Limited research has been conducted on migrants' decision making factors in transit and this is an important area of investigation that goes beyond the origin-destination country dichotomy most commonly represented in migrant decision making. This paper examines the decision making factors for onwards migration or stay of migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria in Greece and Turkey. This paper is based on a unique dataset of surveys collected with 1056 migrants in Athens and Istanbul from May-July 2015. The decision for onwards migration or stay is examined through a probit regression analysis. Four categories of influencing variables are discussed: the country of origin, current conditions in the transit country, the initial migration destination choice and previous onwards migration attempts. The results demonstrate that first; the majority of respondents in both countries seek to migrate onwards (75% in Greece and 63% in Turkey) and that conditions in the transit country are highly significant in influencing onwards migrate decisions including their current subjective living conditions, employment, experiences of abuse, and speaking the local language. This paper contextualizes the findings and highlight the complexity of factors influencing migrants' decision making in Greece and Turkey. ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper empirically evaluates the wellbeing of elderly individuals 'left behind' by their adult migrant children in Moldova. Using data from a nationally representative household survey conducted in - in Moldova, the wellbeing outcomes of elderly individuals aged  and older with and without adult children living abroad are compared (N = ,). A multi-dimensional wellbeing index is constructed on the basis of seven indicators within four dimensions of wellbeing: physical health, housing, social wellbeing and emotional wellbeing. Probit regressions are used to predict the probability of an elderly individual being considered well in each indicator and then on total index level. The results reveal that elderly persons with an adult migrant child have a higher probability of being well in one physical health indicator. Following correction for the selectivity of migration using an instrumental variable approach, however, the migration of an adult child is no longer found to predict significantly the wellbeing of their elderly parents in any dimension, suggesting that migration bears limited consequences for elderly wellbeing.

Using household survey data collected between September 2011 and December 2012 from Moldova and Georgia, this paper measures and compares the multidimensional well-being of children with and without parents abroad. While a growing body of literature has addressed the effects of migration for children ‘left behind’, relatively few studies have empirically analysed if and to what extent migration implies different well-being outcomes for children, and fewer still have conducted comparisons across countries. To compare the outcomes of children in current- and non-migrant households, this paper defines a multidimensional well-being index comprised of six dimensions of wellness: education, physical health, housing conditions, protection, communication access, and emotional health. This paper challenges conventional wisdom that parental migration is harmful for child well-being: while in Moldova migration does not appear to correspond to any positive or negative well-being outcomes, in Georgia migration was linked to higher probabilities of children attaining well-being in the domains of communication access, housing, and combined well-being index. The different relationship between migration and child well-being in Moldova and Georgia likely reflects different migration trajectories, mobility patterns, and levels of maturity of each migration stream.

Large numbers of South Africans receive social grants (public transfers) or remittances (private transfers), and yet one in four South Africans is food insecure. The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: do social grants and remittances improve food security and nutritional outcomes? If so, do these impacts differ between public and private transfers? Drawing on the National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS), South Africa's first nationally representative survey that follows more than 28,000 individuals over time, we found significant and positive impacts of the Older Person's Grant and of remittances on the dietary diversity index, but not of the Child Support Grant. Moreover, we found no effect on food expenditure or on anthropometry (BMI) by the Older Person's Grant, or remittances. However, some positive effects were found on children's BMI from the Child Support Grant. We discuss why we observe different effects from different transfers, as well as giving several reasons why income transfers are failing to close the nutritional deficits in South Africa.