Does Emigration Affect Pro-Environmental Behaviour Back Home? A Long-Term, Local-Level Perspective

Artjoms Ivlevs ()

No 12984, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study provides novel evidence on the effects of emigration on pro-environmental behaviour back home. Focusing on the seven successor states of former Yugoslavia, I explore the relationship between people's present-day pro-environmental action and the local-level intensity of a major guestworker emigration wave that occurred four decades earlier. I find that more intense local-level emigration is associated with a lower likelihood of pro-environmental action; the instrumental variable analysis supports the causal nature of this relationship. This finding supports the conjecture that emigration contributes to greater consumerism at home and therefore reduces pro-environmental behaviour. At the same time, controlling for the intensity of local-level emigration, a higher proportion of women in the local migrant population is associated with a greater likelihood of pro-environmental action. As women are generally more likely to undertake pro-environmental behaviour as well as transfer new norms and practices across borders, this finding supports the hypothesis that migration contributes to a cross-border transmission of pro-environmental norms and practices.

Keywords: emigration; pro-environmental behaviour; former Yugoslavia; monetary remittances; social remittances; instrumental variable analysis; gender effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 F24 F64 P28 R11 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-mig
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Published - published in: Kyklos, 2021, 74(1): 48-76

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Journal Article: Does Emigration Affect Pro‐environmental Behaviour Back Home? A Long‐Term, Local‐Level Perspective (2021)
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