The role of visa class in the location choices of immigrants in Australia at the regional and neighbourhood scales

Australia’s pro-immigration policies have played a vital role in national population growth, serving to address what would otherwise be chronic labour shortages and population ageing. While migrants to Australian have shown a clear preference for cities and tend to locate with co-ethnics, variations by visa class—employment, family reunification, and asylum—have yet to be fully explored. This paper aims to identify variations in settlement patterns of immigrants in Australia by visa types and the factors underpinning these choices, paying particular attention to ethnic networks and employment opportunities. We apply a series of negative binomial regressions to aggregate census data linked to visa status. At the suburb level, our results show the importance of the presence of compatriots in shaping the location choices of family migrants, with the exception of skilled and humanitarian immigrants from China, Malaysia and Thailand. At the regional level, skilled migrants, including skilled regional migrants, respond to employment opportunities to a greater extent than family and humanitarian migrants.

     

Family reunification and the immigration multiplier: U.S. immigration law,origin-country conditions,and the reproduction of immigrants

This paper reports estimates of the total numbers of actual legal immigrants to the United States that result from the family reunification provisions of U.S. immigration law. These immigration multipliers are estimated separately for major visa categories and by gender and are obtained in the context of an analysis of how individual characteristics of immigrants and their origin country conditions affect (a) the decision to migrate to the United States and (b) once admitted, their propensity to remain and to become U.S. citizens. The analyses combine longitudinal data on the 1971 cohort of legal immigrants and data from the 1970 Census Public Use Tapes. The results suggest that the actual multipliers differ importantly by visa category and that they are substantially lower than the potential multipliers and lower as well than previously supposed.     

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.     

The impact of changes in the marital status on return migration of family migrants

Many migrants have non-labour motives to migrate, and they differ substantially from labour migrants in their migration behaviour. For family migrants, the decision to return is highly influenced by changes in their marital status. Using administrative panel data on the entire population of recent family immigrants to the Netherlands, we estimate the effect of a divorce and remarriage on the hazard of leaving the Netherlands using a ‘timing of events’ model. The model allows for correlated unobserved heterogeneity across the migration, the divorce and remarriage processes. The family migrants are divided into five groups based on the Human Development Index (HDI) of their country of birth. We find that both divorce and remarriage increase return of family migrants from less-developed countries. Remarriage of family migrants from developed countries makes them more prone to stay. Young migrants are influenced most by a divorce. The impact of the timing of a divorce and remarriage on return is quantified graphically.     

Ability drain: size,impact, and comparison with brain drain under alternative immigration policies

Ability drain’s (AD) impact seems economically significant, with 30% of US Nobel laureates since 1906 being immigrants, and immigrants or their children founding 40% of Fortune 500 companies. Nonetheless, while brain drain (BD) and gain (BG) have been studied extensively, AD has not. I examine migration’s impact on ability (a), education (h), and productive human capital or “skill” s =s(a,?h), for source country residents and migrants under (a) the points system (PS) which accounts for h and (b) the “vetting” system (VS) which accounts for s (e.g., US H-1B program). The findings are as follows: (i) Migration reduces (raises) residents’ (migrants’) average ability, with an ambiguous (positive) impact on average education and skill, and net skill drain, SD, likelier than net BD; (ii) these effects increase with ability’s inequality or variance, are greater under VS than PS, and hurt source countries; (iii) the model and two empirical studies suggest average AD?≥?BD for educated US immigrants, with real income about twice the home country income; and (iv) SD holds for any BD and for a very small AD (7.4% of our estimate). Policy implications are provided.     

Rural-to-urban Migration and Rising Evaluation Standards for Subjective Social Status in Contemporary China

People’s evaluation standards in rating social status may evolve when exterior living circumstances change, and studying whether and how migration process changes individuals’ evaluation standards in rating social status can shed new light on this issue. Utilizing the dataset from 2010–2012 China Family Panel Studies and by employing the anchoring vignette method, this study reveals for the first time that rural-to-urban migrants adopt higher standards than those who stay behind in the countryside, but their evaluation standards still remain significantly lower than those adopted by urban residents. Heterogeneity in transitions of reference points within the migrants group is also explored. Except for the eldest cohort, all other younger migrants employ significantly higher standards in rating social status than rural villagers; the new generation of migrants is not significantly different from the elder in terms of the evaluation standards. More importantly, the increase in evaluation standards of migrants becomes greater through the years, from the moment of departure from one’s hukou registration place. These findings challenge the prevalent practice of assigning or assuming an ad hoc reference group to migrants in many studies, and advance our understanding on the determinants of the reference points used to evaluate social status, on which little is known so far.     

