Does Low Wealth Constrain Long-Distance Migration?

Peter McHenry ()

ILR Review, 2015, vol. 68, issue 1, 79-119

Abstract: Some families may have too little wealth (or liquidity) to finance a long-distance move, which may involve transportation costs and foregone earnings. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the author assesses whether wealth holdings directly influence migration decisions in the United States. The analysis focuses on long-distance migration and shows consistently that migration is common among households with little or negative net worth and that greater wealth does not increase the likelihood of migration. In addition, differential wealth holdings do not explain why minority groups and the less-educated are relatively unlikely to undertake long-distance moves. The author also finds little evidence that wealth holdings influence a person’s migration response to local labor demand shocks.

Keywords: migration; wealth; NLSY79; SIPP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/68/1/79.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
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:sae:ilrrev:v:68:y:2015:i:1:p:79-119

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().