Temporary vs. permanent migration: a decision theoretical approach

"The decision problem of the guest worker as a target saver is considered. He plans to accumulate capital in the host country for investment in the home country after return migration. As the worker is supposed to be incompletely informed about the economic variables in the host country he might prolong his stay unexpectedly provided the economic conditions in the host country are unfavourable. Explicit conditions for the economic variables are given such that temporary migration turns into permanent migration."     

Temporary vs. permanent migration A decision theoretical approach

The decision problem of the guest worker as a target saver is considered. He plans to accumulate capital in the host country for investment in the home country after return migration. As the worker is supposed to be incompletely informed about the economic variables in the host country he might prolong his stay unexpectedly provided the economic conditions in the host country are unfavourable. Explicit conditions for the economic variables are given such that temporary migration turns into permanent migration.We are indebted to an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

Skilled temporary and permanent immigrants in the United States

The US temporary migration system is closely intertwined with the permanent system. First, this paper defines the various temporary and permanent admission categories. It presents available statistics on the occupations of temporary migrants upon admission and upon adjustment to permanent residency, especially since the Immigration Act of 1990 went into effect in 1992. There has been a sizable increase in the number of temporary workers over the past few years and those who adjust from specialty workers (H-1B) and intracompany transferee (L) have increased the overall skill composition of permanent immigrants. Secondly, the paper reviews the literature on the labor market impact of temporary migrants in academics and in the private sector. While there are marked concentrations of foreign-born workers among the college educated and especially Ph.D.s, the literature raises concerns but does not establish adverse effects (wage differentials, unemployment, etc.). There is, however, reason for some concern given trends in the postdoctoral labor market and for employersin `job shops' who undercut US workers with temporary workers.     

中国农村地区的家庭禀赋与外出务工劳动力回流

中国农村地区家庭禀赋对个人的行为决策有着重要的影响,需要学术界予以更多的关注。为了考察外生性的家庭禀赋对劳动力就业流动的影响,文章通过构建新生代外出务工劳动力和户主子女的回流决策两个计量模型来进行经验论证。分析结果表明,农村劳动力的迁移选择是综合考虑家庭禀赋状况的理性决策,尤其是对于年轻一代的外出劳动力。家庭经济资本的增加会阻碍家庭外出务工成员的回流。外出劳动力回流的概率起初随着家庭人力资本和家庭自然资本的增长而上升,达到一定程度后开始下降。家庭成员只有拥有较为丰富的人力资本,外出务工劳动力才能对家庭社会资本加以充分利用。另外,分析显示年轻一代劳动力和第一代劳动力对家庭社会资本和自然资本的利用是有差异的。     

Immigrant migration dynamics model for The Netherlands

In this paper, we analyze the demographic factors that influence the migration dynamics of recent immigrants to The Netherlands. We show how we can allow for both permanent and temporary migrants. Results disclose differences among migrants by migration motive and by country of origin and lend support to our analytical framework. Combining both models, for departure and returning to The Netherlands, yields a framework for predicting the migration dynamics over the life-cycle. From the obtained insight in the dynamic composition of migrants in the country, important policy implications can be derived.     

扶贫自愿性移民的迁移决策及主体选择性研究

扶贫异地安置是我国扶贫攻坚的重大举措,扶贫自愿性移民的群体特征分析是扶贫异地安置实践和理论中一个重要的课题.本文通过对北海市三个扶贫异地安置点的个案研究,在探讨扶贫自愿性移民迁移动机的基础上,对移民主体性选择进行了分析,说明了潜在移民成为现实扶贫移民的具体原因.     

食品安全对低收入群体人力资本投资收益的影响

健康是人力资本持续获得投资收益的基本前提和保证。由于低收入群体有更大概率选择非安全食品,所以食品安全在很大程度上就与低收入群体的健康状况相关,势必会影响这些弱势群体原本就较低的人力资本投资收益的获得,如果任由非安全食品充斥农村市场,不但会导致低收入群体健康状况的下降,而且由于低收入群体的人力资本收益受到影响,还会在长期内造成更大的收入差距。     

城乡劳动力流动与迁移回报率

本文从微观主体人力资本投资的角度来理解中国农村劳动力流动现象。提出应该将迁移作为一种投资方式单独进行考察。通过讨论迁移的预期成本和收益,发现与教育投资相比,迁移能得到较高的回报率,迁移回报率是吸引农村劳动力选择迁移流动到城市的重要因素。由此得出结论：农村劳动力向城市的迁移是一种理性选择的人力资本投资方式。要改变中国二十年来农村劳动力以低教育水平、低收入水平为特征的循环流动。必须尽快改善农村的人力资本投资环境。特别是教育环境．     

Ecological Analyses of Permanent and Temporary Migration Streams in China in the 1990s

Using data from China’s Fifth National Census of 2000, we analyze the dynamics of China’s inter-provincial permanent and temporary migration streams for the 1995–2000 period. The permanent and temporary migration streams are shown to have similar patterns, but the volume of the temporary migration streams greatly outnumbers that of the permanent streams. A human ecological model of migration is proposed and tested, and its results are compared with those of a gravity model of migration. Of the various ecological variables examined in the models, investment levels at destination, and being a coastal province at destination, all have strong effects on migration. The effects of the independent variables are more similar than different with regard to predicting the permanent and the temporary migration streams.     

