The impacts of international migration on remaining household members : omnibus results from a migration lottery program, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details

The impacts of international migration on remaining household members : omnibus results from a migration lottery program

Author:	Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Stillman, Steven;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4956
Country:	World; New Zealand;	Date Stored:	2009/06/08
Document Date:	2009/06/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Major Sector:	Finance
Rel. Proj ID:	1W-Program Research Proposal In Finance -- -- P107616;	Region:	The World Region; East Asia and Pacific
Report Number:	WPS4956	Sub Sectors:	General finance sector
SubTopics:	Access to Finance; Housing & Human Habitats; Health Monitoring & Evaluation; Population Policies; Anthropology	Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: 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 while other households migrate en masse. The authors address these selectivity issues using the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category of New Zealandﾒs immigration policy. They survey applicants to the 2002-05 ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining household members of emigrants with those for members of similar households that 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, the authors 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. The analysis uses multiple hypothesis testing procedures to examine which impacts are robust. The findings indicate that the overall impact on households left behind is largely negative. The findings also reveal evidence that both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies that fail to adequately address them to misrepresent the impact of migration.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 46 pages	Official version*	3.22 (approx.)
	Text	Text version**

	See documents related to this project

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/YOVL3ANST0