The emigration of immigrants, return vs onward migration: evidence from Sweden

This study analyzes emigration propensities for natives and immigrants delineating among immigrant emigrants between return and onward migration. Results indicate that emigrants are positively selected in terms of upper education. Well-educated immigrants have a higher probability of leaving for third-country destinations than returning to countries of origin. Predicted age–income profiles for immigrants show that return migrants have higher adjusted mean income levels than non-emigrants up to the age of 40. Onward migrants have lower predicted income levels across the age distribution due to this group’s composition and relatively low employment levels in Sweden. Separate estimations by region of origin indicate that within each group, onward migrants are more positively selected then return migrants in terms of income.

Trajectories of Employment Gaps of Refugees and Other Migrants: Evidence from Austria

This paper analyzes the labor market integration of non-European refugees originating from middle- and low-income countries for the period of 2009–2018 in Austria. We assess their probability of being employed relative to Austrian natives and compare it with that of other non-European migrants and European refugees and other immigrants from low- and middle-income non-EU countries. We draw on a register-based panel dataset covering the complete labor market careers of all individuals residing in Austria. We control for macrolevel explanatory variables (e.g., the labor market situation at the time and the place of settlement) and individual characteristics. The analysis shows that initial refugee employment gaps relative to natives are large in the first years, when labor market access is difficult. After a period of 7 years, the unconditional gap between refugees and natives declines to 30 percentage points, similar to that of other migrants, but the gap is still decreasing. After controlling for a set of explanatory variables, the conditional gap amounts to only 10 percentage points at that time. Moreover, our analysis provides insights into differences in employment gaps across population subgroups of immigrant groups and natives by gender, age, education level, and types of employment.

     

How Durable are Social Norms? Immigrant Trust and Generosity in 132 Countries

This paper estimates the global prevalence of social trust and generosity among immigrants. We combine individual and national level data from immigrants and nativeborn respondents in more than 130 countries, using seven waves of the Gallup World Poll (2005–2012). We find that migrants tend to make social trust assessments that mainly reflect conditions in the country where they now live, but they also reveal a significant influence from their countries of origin. The latter effect is one-third as important as the effect of local conditions. We also find that the altruistic behavior of migrants, as measured by the frequency of their donations in their new countries, is strongly determined by social norms in their new countries, while also retaining some effect of the levels of generosity found in their birth countries. To show that the durability of social norms is not simply due to a failure to recognize new circumstances, we demonstrate that there are no footprint effects for immigrants’ confidence in political institutions. Taken together, these findings support the notion that social norms are deeply rooted in long-standing cultures, yet are nonetheless subject to adaptation when there are major changes in the surrounding circumstances and environment.     

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 from other research which showed how migration provided economic independence to this group. The results remain when we adjust for endogeneity and when we use propensity score matching methods.     

Nativity,duration of residence and the life course pattern of extended family living in the USA

Recent changes in US immigration policy anddomestic welfare policies affecting immigrants haveled to concerns that families will face greaterpressure to provide for extended family members.Extended family households are important resources fornew immigrants to the USA and an integral part of theadaptive strategy of immigrants. This paper examinesthe competing roles of duration of residence in theUSA, aging and changes over time in explainingincreases in extended family living between 1980 and1990. The results from a pooled sample of 1980 and1990 Census data indicate that recent arrivals aremore likely to share households with extended kin butit is older immigrants who face an increasedlikelihood of such coresidence over time. Multinomiallogistic regression analysis demonstrates that thelife course pattern of coresidence remains whenchanges in socioeconomic status are controlled. Theresults suggest that policy changes limiting publicfunds available to new arrivals will have a largerimpact on families sponsoring older family members.     

Contextualizing Mexican Migrant Education Selectivity

The debate on whether Mexican immigrants are positively or negatively selected on education has been limited by studying immigrants in data collected only from the sending or the destination country. Using nationally representative data from Mexico that tracked migrants to the United States prospectively, we examine the education selectivity of Mexicans who immigrated to the United States from 2002 to 2005. We find that using reports of migration by remaining household members and proxy substitution of migration education underestimates migrant selectivity. Migrant men and women were positively selected within households and rural municipalities of origin but negatively selected from the national educational distribution. Differences in selectivity by size of place, as well as when considering the local or national context, means that the answer of whether immigrants are positively or negatively selected on education depends on the context considered.     

