analyses the occupational choice of return migrants. Using the CBSAXA data on different aspects of migration in Moldova, we find that those who stayed illegally in the host country tend to go in wage employment on return to the home country. We also show that relatively better educated tend not be in formal employment, i.e., appear not to participate in the labour market whereas those with relatively lower skills or who obtained worse than expected outcome in the host country are more likely to be wage employed in the home country on return. We discuss intuition of these paradoxical results in the paper.sample selection, return migration, occupational choice, Moldova

Precautionary Savings by Natives and Immigrants in Germany

This paper analyses the savings behaviour of natives and immigrants in Germany. It is argued that uncertainty about future income and legal status (in case of immigrants) is a key component in the determination of the level of precautionary savings. Using the German Socio-economic Panel data it is shown that, although immigrants have lower levels of savings and are less likely to have regular savings than natives, the gap is significantly narrowed once we take loan repayments and remittances into account. Moreover, we find that marginal propensity to save for immigrants is about 40% higher than that for natives. We then exploit a natural experiment arising from a change in nationality law in Germany in 2000 to estimate the importance of precautionary savings. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the easing of the requirements for naturalization has caused significant reductions of savings and remittances for immigrants as a whole, in the magnitude of 13% and 29% respectively, comparing to the pre-reform period. Our parametric specification shows that the introduction of the new nationality law reduces the gap between natives and immigrants in marginal propensity to save by 40% to 65%, depending on the measure of savings used. These findings suggest that much of the differences in terms of the savings behaviour between natives and immigrants are driven by the precautionary savings arising from the uncertainties about future income and legal status rather than cultural differences.migration, remittances, savings, uncertainty

Motivations for Remittances: Evidence from Moldova

This paper explores the factors that account for the receipt of remittances across households in Moldova who have migrants abroad. Unlike most of the existing literature, we approach our research question from the perspective of the recipient household and use it to interpret the determinants/motivations of remittances. Our results show that a combination of household and migrant characteristics and some community level variables are the key elements in explaining the remittance behaviour in Moldova. Drawing from these estimates, we conclude that altruism and investment (proxied by the level of economic development at the regional level) are the two main motives behind remittance flows to Moldova.remittances, migration, Moldova

Circular Migration or Permanent Return: What Determines Different Forms of Migration?

This paper addresses the following questions: To what extent do the socio-economic characteristics of circular/repeat migrants differ from migrants who return permanently to the home country after their first trip (i.e. return migrants)? and What determines each of these distinctive temporary migration forms? Using Albanian household survey data and both a multinomial logit model and a maximum simulated likelihood (MSL) probit with two sequential selection equations, we find that education, gender, age, geographical location and the return reasons from the first migration trip significantly affect the choice of migration form. Compared to return migrants, circular migrants are more likely to be male, have primary education and originate from rural, less developed areas. Moreover, return migration seems to be determined by family reasons, a failed migration attempt but also the fulfillment of a savings target.return migration, circular migration, sample selection

Occupational choice of return migrants

The occupational choice of return migrants is important to their home country. Return migrants are likely to have acquired human capital while abroad, either through formal training or by working in a more efficient labor market. The employment of these newly acquired skills in the home country can have important economic implications. Examining the choice of return migrants to engage in wage employment, self employment, entrepreneurial activity, or to remain out of the labor market makes it possible to ascertain whether the initial migration decision benefited the home country as well as the migrants and their families

Self-Selection and the Performance of Return Migrants: the Source Country Perspective.

In this paper, using the framework of a Roy theoretical model, we examine the performance of return migrants in Albania. We ask two main questions: (i) Had they chosen not to migrate, what would be the performance of return migrants compared to the non-migrants? and (ii) What would be the performance of non-migrants had they decided to migrate and return? Both our estimates from a selection model and our semi-parametric approach allow us to conclude that the flows of return migrants are negatively selected. We find that, had they decided to migrate and come back, the non-migrants would have earned more than twice the wages of return migrants.migration, self-selection, Albania

Social capital and immigrants' labour market performance

This paper analyses the role of social capital on immigrants’ labour market outcomes. We use the “principal component analysis” (PCA) to build an index of social networks and explore its impact on the probability of getting a job and on wage levels using the Households Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) longitudinal survey data. We find a positive effect of social capital on migrants’ employment outcomes and wages, especially for women. Distinguishing employment into blue and white-collar jobs, we find that social capital only affects the probability of getting a white-collar job. These results suggest that promoting opportunities to create social capital has a beneficial effect on migrants’ integration in the host country

Integration of Humanitarian Migrants into the Host Country Labour Market: Evidence from Australia

The objective of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the labour market integration of new humanitarian migrants in the host country. A number of employment outcomes are examined including access to employment, access to stable employment, the wage/earnings level and the education-occupation mismatch. By using a recently collected panel survey data in Australia, the study shows that pre-migration education, work experience, previous migration episodes, as well as English profciency, English training, study/job training undertaken in Australia and social capital form important determinants of the labour market integration of refugees in the host country. The paper highlights the differentiated impacts of these resources on the refugees’ outcomes at six months, one year and two years after arrival

Social networks and the labour market mismatch

This paper assesses the extent to which social contacts and ethnic concentration affect the education-occupation mismatch of natives and immigrants. Using Australian panel data and employing a dynamic random effects probit model, we show that social capital exacerbates the incidence of over-education, particularly for females. Furthermore, for the foreign-born, ethnic concentration significantly increases the incidence of over-education. Using an alternative index, we also show that social participation, friends and support and ethnic concentration are the main contributors in generating a mismatch, while reciprocity and trust does not seem to have any effect on over-education for both, immigrants and natives. Finally, we show that social networks are more beneficial for the relatively better educated