Temporary International Migration, Shocks and Informal Insurance: Analysis Using Panel Data

Arbeitspapier

We use panel data for rural Kyrgyzstan to examine households' international migration response when faced with shocks. Using a household fixed effects regression model, we find that while a drought shock increases the likelihood of migration, winter and earthquake shocks reduce the likelihood of migration. We use a simple theoretical framework to illustrate the trade-off between two effects of a shock for a household: loss of income and increase in the need of labor services. We show that migration increases when the former effect of a shock dominates, it reduces when the latter effect dominates. We explore these mechanisms by examining how the migration-response to shocks changes in the presence of alternate coping mechanisms and by evaluating the effect of shocks on a household's decision to send and recall a migrant member. We find that when households have easier access to informal finance the migration-response is muted only for shocks for which the adverse income effect dominates. Our findings also suggest that while shocks for which the loss of income effect dominates have a greater effect on the decision to send a migrant, shocks for which the need of labor services effect dominates only affect the decision to recall a migrant. These findings provide evidence in favor of the proposed mechanisms through which shocks affect temporary migration.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14051

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
• Thema: temporary migration ; shocks ; insurance ; informal finance ; Asia ; Kyrgyzstan

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Chakraborty, Tanika ; Pandey, Manish
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2021

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/232803
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