IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v75y2022icp490-505.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income rank and income concerns: What correlates with international migration intentions?

Author

Listed:
  • Shamsuddin, Mrittika
  • Katsaiti, Marina Selini
  • El Anshasy, Amany A.

Abstract

The link between the relative income theory and migration is well-established. There is however less consensus on how migration intentions change as populations climb up the wealth ladder. We argue that people’s subjective concerns about unfavorable financial positions and the worry about deteriorating income rank are associated with higher migration intentions, irrespective of actual income gaps. Drawing on survey data from the Gallup World Poll (GWP), spanning 129 countries between 2009 and 2017, this is the first cross-country study that attempts to gauge the links between the concerns about low rank in relative deprivation and international migration. We construct an index to proxy the intensity of the concern over low income using individuals’ self-assessment of own financial and life wellbeing. Our findings have important migration policy implications for home countries. While improving macroeconomic conditions and reducing actual inequality are important to lower migration outflows, migration intentions can be more significantly associated with subjective perceptions of lower financial well-being than with actual income or wealth differentials. The results held robust in both individual and pseudo panel results, across genders and educational levels, and after controlling for relative macroeconomic conditions, global communication, and addressing endogeneity.

Suggested Citation

  • Shamsuddin, Mrittika & Katsaiti, Marina Selini & El Anshasy, Amany A., 2022. "Income rank and income concerns: What correlates with international migration intentions?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 490-505.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:75:y:2022:i:c:p:490-505
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.06.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S031359262200090X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2022.06.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Gibson & David McKenzie, 2011. "Eight Questions about Brain Drain," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 107-128, Summer.
    2. John Kennan & James R. Walker, 2011. "The Effect of Expected Income on Individual Migration Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 211-251, January.
    3. Mahmudul Anam & Shin-Hwan Chiang & Lieng Hua, 2008. "Uncertainty and International Migration: An Option Cum Portfolio Model," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 236-250, September.
    4. Hao, Li & Houser, Daniel & Mao, Lei & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2016. "Migrations, risks, and uncertainty: A field experiment in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 126-140.
    5. Dustmann, Christian & Okatenko, Anna, 2014. "Out-migration, wealth constraints, and the quality of local amenities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 52-63.
    6. Kashi Kafle & Rui Benfica & Paul Winters, 2020. "Does relative deprivation induce migration? Evidence from Sub‐Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 999-1019, May.
    7. Christian Dustmann & Francesco Fasani & Xin Meng & Luigi Minale, 2023. "Risk Attitudes and Household Migration Decisions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 112-145.
    8. Akgüç, Mehtap & Liu, Xingfei & Tani, Massimiliano & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2016. "Risk attitudes and migration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 166-176.
    9. Jagger, Pamela & Luckert, Marty K. & Banana, Abwoli & Bahati, Joseph, 2012. "Asking Questions to Understand Rural Livelihoods: Comparing Disaggregated vs. Aggregated Approaches to Household Livelihood Questionnaires," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1810-1823.
    10. Peter Huber & Klaus Nowotny, 2016. "The Impact Of Relative Deprivation On Return Intentions Among Potential Migrants And Commuters," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 471-493, June.
    11. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan & Suedekum, Jens & Lameli, Alfred, 2014. "Why are educated and risk-loving persons more mobile across regions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 56-69.
    12. Goldbach, Carina & Schlüter, Achim, 2018. "Risk aversion, time preferences, and out-migration. Experimental evidence from Ghana and Indonesia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 132-148.
    13. Stark, Oded & Zawojska, Ewa, 2015. "Gender differentiation in risk-taking behavior: On the relative risk aversion of single men and single women," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 83-87.
    14. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    15. Stark, Oded & Taylor, J Edward, 1991. "Migration Incentives, Migration Types: The Role of Relative Deprivation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1163-1178, September.
    16. Axel Heitmueller, 2005. "Unemployment benefits, risk aversion, and migration incentives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 93-112, January.
    17. Oded Stark, 2019. "On Social Preferences and the Intensity of Risk Aversion," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 86(3), pages 807-826, September.
    18. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    19. Holger Bonin & Amelie Constant & Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Klaus Zimmermann, 2009. "Native-migrant differences in risk attitudes," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(15), pages 1581-1586.
    20. Angrist, J D & Imbens, G W & Krueger, A B, 1999. "Jackknife Instrumental Variables Estimation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 57-67, Jan.-Feb..
    21. Michael A. Quinn, 2006. "Relative Deprivation, Wage Differentials and Mexican Migration," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 135-153, February.
    22. Katz, Eliakim & Stark, Oded, 1986. "Labor Migration and Risk Aversion in Less Developed Countries," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(1), pages 134-149, January.
    23. Oded Stark & J. Taylor, 1989. "Relative deprivation and international migration oded stark," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(1), pages 1-14, February.
