Should I stay or should I go: geographic versus cultural networks in migration and employment decisions

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Koola, Jinu Ozden, Caglar Özden, Çaǧlar
Copyright Year	2008
Abstract	In this paper, we use the Indian state of Kerala as a “laboratory” to explore two prominent questions in the migration literature: (1) what are the mechanisms through which migrant networks operate, and (2) what role does the existence of migrant networks have on the labor market participation decisions of non-migrant household members? Our strategy is to use Kerala’s unique religious composition to identify a community’s migration network which confers three main advantages: (1) religion exogenously identifies a well-defined social group which addresses the issue of selfselection because members of a religious group do not “choose” their religion; (2) religion and geography provide variation within localities and religious groups; and (3) religious networks provide social support and other excludable services, especially in labor markets. We use two linked state-wide representative surveys from 1998 and 2003 that collected individual information about each member of the household, including members who had migrated, for 10,000 households. We present three main findings in this paper. First, we demonstrate that religious networks are ten times more powerful than geographic networks in predicting the probability of emigration of the religious group’s own members. The second main finding from this study is that migrant networks channel their members to specific destinations. This indicates the main role of networks is to provide valuable and excludible information to their own members. The analysis on labor market participation of young men reveals interesting patterns as well. In crosssection data, we find that young men in households with migrant members are less likely to be employed, indicating the labor market participation decreasing effects of migration. However, when we look at the panel data and follow the same individuals over time, we see that the same males under 30 years old are more likely to migrate in the second period, taking advantage of their migrant networks. This result goes counter to the claim that migration induces unemployment or withdrawal from labor market among family member. Rather, it suggests that young men in migrant households have a higher expectation of emigration and they are less likely to take a job in Kerala while they prepare to emigrate. * Development Research Group, The World Bank. Contact Information: jkoola@worldbank.org & cozden@worldbank.org. The findings and the views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessary represent those of the World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors or the governments they represent.
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Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article