EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Risk Attitudes and Household Migration Decisions

Christian Dustmann, Francesco Fasani, Xin Meng and Luigi Minale

Journal of Human Resources, 2023, vol. 58, issue 1, 112-145

Abstract: We analyze the relation between risk attitudes and household migration decisions. Using data of rural-urban migrants in China and their family members left behind, we obtain three key findings: (i) conditional on migration gains, less risk-averse individuals are more likely to migrate; (ii) conditional on own risk aversion, individuals are more likely to migrate the higher the risk aversion of the other household members; and (iii) conditional on average risk aversion, households with more dispersed risk preferences are more likely to send migrants. These findings are in line with a stylized model that we develop. Our results provide evidence that the distribution of risk attitudes within the household affects whether a migration takes place and who will emigrate. They also suggest that the risk diversification gain to other household members may lead to migrations that would not take place when decisions were made at the individual level.

JEL-codes: D81 J61 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
Note: DOI: 10.3368/jhr.58.3.1019-10513R1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/58/1/112
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
Working Paper: Risk Attitudes and Household Migration Decisions (2017) Downloads
Working Paper: Risk Attitudes and Household Migration Decisions (2017) Downloads
Working Paper: Risk Attitudes and Household Migration Decisions (2015) Downloads
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:uwp:jhriss:v:58:y:2023:i:1:p:112-145

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-28
Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:58:y:2023:i:1:p:112-145