农民工回流的选择性与非农就业:来自湖北的证据

近年来,随着东部沿海地区劳动密集型产业逐渐向中西部地区转移,农民工回流已成为社会关注的热点话题。本文利用来自湖北省的农村劳动力调查数据研究农民工的回流原因与返乡非农就业状况。农民工的回流决策不仅要受到其人力资本的影响,也与老人需要赡养、农业负担较重、与家人团聚等家庭因素以及输出地经济的发展程度有关。相对于那些仍然外出的农民工而言,回流农民工往往是负向选择的结果,并没有表现出比从未外出农村劳动力更倾向参与非农就业。因此,农民工回流对输出地经济发展的贡献程度可能并不像大部分研究结果所显示的那么乐观。     

Urban temporary out-migration under economic reforms: Who moves and for what reasons?

Studies of temporary migration in developing countries often focus on rural outmigration and are preoccupied with problems it may bring to cities. Using a unique data set from two surveys conducted in Zhejiang province, China, this paper examines the other side of the coin — temporary migration from urban places — and thereby provides an important complement to studies focusing on rural-urban migration. The analysis identifies three types of temporary migrations: on-business, economic, and family-related. Using multinomial logit model, the analysis suggests that the three types of temporary migration differ significantly from each other in both their causes and migrants' socioeconomic characteristics; so does urban-urban migration from urban-rural migration. The considerable urban-rural temporary migration attests to the fact that temporary migration is not a one-way process; its positive selectivity further indicates that a considerable human capital flows from urban to rural areas through urban-rural temporary migration, which provides rural areas much needed science and technology and becomes an important facilitating factor of rural socioeconomic development.This article is based on a paper, presented at the meetings of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, August 1992.     

Social networks and their impact on the earnings of Mexican Migrants

We examine the impact of different types of social networks on the wages earned by unauthorized and legal Mexican migrants during their last U.S. trip. Familial ties raise unauthorized and legal migrants' hourly wages by an average of 2.6% and 8%, respectively, and friendship ties increase their wages by 5.4% and 3.6%, correspondingly. Furthermore, family ties seem to comparatively favor legal migrants in terms of earnings, raising their wages by approximately 0.9% more than for similar unauthorized migrants. These results underscore the potentially important role of social networks in raising Mexican migrants'earnings, particularly among unauthorized migrants. By increasing the returns to migration, social networks may provide a stimulus to continued emigration.     

International migration and development in mexican communities

The theoretical and empirical literature generally regards international migration as producing a cycle of dependency and stunted development in sending communities. Most migrants’ earnings are spent on consumption; few funds are channeled into productive investment. We argue that this view is misleading because it ignores the conditions under which productive investment is likely to be possible and profitable. We analyze the determinants of migrants’ savings and remittance decisions, using variables defined at the individual, household, community, and macroeconomic levels. We identify the conditions under which U.S. earnings are repatriated to Mexico as remittances and savings, and indicate the factors leading to their productive investment.     

International migration in Asia and the Pacific: trends,problems, and recommendations

Like other parts of the world, the Asia and Pacific region has experienced mass movements of the population within and across countries. This report presents the issues and problems discussed, and the recommendations given at the Expert Group Meeting on International Migration in Asia and the Pacific, held in 1984 in Manila. The 9 issues discussed include: 1) available data on international migration are often inconsistent, incomplete, and inadequate for a thorough analysis of the migration situation; 2) the conventional economic theory of migration, and the modern view are different, but related; 3) are internal and international migration 2 distinct phenomena, or are they simply opposite ends of a continuum ranging from short-distance moves within a country to long-distance moves across national boundaries?; 4) permanent migration from Asia and the Pacific to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has risen sharply over the the past few years; 5) international migration could have considerable effects on the size, composition, growth, and structure of the populations of both sending and receiving countries; 6) temporary labor migration to the Middle East increased rapidly in the recent past; 7) temporary labor migration has benefits and costs to the home country and to the returning workers and their families; 8) refugee movements within and from Asia have had significant repercussions, not only in the lives of the migrants themselves, but also in the national policies and social structures of the asylum countries; and 9) international migration, if properly controlled and organized, could work for the benefit of every country involved.     

