High-Skilled Migration from Myanmar: Responses to Signals of Political and Economic Stabilization

Yashodhan Ghorpade, Muhammad Saad Imtiaz () and Theingie Han ()
Additional contact information
Muhammad Saad Imtiaz: World Bank
Theingie Han: World Bank

No 17736, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In recent years Myanmar has witnessed considerable economic and political instability, leading many young people, particularly the higher-skilled, to consider migrating abroad for improved prospects. We employ an innovative method to quantify migration intentions among high-skilled youth by analyzing the take-up of migration at different wage premia. A randomized survey experiment then evaluates how hypothetical political and economic stabilization scenarios impact these intentions. We find that 35 percent of the respondents would be willing to take a similar job abroad for pay equal to their current income. Randomization within the survey indicates that political stabilization would potentially reduce high-skilled workers' desire to migrate by about 15 percent, especially among men, those living in high conflict areas, and persons with lower absolute income, but higher perceived relative income. In contrast, prospects of economic stabilization do not have a significant effect on migration intentions. Economic stabilization, in the absence of political stability and a reduction in conflict, is unlikely to reduce talent outflows among the young.

Keywords: migration; emigration; Myanmar; brain drain; high-skilled migration; conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F2 J61 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2025-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17736.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: High-Skilled Migration from Myanmar: Responses to Signals of Political and Economic Stabilization (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17736

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().