Labor Migration,Remittances and Household Income: A Comparison between Filipino and Filipina Overseas Workers1

The major purpose of the research is to examine gender differences in patterns of labor market activity, economic behavior and economic outcomes among labor migrants. While focusing on Filipina and Filipino overseas workers, the article addresses the following questions: whether and to what extent earnings and remittances of overseas workers differ by gender; and whether and to what extent the gender of overseas workers differentially affects household income in the Philippines. Data for the analysis were obtained from the Survey of Households and Children of Overseas Workers (a representative sample of households drawn in 1999–2000 from four major “labor sending” areas in the Philippines). The analysis focuses on 1,128 households with overseas workers. The findings reveal that men and women are likely to take different jobs and to migrate to different destinations. The analysis also reveals that many more women were unemployed prior to migration and that the earnings of women are, on average, lower than those of men, even after controlling for variations in occupational distributions, country of destination, and sociodemographic attributes. Contrary to popular belief, men send more money back home than do women, even when taking into consideration earnings differentials between the genders. Further analysis demonstrates that income of households with men working overseas is significantly higher than income of households with women working overseas and that this difference can be fully attributed to the earnings disparities and to differences in amount of remittances sent home by overseas workers. The results suggest that gender inequal‐     

Migration,Household Tasks,and Gender: Evidence from the Republic of Georgia

We examine whether migration affects the gender division of household tasks and participation in leisure within origin‐country households using survey data from the Republic of Georgia. Our theoretical framework identifies two sets of mechanisms whereby migration might influence gender differences in home activities: migrant experience effects and migrant absence effects. We test for both types of effects on the probability that men and women perform gender atypical household tasks and engage in leisure activities by comparing households with and without currently absent and return migrants using probit regressions. We find evidence for both migration absence and migration experience effects on gender differences in housework and leisure. However, these effects are complex and contradictory: Generally, male migration tends to exacerbate gender differences in the sending household while female migration tends to ameliorate them.     

Household Debt and Marital Instability: Evidence from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study

Korean society has recently experienced rapid increases in household debt and divorce rates. This study investigates whether household debt and debt ratios lower marital stability and increase the probability of divorce among Korean families. Six-year panels from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) household surveys were used for analysis. The effect of household debt upon the probability of divorce was estimated through pooled and population-averaged Logit models. The results suggest that household financial strain measured by the amount of household debt and the debt-to-income ratios does not significantly affect the probability of divorce. This finding contradicts the widespread notion that households’ excessive borrowing has been partially responsible for the recent increase in divorce rates in Korea.

A Note on Dual Internal Labor Markets and Wages of Temporary Workers: Evidence from Linked-Employer-Employee Data

I use linked employer-employee data from the German Federal Statistical Office to estimate within-firm wage differentials between temporary workers with fixed-term contracts and workers with permanent contracts in the context of dual internal labor markets. Wage-tenure profiles of permanent workers are estimated separately for each firm to obtain a proxy for the prevalence of internal labor markets. Temporary workers earn significantly lower wages in firms with steeper wage-tenure profiles. This finding is consistent with the segmentation in a primary permanent workforce with high wages and a secondary temporary workforce with low wages, if internal labor markets are more prevalent.     

Labor Supply of Retiring Couples and Heterogeneity in Household Decision-Making Structure

This paper analyzes the labor market participation behavior of retiring couples in Norway. To account for the unobserved heterogeneity in decision-making structure within the household, I formulate a mixed model by assuming there are two types of households, the cooperative type and the non-cooperative type. I assume that non-cooperative households behave according to a Stackelberg game with the male as the leader, while cooperative households engage in a cooperative bargaining process. The estimation results show that more than half of the households are of the non-cooperative type.*Part of this paper was written while I was working at Department of Economics, University of Oslo and the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research. I would like to thank Eivind Bernhardsen, John K. Dagsvik, Erik Hernæs and Steinar Strøm for their insightful comments. I am grateful to two anonymous referees and the editor, Professor Shoshana Grossbard, for providing valuable comments that greatly improve this paper. Financial support from the Research Council of Norway (project 140082/530) is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

The Impact of Temporary Labor Migration on Mexican Children's Educational Aspirations and Performance1

This article examines how temporary U.S. labor migration by family members and by students affects the educational aspirations and performance of those same students growing up in Mexican migrant communities. Labor migration affects these children in two ways. First it brings remitted U.S. earnings into the household which allows parents to provide more education for their children and reduce the need for children's labor. Higher incomes are also associated with numerous factors that improve the general well‐being of children, as reflected in various indicators including higher school grades. Labor migration also has negative impacts on children. In addition to family stress and behavioral problems with adolescents due to parental and sibling absence, migration provides an example of an alternative route to economic mobility. Children growing up in migrant households have access to information and social networks that reduce their likelihood of migration failure should they choose this alternative to the Mexican labor market. We analyze a unique data set from a stratified random sample of 7600 grammar, junior high, and high school‐level students in a state capital, a large town, and 25 rural communities in a Mexican migrant‐sending state. We find that high levels of U.S. migration are associated with lower aspirations to attend a university at all academic levels. We find, however, a positive relationship between U.S. migration and grades. We conclude that while U.S. migration provides financial benefits that allow children to continue schooling and perform well, it may also reduce the motivation to attain above‐average years of schooling.     

