Are Migrants More Skilled than Non-Migrants?: Repeat, Return and Same-Employer Migrants

Jennifer Hunt

No 422, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: I examine the determinants of inter-state migration of adults within western Germany, using the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984 - 2000. I highlight the prevalence and distinctive characteristics of migrants who do not change employers. Same-employer migrants represent 25 % of all migrants, and have higher education and pre-move wages than non-migrants. Conditional on age, same-employer migrants are therefore more skilled than non-migrants. By contrast, although other migrants have higher education than non-migrants, they do not have higher pre-move wages. Furthermore, they have in their ranks disproportionate numbers of the non-employed, unemployed and recently laid off. It therefore seems inappropriate to characterize them as more skilled than non-migrants. The results for same-employer migrants indicate that skilled workers have a low-cost migration avenue that has not been considered in the previous literature. I also analyze the relation between repeat and return migration and distinguish between short and long-distance migration. I confirm that long-distance migrants are more skilled than short-distance migrants, as predicted by theory, and I show that return migrants are a mix of successes and failures.

Pages: 20 p.
Date: 2004
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (71)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Are migrants more skilled than non-migrants? Repeat, return, and same-employer migrants (2004)
Journal Article: Are migrants more skilled than non‐migrants? Repeat, return, and same‐employer migrants (2004)
Working Paper: Are Migrants More Skilled than Non-Migrants? Repeat, Return and Same-Employer Migrants (2004)
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