Disability among children of immigrants from India and China: Is there excess disability among girls?

We investigate whether there is excess morbidity among daughters of Indian or Chinese immigrants in the US by studying the prevalence of disability among children. We use data from the 2012–14 American Community Surveys on approximately 20,000 US-born children of Indian and Chinese immigrants. Children of US natives are used as a comparison group to account for innate differences in disability between the sexes. Results indicate that there is excess disability among daughters compared with sons among children of Chinese immigrants and children of immigrants from northern or western Indian states; this excess disability declines with younger age at arrival or longer exposure to the host country. Analysis using children of Filipino immigrants as an alternative comparison group yields similar excess disability rates for females.

Supplementary material is available for this article at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2020.1762911     

Transportation and Migrant Adjustment in Georgia

Access to transportation is critical for functioning in modern American society, and minorities disproportionately lack access to transportation. Latinos in Georgia—most of whom are newcomers to this country—are considerably less likely than non-Latino whites to drive alone to and from work because they do not live in households with a car available for personal use. We propose that this factor, along with limited access to alternative modes of transportation, impedes the ability of Georgia’s newest Latino residents to adjust to their new environment. In this study, we examine the impact of limited transportation options on the adjustment experience of recent Latino migrants to Georgia. We document how lack of personal transportation lends itself to a number of social problems including inability to obtain different work or to take advantage of opportunities for advancement. For Latinos who are both recent migrants to Georgia and recent immigrants to the United States, lack of transportation creates an adjustment “bottleneck,” whereby various paths to adaptation are simultaneously impeded. We argue that improving access to driver’s licenses, pedestrian infrastructure, and, in some places, public transportation should be a policy priority for states adjusting to recent influxes of Latino migrants.

Explaining the Immigrant Health Advantage: Self-selection and Protection in Health-Related Factors Among Five Major National-Origin Immigrant Groups in the United States

Despite being newcomers, immigrants often exhibit better health relative to native-born populations in industrialized societies. We extend prior efforts to identify whether self-selection and/or protection explain this advantage. We examine migrant height and smoking levels just prior to immigration to test for self-selection; and we analyze smoking behavior since immigration, controlling for self-selection, to assess protection. We study individuals aged 20–49 from five major national origins: India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. To assess self-selection, we compare migrants, interviewed in the National Health and Interview Surveys (NHIS), with nonmigrant peers in sending nations, interviewed in the World Health Surveys. To test for protection, we contrast migrants’ changes in smoking since immigration with two counterfactuals: (1) rates that immigrants would have exhibited had they adopted the behavior of U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites in the NHIS (full “assimilation”); and (2) rates that migrants would have had if they had adopted the rates of nonmigrants in sending countries (no-migration scenario). We find statistically significant and substantial self-selection, particularly among men from both higher-skilled (Indians and Filipinos in height, Chinese in smoking) and lower-skilled (Mexican) undocumented pools. We also find significant and substantial protection in smoking among immigrant groups with stronger relative social capital (Mexicans and Dominicans).     

The Role of Financial Development and Economic Misery on Life Expectancy: Evidence from Post Financial Reforms in India

Several survey studies have found that internal migrants report lower levels of happiness than locals, even after accounting for socio-economic factors. Traditional global self-ratings reveal that the migrant–local happiness-gap is also present in the data we present. The reasons for the migrant–local happiness-gap are as yet unclear. This paper aims to open this ‘black box’ by exploring the role of daily activities among a population that has generally been overlooked despite their high migration frequency: young adults. An innovative smartphone application is used that combines two techniques for multiple moment assessment: the experience sampling method and the day reconstruction method. Based on the application data, we examine whether internal migrants spend their time differently than locals and in which situations they feel noticeably less happy than locals. The data reveal that internal migrants distribute less time to happiness-producing activities such as active leisure, social drinking/parties, and activities outside home/work/transit. Internal migrants feel less happy than locals when spending time with friends and while eating. Possible explanations focusing on the role of social capital are discussed. Further analyses reveal that daily life experiences greatly enhance the explanation of the migrant–local happiness-gap. This paper demonstrates the potential value of real-time data and phone applications in solving happiness puzzles.     

