Social Networks and the Intention to Migrate

Abstract

Using a large survey spanning several years and more than 150 countries, we examine the importance of social networks in influencing individuals' intention to migrate domestically or internationally. We distinguish close social networks (composed of friends and family) and broad social networks (composed of same-country residents with intention to migrate), both at home and abroad. We find that social networks abroad are important driving forces of migration intentions, more important than work-related aspects or income. In addition, we find that close social networks abroad with remittances matter significantly more than those without remittances as the individuals become more educated, indicating that networks might work through different channels for individuals with different level of education. On other hand, we find that having stronger close social networks at home reduces the likelihood of migration intentions.

International Migration Intentions and Illegal Costs: Evidence from Africa‐to‐Europe Smuggling Routes

“…Using intentions instead of actual migration, for our purpose, is likely to be an advantage because intentions include both regular and irregular potential migrants, while actual migration data have substantial measurement issues because of the clandestine nature of irregular border-crossing. Furthermore, several contributions have shown that there is a high correlation between intentions and actual migration worldwide (Creighton, 2013;van Dalen and Henkens, 2013;Docquier et al, 2014;Manchin and Orazbayev, 2018). By using Frontex data for the period under investigation we show that the number of irregular migrants that arrived at European ports of entry (by country of origin and year) is highly correlated with the number of people willing to migrate reported by our global survey.…”

“…11 GWP builds on yearly surveys of residents older than 15 years of age and represents more than 98 per cent of the world's adult population (e.g. see Docquier et al (2014), Dustmann and Okatenko (2014) or Manchin and Orazbayev (2018) for papers using the same dataset). 12 While the GWP contains data from 2005 onwards, we limit our sample to years 2010 and 2012, excluding year 2011 because of the Arab Spring and the associated spike in migration across the Mediterranean sea.…”

“…planning) to migrate in the following year, out of the relevant population that is defined by respondents to question (ii). See more details on the underlying questions in Manchin and Orazbayev (2018) .…”

“…26 Since recent empirical evidence shows that income considerations are not the only factor influencing migration decisions, our analysis also incorporates non-economic factors. In particular, we control for individuals overall contentment with own living standards and local amenities such as public services, security, and governance (see for example Dustmann and Okatenko (2014) or Manchin and Orazbayev (2018)).…”

Life Satisfaction and Migration Intention of Youth

“…A study conducted by the Italian research center Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano showed that people who intend to move are much less satisfied with the place in which they live than those who do not have such intentions. It concerns dissatisfaction with the degree of security in the place of residence and the social infrastructure to a greater extent (local amenities -a desirable or useful feature or facility of a building or place), rather than with the possibilities of finding a job, earning one's living and maintaining a standard of living [36]. W. Stinner и M. Van Loon, studying internal population migration in the USA, found out that dissatisfaction with economic opportunities (steady employment, career advancement and higher income) and social framework (public services such as schools and health service providers) produce negative impact on the formation of migration intentions [37].…”