International Migration as Driver of Political and Social Change: Evidence from Morocco

Arbeitspapier

This paper focuses on the impact of international migration on the transfer of political and social norms. Exploiting recent and unique data on Morocco, it explores whether households with return and current migrants bear different political preferences and behaviours than non-migrant families. Once controlling for the double selection into emigration and return migration, findings suggest that having a returnee in the household increases the demand for political and social change, driven by returnees mostly from Western European countries, who have been exposed to more democratic norms at destination. However, we find a negative impact of having a current migrant on the willingness to change of the left-behind household, driven by migrants to non-West countries, where the quality of political and social institutions is lower. Our results are robust to also controlling for destination selectivity.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 309

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; International Migration ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Economywide Country Studies: Africa
• Subject: International migration ; Political change ; Transfer of norms ; Morocco

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Tuccio, Michele ; Wahba, Jackline ; Hamdouch, Bachir
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Global Labor Organization (GLO)
• (where): Maastricht
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/191753
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET