Family migration and changes in women's earnings: A decomposition analysis

Married women who migrate with their families experience relative earnings losses after migration. In this study, we use data from the 1987 Wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to explicitly examine the relative importance of three sources of those losses: labor force participation, hours of labor supplied, and wages. We estimate earnings models with Heckman's sample selection method for each of four years following migration. The results and subsequent coefficient decomposition methods show that labor force exit and a reduction of labor supplied contribute the largest share to the earnings penalty attached to migration for married women. The participation effect, although reduced in size, is significant for three years following migration. The wages of employed married women who migrate appear to be unaffected in any year following migration.     

Internal Migration and Life Satisfaction: Well-Being Paths of Young Adult Migrants

Internal migration is typically associated with higher income, but its relation with life satisfaction remains unclear. Is internal migration accompanied by an increase in life satisfaction and does this increase depend on the reason for moving? What are the aspects of life underlying overall life satisfaction that change following migration? These questions are addressed using longitudinal data from the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study. Migration is defined as a change in municipality of residence. Comparing migrants to non-migrants, it is found that internal migration is accompanied by a short to medium term increase in life satisfaction for those who move due to work (work migrants), as well as those who move for other reasons (non-work migrants). However, only work migrants display an improvement in life satisfaction that remains significant 6 or more years following the move. Work and non-work migrants also differ in the aspects of life that change following migration. For work migrants the move is accompanied by an improvement in occupational status positively associated with well-being 6–10 years after the move. For non-work migrants, a persisting increase in housing satisfaction follows migration, but this housing improvement is accompanied by only a short to medium term increase in overall well-being.     

Race,gender, and marriage: destination selection during the great migration

Using historical census microdata, we present a unique analysis of racial and gender disparities in destination selection and an exploration of hypotheses regarding tied migration in the historical context of the Great Migration. Black migrants were more likely to move to metropolitan areas and central cities throughout the period, while white migrants were more likely to locate in nonmetropolitan and farm destinations. Gender differences were largely dependent on marital status. Consistent with the "tied-migration" thesis, married women had destination outcomes that were similar to those of men, whereas single women had a greater propensity to reside in metropolitan locations where economic opportunities for women were more plentiful.     

Spousal Mobility and Earnings

An important finding in the literature on migration has been that the earnings of married women typically decrease with a move, while the earnings of married men often increase with a move, suggesting that married women are more likely to act as the “trailing spouse.” This article considers a related but largely unexplored question: what is the effect of having an occupation that is associated with frequent migration on the migration decisions of a household and on the earnings of the spouse? Further, how do these effects differ between men and women? The Public Use Microdata Sample from the 2000 U.S. decennial census is used to calculate migration rates by occupation and education. The analysis estimates the effects of these occupational mobility measures on the migration of couples and the earnings of married individuals. I find that migration rates in both the husband’s and wife’s occupations affect the household migration decision, but mobility in the husband’s occupation matters considerably more. For couples in which the husband has a college degree (regardless of the wife’s educational level), a husband’s mobility has a large, significant negative effect on his wife’s earnings, whereas a wife’s mobility has no effect on her husband’s earnings. This negative effect does not exist for college-educated wives married to non-college-educated husbands.In the substantial literature on the relationship between migration and earnings, an important finding has been that the earnings of married women typically decrease with a move, while the earnings of married men often increase with a move. This is consistent with the notion that married women are more likely to act as the “trailing spouse” or to be a “tied mover.” This article considers a related but largely unexplored question: what is the effect of having an occupation that is associated with frequent migration on the migration decisions of a household as well as on the earnings of the spouse? And how do these effects differ between men and women?There are three reasons to move beyond the previous analysis of household moves to studying the effect of occupational mobility on migration and earnings. First, the analysis of changes in employment and earnings of movers is only part of a broader discovery concerning the extent to which the earnings of husbands and wives are affected by the ability to move to or stay in optimal locations. Second, the existing literature relies on the comparison of movers to nonmovers. Even longitudinal comparisons will not completely eliminate the bias in this comparison because movers likely differ in their earnings growth, not just the level of premigration earnings. Third, the methods used in the literature often do not adequately adjust for occupational differences between men and women, so it is difficult to know whether the current findings in the literature are the result of differences in jobs held by men and women, or rather are the result of differences in influence on location decisions. The question pursued in this article is, controlling for an individual’s own occupation and the earnings potential in that occupation, how does the migration rate in a spouse’s occupation affect one’s own labor market outcomes?This article uses the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. decennial census to calculate mobility measures by occupation and education class. Mobility is measured by the fraction of workers who, in the past five years, have either (a) changed metropolitan area or (b) if in a nonmetropolitan area, changed Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA).¹ Using the sample of white, non-Hispanic married couples between the ages of 25 and 55 in the 2000 census, I perform migration and earnings analyses separately for four groups of couples: both have college degrees (“power couples”), only the husband has a college degree, only the wife has a college degree; and neither has a college degree.Results indicate that the mobility rates in both the husband’s and wife’s occupation affect the household migration decision, but mobility in the husband’s occupation matters considerably more. Comparison analysis for never-married individuals indicates that among individuals with college degrees, never-married men and women are equally responsive to occupation mobility in their migration behavior.The earnings analysis uses occupation fixed-effects and average wage in occupation-education class to control for substantial heterogeneity in earnings potential. For couples in which the husband has a college degree, the wife’s mobility has no effect on the husband’s earnings, regardless of the wife’s education. However, the husband’s mobility has a large, significant negative effect on the wife’s earnings. This negative effect does not exist for couples in which only the wife has a college degree.     

