Self-employment and Migration

Arbeitspapier

There is a widespread policy view that a lack of job opportunities at home is a key reason for migration, accompanied by suggestions of the need to spend more on creating these opportunities so as to reduce migration. Self-employment is widespread in poor countries, and faced with a lack of existing jobs, providing more opportunities for people to start businesses is a key policy option. But empirical evidence to support this idea is slight, and economic theory offers several reasons why the self-employed may in fact be more likely to migrate. We put together panel surveys from eight countries to descriptively examine the relationship between migration and self-employment, finding that the self-employed are indeed less likely to migrate than either wage workers or the unemployed. We then analyze seven randomized experiments that increased self-employment, and find their causal impacts on migration are negative on average, but often small in magnitude.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CReAM Discussion Paper Series ; No. 12/19

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• Subject: internal migration ; international migration ; self-employment ; migrant selection ; randomized experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Giambra, Samuele ; McKenzie, David
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London
• (where): London
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET