Do High-Income or Low-Income Immigrants Leave Faster?

Govert Bijwaard and Jackline Wahba

No 2013013, Norface Discussion Paper Series from Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London

Abstract: We estimate the impact of the income earned in the host country on return migration of labour migrants from developing countries. We use a three-state correlated competing risks model to account for the strong dependence of labour market status and the income earned. Our analysis is based on administrative panel data of recent labour immigrants from developing countries to the Netherlands. The empirical results show that intensities of return migration are U-shaped with respect to migrants’ income, implying a higher intensity in low- and high- income groups. Indeed, the lowest-income group has the highest probability of return. We also find that ignoring the interdependence of labour market status and the income earned leads to underestimating the impact of low income and overestimating the impact of high income.

Keywords: migration dynamics; labour market transitions; competing risks; immigrant assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C41 F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Do high-income or low-income immigrants leave faster? (2014)
Working Paper: Do High-Income or Low-Income Immigrants Leave Faster? (2013)
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