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2 - Origins

Why Do People Migrate?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2023

David Leblang
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Benjamin Helms
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
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Summary

Why do people migrate? We review existing answers that focus on the role of economics and social networks. This work fails to appreciate that, all else equal, far more people remain at home than express an interest in moving abroad.Focusing on political conditions, we argue that political conditions and institutions are just as important to understand human mobility. Analyzing a wealth of globally representative, individual-level data on the emigration process, we find that factors such as the quality of public goods, confidence in political institutions, and perceptions of physical safety drive migration decisions. The importance of political conditions grows with an emigrant’s level of education, and quality governance can mitigate the impact of other “push” factors such as declining economic conditions and social networks. We emphasize that any understanding of the decision to migrate must grapple with political conditions in migrant-sending countries.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Ties That Bind
Immigration and the Global Political Economy
, pp. 16 - 57
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Origins
  • David Leblang, University of Virginia, Benjamin Helms, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The Ties That Bind
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009233248.002
Available formats
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  • Origins
  • David Leblang, University of Virginia, Benjamin Helms, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The Ties That Bind
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009233248.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Origins
  • David Leblang, University of Virginia, Benjamin Helms, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: The Ties That Bind
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009233248.002
Available formats
×