Empirical characteristics of legal and illegal immigrants in the USA

We combine the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), which contains information on US legal immigrants, with the American Community Survey (ACS), which contains information on legal and illegal immigrants to the USA. Using an econometric methodology proposed by Lancaster and Imbens (J Econ 71:145–160, 1996) we compute the probability for each observation in the ACS data to refer to an illegal immigrant, conditional on observed characteristics. These results are novel, since no other work has quantified the characteristics of illegal immigrants from a random sample representative of the population. Using these conditional probability weights on the ACS data, we are able to uncover some interesting facts on illegal immigrants. We find that, while illegal immigrants suffer a large wage penalty compared to legal immigrants at all education levels, the penalty decreases with education. We also find that the total fertility rate among illegal immigrant women is significantly higher than that among legal ones, in particular for middle and higher educated women. Looking at the sector of activity, we document that the sectors attracting most illegal immigrants are constructions and agriculture. We also generate empirical distributions for state of residence, country of origin, age, sex, and number of legal and illegal immigrants. Our forecasts for the aggregate distribution of legal and illegal characteristics match imputations by the Department of Homeland Security.     

Migration Processes,Familial Characteristics,and Schooling Dropout Among Black Youths

This study uses data from the 2000 U.S. census to examine whether the schooling advantage of black immigrants’ children found in previous studies is robust. According to the results, the advantage associated with having migrant parents is not restricted to the children of immigrants. Black migrant parents, regardless of foreign-born status, have children with favorable schooling outcomes. Such parental-level influences, however, seem stronger among some immigrant groups than among native internal migrants. The study also suggests that the collective advantage of the children of immigrants is driven by positive migrant selectivity. Accordingly, comparisons between the children of native migrants and children in various immigrant groups reveal that the immigrant advantage is not robust. In fact, the results suggest that when immigrant ethnicity is considered, some children of immigrants may be disadvantaged relative to the children of native migrants. Among recent migrants, the children of native internal migrants also have more favorable outcomes than the children of immigrants, although these differences disappear after background factors are controlled. Further, internal-migrant and immigrant households are less likely to have characteristics that adversely affect schooling than nonmigrant households. Unsurprisingly, the children of nonmigrants have the worst outcomes among black youths.     

Factors Shaping Workplace Segregation Between Natives and Immigrants

Research on segregation of immigrant groups is increasingly turning its attention from residential areas toward other important places, such as the workplace, where immigrants can meet and interact with members of the native population. This article examines workplace segregation of immigrants. We use longitudinal, georeferenced Swedish population register data, which enables us to observe all immigrants in Sweden for the period 1990–2005 on an annual basis. We compare estimates from ordinary least squares with fixed-effects regressions to quantify the extent of immigrants’ self-selection into specific workplaces, neighborhoods, and partnerships, which may bias more naïve ordinary least squares results. In line with previous research, we find lower levels of workplace segregation than residential segregation. The main finding is that low levels of residential segregation reduce workplace segregation, even after we take into account intermarriage with natives as well as unobserved characteristics of immigrants’ such as willingness and ability to integrate into the host society. Being intermarried with a native reduces workplace segregation for immigrant men but not for immigrant women.     

Mismatch in the Norwegian Labour Market 2003–2013: Did Immigrants Make a Difference?

For the Norwegian economy, 2003–2013 was a period of large growth and big business cycle fluctuations. The aggregate uv-curve reflects this and shows a reduction in both the vacancy rate and the unemployment rate from 2003 to 2013, suggesting improved labour market matching over the period. The inclusion of Eastern European countries in the European Union in 2004 and 2007 caused an increasing influx of foreign job seekers. I quantify regional and occupational mismatch, and make a distinction between natives and immigrants. Indicators show no reduction in mismatch over time, which therefore cannot account for the increased labour market efficiency that the uv-curve suggests. However, ‘footloose’ immigrants seem to have adapted better than ‘rooted’ natives to the structure of labour demand in the regional dimension, and thus to have contributed to a lower level of mismatch than would have resulted without immigrants. In the occupational dimension immigrants made no significant difference. Levels and differences in employment and unemployment among and between immigrants and natives were not well explained by their education levels or types.