On the auspices of female migration from Mexico to the United States

In this paper we examine the circumstances and determinants of female migration between Mexico and the United States. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, we considered the relative timing of males' and females' moves northward. We then estimated logit and probit models to study the determinants of male and female out-migration; among women we also estimated a multinomial logit model to uncover differences in the process of migration for work versus not for work. We found that women almost always followed other family members, either the husband or a parent; only a tiny minority initiated migration independently. Although males also are quite likely to be introduced to migration by a parent, nearly half of all male migrants left for the United States before or without a wife or a parent. Estimates of the determinants of migration suggested that males move for employment, whereas wives generally are motivated by family reasons. Daughters, however, display a greater propensity to move for work, and the determinants of their work-related moves closely resemble those of sons and fathers.     

Gender and Job Satisfaction in Urban China: The Role of Individual,Family, and Job Characteristics

This study examines gender differences in job satisfaction in urban Chinese, whether individual achieved status, family and household characteristics, and job characteristics explain these differences, and whether these factors are associated with men’s and women’s job satisfaction differently using a national representative sample of 1,641 men and 1,375 women from the 2006 Chinese General Social Survey. Urban Chinese women are less satisfied with their jobs than urban Chinese men. This gender difference is largely explained by women’s underrepresentation in the Chinese Communist Party and their inferior jobs. Family and household characteristics have stronger impact on women’s job satisfaction than on men’s, but achieved status and job characteristics have similar associations with job satisfaction for men and women. These findings suggest that persistent gender inequality is detrimental to women’s well-being at the workplace.     

A cross-national comparison of the impact of family migration on women's employment status

In this paper we consider the effects of family migration on women's employment status, using census microdata from Great Britain and the United States. We test a simple hypothesis that families tend to move long distances in favor of the male's career and that this can have a detrimental effect on women's employment status. Unlike many previous studies of this question, our work emphasizes the importance of identifying couples that have migrated together, rather than simply comparing long-distance (fe)male migrants with nonmigrant (fe)males individually. We demonstrate that women's employment status is harmed by family migration; the results we present are surprisingly consistent for Great Britain and the United States, despite differing economic situations and cultural norms regarding gender and migration. We also demonstrate that studies that fail to identify linked migrant couples are likely to underestimate the negative effects of family migration on women's employment status.     

Analysis on Factors Affecting Decision-making of Migrant Population in Large Cities of China

In this paper, based on survey data of four cities,migrant population in 2008, we use multi-level Logit model to analyze the factors of individual and areas of destination which have impact on migration behavior of migrant population in large cities.We find that there are large changes in the behavior of migrants:Firstly,the rise in the proportion of migrant citizens has led to the effects of gender, marital status and household type and other factors on the probability of migration are not significant,and the migration is appearing to base on the family unit;Secondly,due to the discrimination against migrants in employment and wage income, and the upgrade of industrial structure,the attractiveness of the increasing jobs to the migrant population has declined, and migrants,expected income is detaching from the income level of urban residents;Thirdly,the growth of urban ladors,average wage has extrusion effect on the employment of the migrant labors in the informal sector, which reduces the probability of potential migrant population.     