Labor Supply,Labor Demand,and Men's Underemployment in Rural and Urban Labor Markets1

Abstract This paper examines how the structure of the labor market differentially affects white men's underemployment in urban and rural areas. The effects of labor supply and demand, including special measures of public employment and two previously neglected aspects of competition—global industrial competition and sexual labor market competition—on unemployment, low-wage employment, and low-hours employment are examined. A higher proportion of females in the labor force in rural labor market areas provides benefits to men in the form of lower unemployment, but also costs them, through an increased prevalence of low-wage employment, while the opposite effects are evident for areas with concentrations in periphery service industries. The findings suggest that industrial restructuring in the form of increased foreign competition and an increased loss of core transformative jobs are especially threatening to rural men's employment adequacy.     

Return Migration in Africa and the Relationship between Educational Attainment and Labor Market Success: Evidence from Uganda

The return migration of skilled professionals has been suggested as a policy instrument suitable for reversing the large‐scale emigration of skilled professionals from African countries. However, there are no empirical studies showing how migrant professionals from Africa are reintegrated into the labor market after they return. This study examines the relationship between educational attainment and the likelihood of employment among native‐born African migrants returning home from abroad. The study focuses on the evidence from Uganda since this country has one of the longest histories of skilled migration in Africa. The results show that returning migrants with university degrees and vocational credentials are more likely to be employed than their nonmigrant and immigrant counterparts. However, this employment advantage was not observed among returning migrants with secondary schooling or below. Furthermore, the results show that returning migrants are generally more likely to be employed as district employment rates increase.     

Migration,the Urban Informal Sector,and Earnings in the Philippines*

This study investigates several issues pertaining to the urban informal sector and cityward migration in Philippine cities. The analysis of cross-sectional national demographic data reveals the four major patterns. First, the pattern of migrants' participation in the urban labor market varies greatly between male and female migrants. The widely held notion that migrants tend to enter the urban occupational structure through the informal sector seems to apply mainly to female migrants. Second, the informal sector must not be identified with urban poverty. Our data suggest that informal economies provide a wide range of income opportunities and that there is a great deal of overlap between formal- and informal-sector workers' incomes. Third, the effects of rural background and informal sector involvement seem to vary between Manila and the secondary cities. Fourth, sectoral boundaries do not seem to constitute a significant mobility barrier, but, due to the general lack of occupational mobility opportunities in Philippine cities, only a small proportion of those working in the informal sector are likely, to move out of it.     

A Global Labor Market: Factors Motivating the Sponsorship and Temporary Migration of Skilled Workers to Australia1

The recruitment of skilled foreign workers is becoming increasingly important to many industrialized countries. This paper examines the factors motivating the sponsorship and temporary migration of skilled workers to Australia under the temporary business entry program, a new development in Australia's migration policy. The importance of labor demand in the destination country in stimulating skilled temporary migration is clearly demonstrated by the reasons given by employers in the study while the reasons indicated by skilled temporary migrants for coming to work in Australia show the importance of both economic and non‐economic factors in motivating skilled labor migration.     

The Labor Supply of Female Heads of Household: Comparisons With Male Heads and Wives*

This paper compares a model of labor supply for female heads of household, male heads, and wives. Not only have female-headed households increased significantly as a proportion of all households in recent years, but these households are also more likely to be in poverty than are other households. Yet, the determinants of labor supply for this increasingly important demographic group still are largely unknown. Analyses are performed on a sample of employed female and male heads and wives from the 1976 Survey of Income and Education. We examine the effects of wages, unearned income, number of children, and several other variables on hours worked per year, allowing for race interactions. We find that female heads and wives are similar in the effects of wages on their labor supply, while female and male heads are similar in the positive effect of children. We conclude that although financial need, as evidenced by low wages and children, increases female heads’labor supply, employment in more advantaged, non-female dominated jobs and core industries is needed to promote their full participation in the labor force.     

Foreign Remittances and Regional Poverty: Evidence from Household Data

This study examines the association between foreign remittances and poverty (incidence and severity) in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Logit regression is used to deal with binary headcount ratio, while the instrumental variable approach is employed to avoid possible endogeneity. Household-based data, covering more than 40,000 household units in Punjab, are used for the empirical estimations. After controlling for several variables, such as the number of dependents of households, age, gender, and education of the household head, the results indicate that foreign remittances’ inflow reduces the incidence and severity of poverty in all three regions of the Punjab province, North Punjab, South Punjab and Central Punjab. The South Punjab, however, is found to be poorer based on headcount poverty and severity of poverty as compared to the other two regions.     