    24. Mathias Czaika & Hein de Haas, 2012. "The Role of Internal and International Relative Deprivation in Global Migration," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 423-442, December.
    25. Peter Huber & Klaus Nowotny, 2018. "Risk Aversion and the Willingness to Migrate in 30 Countries," WIFO Working Papers 569, WIFO.
    26. Stark, Oded & Levhari, David, 1982. "On Migration and Risk in LDCs," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 191-196, October.
    27. David A. Jaeger & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Holger Bonin, 2010. "Direct Evidence on Risk Attitudes and Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 684-689, August.
    28. Stark, Oded, 1984. "Rural-to-Urban Migration in LDCs: A Relative Deprivation Approach," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(3), pages 475-486, April.
    29. Stanislav Kolenikov & Gustavo Angeles, 2009. "Socioeconomic Status Measurement With Discrete Proxy Variables: Is Principal Component Analysis A Reliable Answer?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 128-165, March.
    30. Oded Stark, 2017. "Migration when Social Preferences are Ordinal: Steady-state Population Distribution and Social Welfare," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(336), pages 647-666, October.
    31. Klaus Nowotny, 2014. "Cross-border commuting and migration intentions: the roles of risk aversion and time preference," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 8(2), June.
    32. Gordon B. Dahl, 2002. "Mobility and the Return to Education: Testing a Roy Model with Multiple Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2367-2420, November.
    33. Hyll, Walter & Schneider, Lutz, 2014. "Relative deprivation and migration preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 334-337.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Villalobos, Carlos & Riquelme, Andrés, 2023. "Household constraints and dysfunctional rural–urban migration," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1070-1088.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stark, Oded, 2022. "Risk-laden migration as a response to relative deprivation: A hypothesis," Discussion Papers 329580, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    2. Klöble, Katrin, 2021. "A behavioural perspective on the drivers of migration: Studying economic and social preferences using the Gallup World Poll," IDOS Discussion Papers 4/2021, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    3. Amany A. El Anshasy & Mrittika Shamsuddin & Marina-Selini Katsaiti, 2023. "Financial Wellbeing and International Migration Intentions: Evidence from Global Surveys," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(7), pages 2261-2289, October.
    4. González Chapela, Jorge, 2020. "Patience goes a long way: Evidence from Spain," MPRA Paper 98711, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Akgüç, Mehtap & Liu, Xingfei & Tani, Massimiliano & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2016. "Risk attitudes and migration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 166-176.
    6. Kashi Kafle & Rui Benfica & Paul Winters, 2020. "Does relative deprivation induce migration? Evidence from Sub‐Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 999-1019, May.
    7. Shi, Xiaojun & Yan, Zhu, 2018. "Urbanization and risk preference in China: A decomposition of self-selection and assimilation effects," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 210-228.
    8. Michael A. Clemens, 2014. "Does development reduce migration?," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 6, pages 152-185, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Hao, Li & Houser, Daniel & Mao, Lei & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2016. "Migrations, risks, and uncertainty: A field experiment in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 126-140.
    10. Goldbach, Carina & Schlüter, Achim, 2018. "Risk aversion, time preferences, and out-migration. Experimental evidence from Ghana and Indonesia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 132-148.
    11. Michael Clemens, 2014. "Does Development Reduce Migration? - Working Paper 359," Working Papers 359, Center for Global Development.
    12. William Herrin & John Knight & Arsene Balihuta, 2009. "Migration and Wealth Accumulation in Uganda," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 165-179, August.
    13. Jorge González Chapela, 2022. "Is there a patience premium on migration?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 2025-2055, October.
    14. Stefan Jestl & Mathias Moser & Anna Katharina Raggl, 2021. "Cannot keep up with the Joneses: how relative deprivation pushes internal migration in Austria," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 49(2), pages 210-231, November.
    15. van Huizen, Thomas & Alessie, Rob, 2019. "Risk aversion and job mobility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 91-106.
    16. Peter Huber & Klaus Nowotny, 2020. "Risk aversion and the willingness to migrate in 30 transition countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1463-1498, October.
    17. Oded Stark & Franz Rendl & Marcin Jakubek, 2012. "The merger of populations, the incidence of marriages, and aggregate unhappiness," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 331-344, April.
    18. Winters, P. & Kafle, K. & Benfica, R., 2018. "IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 21 - Does relative deprivation induce migration? Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," IFAD Research Series 280070, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
    19. Oded Stark & Wiktor Budzinski & Grzegorz Kosiorowski, 2019. "The pure effect of social preferences on regional location choices: The evolving dynamics of convergence to a steady state population distribution," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(5), pages 883-909, November.
    20. Dohmen, Thomas & Khamis, Melanie & Lehmann, Hartmut & Pignatti, Norberto, 2023. "Risk Attitudes and Informal Employment in Ukraine," IZA Discussion Papers 16445, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International migration; Relative deprivation; Immigration policies; Gallup world poll;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:75:y:2022:i:c:p:490-505. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.