Abstract

Abstract (expanded with some introduction)

Globalization has brought to the forefront of political and intellectual debate new and ever perplexing challenges. Out of the many topics that have arisen due in part to the effects of globalization the discourse on migration has become an increasingly relevant topic. It is hard to overstate the importance of people flows. The mean world emigration rate (defined as the total amount of emigrants from a country divided by resident and emigrant population of the country) has increased from 4.3% in 1980 to 7.3% in 2010, a 69% increase (Brücker, Capuano, and Marfouk 2013). Furthermore, previous research on economic gains finds the elimination of migration barriers to be one or two orders of magnitude larger in economic gains than that found fr om the elimination of capital and trade barriers. (Clemens 2011).

A significant amount of spotlight has been given to the effects of migration on the hosting countries of the migrants. This spotlight has expanded over the years to consider the consequences that the emigrating population has on the source countries. Although the effects of migration are a vital aspect of the debate and discourse on migration, the causes and determinants of migration hold equal importance. T o truly understand the implications of migration on the ever globalizing world the determinants must also be given justice.

This research study is separated into two major segments, Part 1 and Part 2. Each segment centers on the understanding of the determinants of emigration with different emphasizes on the approach. The first segment focuses on sociopolitical push factors and wealth levels, the second on the creation of a new database used for the purposes of exploration of household level based data as determinants of emigrati on.

On Part 1: Considering that migration is a product of push and pull factors felt by individuals who face varying levels of cost to migrate, and that those costs to emigrate are relative depending on the wealth of the individual, it serves to ask the question “Are the effects of push factors on emigration rates dependent on wealth levels?”

Looking at various sociopolitical push factors such as religious fractionalization, government effectiveness, and corruption the study uses Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regressions to study the relationship between country level wealth, sociopolitical push factors, and emigration rates. The study looks at two separate time periods (the year 2000 and 2010) using interaction terms within two sets of cross sectional OLS regressions and finds evidence to suggest that wealth does indeed affect how push factors influence emigration rates. 

            The proposed findings of the study suggest further challenges for developing low wealth nations who are trying to keep high skilled migrants from emigrating. For such nations the importance of the sociopolitical environment could be more important than previously thought and therefore should increase attemp ts at creating a stable and peaceful demographic population as a means to retain skilled labor.

            On Part 2: To further study determinants of emigration in relation to demographic factors of a population, data is collected from immigrants currently residing in the United States from the U.S. Census and aggregated with respect to their source country. This method generates country specific demographic averages and ratios of populations which may then be merged to the previous database used in Part 1. By doing so it allows the use of the database to study the effects of the demographics of a population on emigration rates into the U.S. through regression analysis while focusing on the household unit as the decision maker as opposed to individuals or complete population aggregates. Part 2 “On the Creation and Exploration of an Aggregated Household Database” explains the creation of this new database, explores its strengths, weaknesses, and short comings. From this regression analysis we find further proof that household level demographic characteristics do in fact have an effect on emigration. Furthermore we can see that there is a relationship between household level demographic characteristics and the country level environment as well as geographic circumstances as it pertains to emigration.