城乡迁移与精神健康:基于上海的实证研究

改革开放以来,中国见证了规模甚巨的城乡迁移运动,社会学界对这一现象进行了广泛的研究,但对进入城市的移民的精神健康问题则少有涉及。本研究基于对上海城乡迁移群体的多阶段抽样调查以了解这一群体的精神健康状况。问卷的分析结果显示,25%的男性和6%的女性精神健康状态不好。进一步的路径分析显示,移民压力、社会支持和迁移意义以不同的路径影响精神健康。论文建议政府和社会各界要充分回应移民群体的精神健康需求。     

Best Practices to Manage Migration: The Philippines

The Cooperative Efforts to Manage Emigration (CEME) project examines ways in which countries of origin, transit, and destination can cooperate to better manage migration. The project focuses on source countries of migration that are in transition to market economies and democratic systems of governance, developments that promise to reduce unwanted migration, and uses study visits to seek best practices for organizing the three Rs ‐ recruitment, remittances, and returns ‐ to protect migrants and to reduce emigration pressures and for promoting ongoing cooperation on migration matters between countries of origin, transit and destination.     

Understanding Transit Asylum Migration: Evidence from Serbia

Due to its geographic location and borders along the European Union (EU), in recent years, the Republic of Serbia has faced an increased number of irregular migrants from third‐world countries claiming asylum on their way into a western EU member state. Some of these migrants stay for a while in asylum centres in Serbia to rest or renew contacts. In order to explore the main socio‐demographic features of the study population, their migration history and intentions, a questionnaire‐based research was conducted in Banja Kovilja?a asylum centre. The results also give insights into the underlying question “how” and the role of social networks in migration. Most of asylum seekers are unmarried males at peak working age, from countries affected by war and political turmoil. The results indicate this is a transit migration where, besides fleeing to safety, economic status and migration networks have a significant impact on migration flows.     

Choosing Unauthorized Migration: Evidence from Return Migrants

We assess who among migrants is likely to choose unauthorized migration. While the literature has addressed reasons for unauthorized migration, we are the first to model individual choice of actual unauthorized migration. By using data from Albanian return migrants, we can ascertain that we capture actual migration – behaviour – rather than intentions to migrate, and respondents have no incentives to hide unauthorized migration as there are no consequences at this stage. At the individual level, unauthorized migration in a context of circular migration is linked to being young and male – interpreted as risk‐taking individuals – and being free of social responsibilities like having a partner or children. Social responsibilities appear to moderate the impact of risk‐taking on choosing unauthorized migration.     

Spouse Overeducation and Family Migration: Evidence from the US

Scholars have noted that marriage frequently results in a sub-optimal job search. This literature suggests that the overeducation of wives is a result of household migration (tied-mover) or the result of an inability to migrate (tied-stayer). Others have found that overeducation may also be a cause of migration. This study examines overeducation as both a cause and effect of migration. Some evidence shows that families with an overeducated husband are found to be more likely to migrate. In turn, this migration leads to increased levels of overeducation among wives and decreased levels of overeducation among husbands. Household migration is also found to lower the full-time employment rates of wives by more than their male counterparts.     

New Global Politics of Reproductive Labor: Gendered Labor and Marriage Migration

The feminization of international migration nowadays has demonstrated a new global politics of reproductive labor (work necessary for the reproduction of families). This paper reviews recent studies that manifest similarity, affinity, and continuity across multiple forms of reproductive labor carried out by migrant women in four aspects. First, the recruitment of women as foreign maids or foreign brides provides class‐specific parallel strategies to the global care crisis. Second, paid and unpaid forms of reproductive labor constitute intersecting circuits of labor and marriage migration through which women partake in continuous migration. Third, various categories of migrant women are discursively conflated and attached to similar images as sexualized others. Finally, global care chains not only involve migrant reproductive labor conducted at home but also operate on the level of social reproduction as indicated by the expansion of international nursing migration.     

Local Institutional Quality and Return Migration: Evidence from Viet Nam

This article examines the link between local institutional quality in the home country and locational choices of international return migrants. We scrutinize the locational choices of Vietnamese return migrants to the south central and the south regions of Viet Nam in 2014. Binary and multinomial regression models are fitted to identify the influence of migrants’ individual attributes and the characteristics of regional destinations within Viet Nam. Our analysis reveals that both individual‐specific and region‐specific variables are significantly related to Vietnamese return migrants’ choices when registering for permanent residency back in their home country. More remarkably, we provide compelling evidence of the positive role of institutional quality at the local level in these migration decisions. Moreover, the effect of institutional quality differs with the characteristics of migrants: regions with better institutional quality are more attractive both to younger return migrants and to those who returned from host countries with better institutional quality.