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The Impacts of International Migration on Remaining Household Members: Omnibus Results from a Migration Lottery Program

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Author Info

  • Gibson, John

    () (University of Waikato)

  • McKenzie, David

    () (World Bank)

  • Stillman, Steven

    () (University of Otago)

Abstract

The impacts of international migration on development in the sending countries, and especially the effects on remaining household members, are increasingly studied. However, comparisons of households in developing countries with and without migrants are complicated by a double-selectivity problem: households self-select into migration, and among households involved in migration, some send a subset of members with the rest remaining whilst other households migrate en masse. We address these selectivity issues using the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category (PAC) of New Zealand's immigration policy. We survey applicants to the 2002-05 PAC ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining household members of emigrants with those for members of similar households who were unsuccessful in the ballots. The immigration laws determine which household members can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument to address the second selectivity issue. Using this natural experiment we examine the myriad impacts that migration has on remaining household members, focussing on labor supply, income, durable assets, financial service usage, diet and physical and mental health and use multiple hypothesis testing procedures to examine which impacts are robust. We find the overall impact on households left behind to be largely negative. We also find evidence that both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies which fail to adequately address them to misrepresent the impact of migration.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 4375.

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Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2009
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: Review of Economics and Statistics, 2011, 93 (4), 1297-1318
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4375

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Keywords: remittances; selectivity; natural experiment; emigration; wellbeing;

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References

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  1. Stillman, Steven & McKenzie, David & Gibson, John, 2009. "Migration and mental health: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 677-687, May.
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  16. David McKenzie & John Gibson & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Moving to Opportunity, Leaving Behind What? Evaluating the Initial Effects of a Migration Policy on Incomes and Poverty in Source Areas," Working Papers in Economics 07/23, University of Waikato, Department of Economics.
  17. Joshua D. Angrist, 2003. "Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Theory and Practice," NBER Working Papers 9708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Tools of the Trade: A quick adjustment for multiple hypothesis testing
    by David McKenzie in Development Impact on 2012-10-22 01:40:15
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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Cited by:
  1. Murat Genc & Masood Gheasi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2011. "The impact of immigration on international trade: a meta-analysis," Norface Discussion Paper Series 2011020, Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London.
  2. Akresh, Richard & Edmonds, Eric V., 2010. "The Analytical Returns to Measuring a Detailed Household Roster," IZA Discussion Papers 4759, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Clemens, Michael A. & Tiongson, Erwin R., 2012. "Split decisions : family finance when a policy discontinuity allocates overseas work," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6287, The World Bank.
  4. Yaw Nyarko and Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong, 2011. "Social Safety Nets: The Role of Education, Remittances and Migration," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 26, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
  5. David McKenzie & Dean Yang, 2010. "Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies," CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1017, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London.
  6. Carletto, Calogero & Covarrubias, Katia & Maluccio, John A., 2011. "Migration and child growth in rural Guatemala," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 16-27, February.
  7. Ranathunga, Seetha P.B., 2011. "Impact of rural to urban labour migration and the remittances on sending household welfare: a Sri Lankan case study," MPRA Paper 35943, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Dec 2011.
  8. Göbel, Kristin, 2012. "Remittances and Gender-Speci fic Employment Patterns in Peru - a longitudinal Analysis," Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 65409, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  9. Dean Yang, 2009. "International Migration and Human Development," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-29, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Jul 2009.
  10. Giulietti, Corrado & Wahba, Jackline & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2013. "Entrepreneurship of the Left-Behind," IZA Discussion Papers 7270, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  11. Rob Hodgson & Jacques Poot, 2011. "New Zealand Research on the Economic Impacts of Immigration 2005-2010: Synthesis and Research Agenda," CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1104, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London.

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