流动人口初职时间间隔及其影响因素的性别差异——基于生存分析的视角

基于福建省2977个流动人口职业流动的个体历时数据,应用Kaplan-Meyer方法和Cox比例风险模型方法,对不同性别流动人口的初职时间间隔及其影响因素的异同进行分析。研究发现,与男性流动人口相比,女性流动人口离开初职的概率略小,但在初职的时间间隔偏短。在初职时间间隔的影响因素中,初职收入、教育年限、婚姻状态、家庭迁移类型和流入地城镇等级规模的影响存在性别共性,而家庭抚养比、职业类型、企业性质和来源地类型的影响存在性别差异。     

Does migration pay? Earnings effects of geographic mobility following job displacement

It has been well established that involuntary job displacement has strong negative effects on earnings. Utilising a large dataset, containing all workers in Sweden who were involuntarily displaced from work through closures or substantial cutbacks occurring in 1987 or 1988, this paper studies whether migration helps mitigate these negative effects. Substantial gender differences in earnings effects of internal migration are found: men generally have positive effects, while the consequences for women are negative.     

大城市外来人口迁移行为影响因素分析

利用2008年四大城市的外来人口问卷调查资料,运用多层次Logit模型分析影响大城市外来人口迁移行为的个体因素和迁入地因素。研究发现,外来人口的迁移行为发生较大的变化,城城迁移所占比重的上升导致性别、婚姻状况以及户口类型等因素对迁移概率的影响并不显著,迁移更多地表现为以家庭为单位;由于外来人口在就业和工资收入上受到不同程度的歧视,加之迁入地产业结构调整升级,就业岗位的增加对外来人口的吸引力有所下降,并且其预期收入水平与城市居民平均收入水平相脱离;城市平均工资增长率的提高对非正规部门劳动力产生了挤出效应,减小了潜在迁移者的迁移概率。     

Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India

This paper argues that expectations - the process of evaluating the chances for future attainment of valued goals in the home community (stay decision) vs. alternative locations (move decision) - along with family norms about migration are major predictors of intention to move, which in turn is a proximate determinant of migration behaviour. Utilizing longitudinal data from the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Thailand National Migration Survey, logistic regression models show that a strikingly different set of expectations, household demographic indicators, and migrant capital factors were significant determinants of migration intentions for men and women; reflecting Thai gender roles. Migration intentions, in turn, predicted more permanent, but not temporary, survival strategy migration behaviour, while low household income predicted temporary but not more permanent migration behaviour. The measure of perceived family migration norms was a powerful determinant of migration behaviour, but the size of migrant networks was not a statistically significant determinant of either migration intentions or behaviour.     

How Job Characteristics Affect International Migration: The Role of Informality in Mexico

Despite the importance given to employment opportunities as a primary motive for migration, previous studies have paid insufficient attention to the kinds of jobs that are more likely to retain workers in their countries of origin. We use information from a panel survey of Mexican adults to examine how job characteristics affect the risk of international migration. The sampling strategy and overall size of the survey allow us to analyze the effect of employment characteristics on migration from urban areas, which have much greater labor market diversity, and to separate our analysis by gender. We also distinguish migrants according to whether they migrate for work or for other reasons. We find informality to be a significant predictor of international migration. Even after controlling for individual factors including workers’ wages, as well as various household- and community-level predictors, we find that workers employed in the informal sector have significantly higher odds of migrating than their counterparts in the formal sector. The pervasive nature of informality in many developing countries from which a high proportion of international migrants originate may therefore create a constant supply of workers who are predisposed to migrate. Our findings thus have important implications for a proper understanding of the effects of economic development on migration.     

Explaining the Gender Wealth Gap

To assess and explain the United States’ gender wealth gap, we use the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to examine wealth accumulated by a single cohort over 50 years by gender, by marital status, and limited to the respondents who are their family’s best financial reporters. We find large gender wealth gaps between currently married men and women, and between never-married men and women. The never-married accumulate less wealth than the currently married, and there is a marital disruption cost to wealth accumulation. The status-attainment model shows the most power in explaining gender wealth gaps between these groups explaining about one-third to one-half of the gap, followed by the human-capital explanation. In other words, a lifetime of lower earnings for women translates into greatly reduced wealth accumulation. After controlling for the full model, we find that a gender wealth gap remains between married men and women that we speculate may be related to gender differences in investment strategies and selection effects.     

