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Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014

A standard proposition in the migration literature is that emigrants are not drawn randomly from their source population, but rather compose a self-selected group in terms of labour market characteristics. Such self-selection refers to observed characteristics, such as education, or occupation, as w...

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Autores principales: Birgier, Debora Pricila, Lundh, Christer, Haberfeld, Yitchak, Elldér, Erik
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9727015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3
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author Birgier, Debora Pricila
Lundh, Christer
Haberfeld, Yitchak
Elldér, Erik
author_facet Birgier, Debora Pricila
Lundh, Christer
Haberfeld, Yitchak
Elldér, Erik
author_sort Birgier, Debora Pricila
collection PubMed
description A standard proposition in the migration literature is that emigrants are not drawn randomly from their source population, but rather compose a self-selected group in terms of labour market characteristics. Such self-selection refers to observed characteristics, such as education, or occupation, as well as unobserved characteristics such as cognitive abilities. However, due to data limitations, most previous studies on selectivity have analysed immigrants’ characteristics at destinations rather than using data from their source countries. This paper assesses emigrants’ selectivity patterns by following the full-risk population of natives over a long period of time (over 20 years). It also includes an innovative measure of selectivity on unobserved characteristics—namely, school performance—as a proxy for individual motivation and cognitive abilities, and it compares it to the widely used measure of income residuals. We use Swedish register data and assess the probabilities of leaving Sweden between 1993 and 2014 among men and women born in Sweden between 1975 and 1978. We further look for differences among Swedish emigrants who chose different countries of destination. The findings suggest that emigrants are positively self-selected in terms of their observed characteristics, whereas selectivity patterns in terms of unobserved characteristics are more complex. When we assess unobservable characteristics using compulsory school grades as a proxy, emigrants are found to be positively self-selected, while when using income residuals, we find that the effect is U-shaped. Individuals leaving to non-Nordic countries are also found to be more positively self-selected than those heading to neighbouring countries. We discuss these findings and their implications in light of economic and sociological theories. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3.
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spelling pubmed-97270152022-12-08 Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014 Birgier, Debora Pricila Lundh, Christer Haberfeld, Yitchak Elldér, Erik Eur J Popul Article A standard proposition in the migration literature is that emigrants are not drawn randomly from their source population, but rather compose a self-selected group in terms of labour market characteristics. Such self-selection refers to observed characteristics, such as education, or occupation, as well as unobserved characteristics such as cognitive abilities. However, due to data limitations, most previous studies on selectivity have analysed immigrants’ characteristics at destinations rather than using data from their source countries. This paper assesses emigrants’ selectivity patterns by following the full-risk population of natives over a long period of time (over 20 years). It also includes an innovative measure of selectivity on unobserved characteristics—namely, school performance—as a proxy for individual motivation and cognitive abilities, and it compares it to the widely used measure of income residuals. We use Swedish register data and assess the probabilities of leaving Sweden between 1993 and 2014 among men and women born in Sweden between 1975 and 1978. We further look for differences among Swedish emigrants who chose different countries of destination. The findings suggest that emigrants are positively self-selected in terms of their observed characteristics, whereas selectivity patterns in terms of unobserved characteristics are more complex. When we assess unobservable characteristics using compulsory school grades as a proxy, emigrants are found to be positively self-selected, while when using income residuals, we find that the effect is U-shaped. Individuals leaving to non-Nordic countries are also found to be more positively self-selected than those heading to neighbouring countries. We discuss these findings and their implications in light of economic and sociological theories. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3. Springer Netherlands 2022-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9727015/ /pubmed/36507232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Birgier, Debora Pricila
Lundh, Christer
Haberfeld, Yitchak
Elldér, Erik
Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title_full Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title_fullStr Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title_full_unstemmed Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title_short Movers and Stayers: A Study of Emigration from Sweden 1993–2014
title_sort movers and stayers: a study of emigration from sweden 1993–2014
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9727015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3
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