Are migrant minorities strategically self-selected?

In this paper we focus on the possibility of migrants' self-selection through strategic remittances. We argue that migrants of a specific community might be pooled with migrants from other ethnic minorities on the labor market of the foreign host country and that this could reduce the occurrence of strategic remittances. In a simple model with two types of workers, skilled and unskilled, facing two possible actions, to migrate or not to migrate, we derive the theoretical conditions under which strategic transfers are still operating when pooling among communities is introduced. We then show through numerical illustrations that the case for strategic transfers is rather weak when using realistic values for the main parameters of the model. Received: 1 October 1997/Accepted: 7 April 1998     

Migration, fertility, and state policy in Hubei Province, China

Despite China s one-child family planning policy, the nation experienced a slight rise in the birth rate in the mid-1980s. Many observers attributed this rise to the heightened fertility of those rural-to-urban migrants who moved without a change in registration (temporary migrants), presumably to avoid the surveillance of family planning programs at origin and destination. Using a sequential logit analysis with life-history data from a 1988 survey of Hubei Province, we test this possibility by comparing nonmigrants, permanent migrants, and temporary migrants. While changing family planning policies have a strong impact on timing of first birth and on the likelihood of higher-order births, migrants generally do not have more children than nonmigrants. In fact, migration tends to lower the propensity to have a child. More specifically, the fertility of temporary migrants does not differ significantly from that of other women.     

The savings behavior of temporary and permanent migrants in Germany

This paper examines the relative savings position of migrant households in West Germany paying particular attention to differences between temporary and permanent migrants. Our findings reveal significant differences in the savings rates between German natives and immigrants. If remittances are treated as savings, however, migrants who intend to return to their home country save significantly more than comparable natives. The results of a decomposition analysis indicate that slightly more than half of the differences in the savings rate between Germans and permanent migrants and almost 70% between temporary and permanent migrants can be attributed to differences in observable characteristics.     

A Profile of the World's Young Developing Country International Migrants

Individual‐level census and household survey data are used to present a rich profile of young developing country international migrants around the world. They are found to comprise a large share of the flow of migrants, particularly among migrants to other developing countries, with the age distribution of migrants peaking in the late teens or early twenties. Detailed data are presented on the age and sex composition of migrants, on whether young migrants move alone or with a parent or spouse, on their participation in schooling and work in the destination country, on the types of jobs they have, and on the incidence and age of return migration. The results suggest a high degree of commonality in the youth immigrant experience across a number of destination countries. Recent developing country young migrants tend to work in similar occupations and are more concentrated in these occupations than recent older migrants or young immigrants who arrived at an earlier age. Nevertheless, there is also considerable heterogeneity among young immigrants with respect to school attendance and work in their destination country. The potential of international migration for building human capital is significant but far from being fully used.     

Selection,Language Heritage,and the Earnings Trajectories of Black Immigrants in the United States

Research suggests that immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean surpass the earnings of U.S.-born blacks approximately one decade after arriving in the United States. Using data from the 1980–2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005–2007 American Community Surveys on U.S.-born black and non-Hispanic white men as well as black immigrant men from all the major sending regions of the world, I evaluate whether selective migration and language heritage of immigrants’ birth countries account for the documented earnings crossover. I validate the earnings pattern of black immigrants documented in previous studies, but I also find that the earnings of most arrival cohorts of immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, after residing in the United States for more than 20 years, are projected to converge with or slightly overtake those of U.S.-born black internal migrants. The findings also show three arrival cohorts of black immigrants from English-speaking African countries are projected to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born black internal migrants. No arrival cohort of black immigrants is projected to surpass the earnings of U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites. Birth-region analysis shows that black immigrants from English-speaking countries experience more rapid earnings growth than immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. The arrival-cohort and birth-region variation in earnings documented in this study suggest that selective migration and language heritage of black immigrants’ birth countries are important determinants of their initial earnings and earnings trajectories in the United States.     

社会网络与农民工初婚:性别视角的研究

采用2005年深圳农民工专项调查数据,从性别视角系统分析社会网络对农民工初婚观念和行为的影响。在理想初婚年龄方面,婚姻讨论网络成员的数量、质量,尤其是网络成员的平均理想初婚年龄对农民工理想初婚年龄的延长有显著影响;在初婚行为方面,婚姻讨论网络成员的数量可以降低男性农民工早婚的风险。个人因素和流动因素对农民工理想初婚年龄的延长和降低早婚风险也有一定影响。