社会融合中的性别差异:流动人口工作搜寻时间的实证分析

文章以扩展传统的流动人口社会融合的静态研究视角,使用国家人口计生委2010年上半年流动人口动态监测调查数据,从男女农村流动人口工作搜寻时间的角度进一步比较农村流动人口融入流入地劳动力市场过程的性别差异及影响因素。文章采用持续时间模型,通过研究农村流动人口在流入地城市找工作所花费时间的影响因素,发现虽然在给定时间内,女性流动人口在流入地找到工作所花费的时间比男性要短,但女性找到高收入工作的概率要低于男性,而接受低收入工作的概率要大于男性,从而导致性别区隔的流动人口社会融入模式。     

Health Selection,Migration, and HIV Infection in Malawi

Despite its importance in studies of migrant health, selectivity of migrants—also known as migration health selection—has seldom been examined in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This neglect is problematic because several features of the context in which migration occurs in SSA—very high levels of HIV, in particular—differ from contextual features in regions that have been studied more thoroughly. To address this important gap, we use longitudinal panel data from Malawi to examine whether migrants differ from nonmigrants in pre-migration health, assessed via SF-12 measures of mental and physical health. In addition to overall health selection, we focus on three more-specific factors that may affect the relationship between migration and health: (1) whether migration health selection differs by destination (rural-rural, rural-town, and rural-urban), (2) whether HIV infection moderates the relationship between migration and health, and (3) whether circular migrants differ in pre-migration health status. We find evidence of the healthy migrant phenomenon in Malawi, where physically healthier individuals are more likely to move. This relationship varies by migration destination, with healthier rural migrants moving to urban and other rural areas. We also find interactions between HIV-infected status and health: HIV-infected women moving to cities are physically healthier than their nonmigrant counterparts.     

Fertility adaptation by rural-urban migrants in developing countries: The case of Korea

Summary The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model to assess the influence of rural-urban migration on fertility in less developed countries. Two major reasons may account for lower fertility levels observed among such migrants than among women who remained in rural areas: a selection effect, and adaptation to constraints in the area of destination. Results of previous studies have only rarely suggested that the effect of adaptation was significant. We use the detailed personal migration and pregnancy histories recorded in the Korean World Fertility Survey of 1974 and an autoregressive model to control for unobservable variations in personal preferences for different family sizes between migrants and non-migrants. Our study provides evidence that adaptation following rural-urban migration is a significant factor which explains the lower fertility of rural-urban migrants compared with that of rural stayers.     

The determinants and patterns of married women's labor force participation in Korea

The present study investigates the determinants and patterns of married women's labor force participation in Korea. Married women's employment in Korea is largely determined by age, urban residence, household characteristics of the husband's socioeconomic status, family income, fertility, and the lagged effect of work. Older age, rural residence, inferior household economic condition, and recent work experience are the major positive causes of married women's participation in the market work. On the other hand, younger women with preschool children, who currently reside in urban areas, enjoying better household economic conditions (due to higher socioeconomic status of husbands and/or higher family income) are the groups of women with the smallest probability of working in the market. Married women's employment pattern in Korea shows a pattern typical of less-developed and low-income countries in two aspects: married women working and characterized by a low level of education; the difference between urban and rural areas in terms of work participation pattern is remarkable. Although Korea belongs to the advanced group of currently industrializing countries, she lags behind with other developing countries in terms of married women's employment. Moreover, it is difficult to predict in advance that Korea would have similar experiences as those of contemporary advanced countries.     

Shifts in the employment outcomes among Mexican migrants to the United States, 1976–2009

Although studies have examined the impact of U.S. immigration policy shifts in the 1980s and 1990s on the employment outcomes of migrants, scholars have paid less attention to how the federal government's shifting approach to worksite enforcement has transformed the conditions in which Mexican migrants work. Consistent with previous research, we find a worsening of conditions for both unauthorized and legal Mexican migrants in the years following the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and that unauthorized status is associated with more unfavorable workplace conditions relative to legal immigrants. However, in the first decade of the 21st century, we also find that unauthorized immigrants’ employment outcomes more closely resemble those of legal immigrants now than in the past, suggesting a dramatic shift in the ways that employers treat unauthorized immigrants on the job. This convergence between authorized and unauthorized migrants is consistent with federal policies and practices related to workplace enforcement.     

A longitudinal analysis of family migration and the gender gap in earnings in the united states and great britain

This article uses longitudinal data for the United States and Great Britain to examine the impact of residential mobility and childbirth on the earnings of women, their family earnings, and the related division of earnings by gender. This project is the _ rst to compare explicitly the impact of childbirth and family migration on women’s earnings, and it extends prior cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on isolated countries by providing a direct contrast between two major industrialized nations, using comparable measures. The results indicate that families respond in similar ways in both countries to migration and childbirth. In response to both migration and childbirth, women’s earnings fall at the time of the event and recover slowly afterward, but the magnitude of the impact is roughly twice as large for childbirth as for migration. However, migration but not the birth of a child is also associated with a significant increase in total family earnings because of increased husbands’ earnings. As a result, the effect of migration on the relative earnings of wives to husbands is similar to the effect of childbirth. These results suggest that family migration should be given consideration in the literature on the gender earnings gap.