Migration Histories and Occupational Achievement

Clara H. Mulder, University of Amsterdam
Maarten van Ham, University of Amsterdam

Since Sjaastad (1962) argued that migration should be viewed as an investment in human capital, numerous studies have investigated the gains accruing from migration experienced by individuals and households. There are two reasons why people should benefit from migration. First, by covering a distance, people extend their job search area, so they can choose from a greater number of jobs. Second, by moving to a particular destination, people are able to profit from the educational and labor market opportunities at that destination. There has been ample research into the gains accruing from migration covering a certain distance. Most of this research has shown that men who migrate between labor markets indeed tend to do better occupationally than those who do not, but this is not necessarily the case for women (Bonney & Love, 1991; Jacobsen & Levin, 1997; Smits, 2001, for example). It has also been shown that the destination of migration matters. The gains are likely to be greater if the move is directed to an area with ample educational and labor market opportunities; typically, a country’s larger cities (Blau & Duncan, 1967). Within the UK, migration to the South East of England (including London) particularly favors upward social mobility (Fielding, 1992). The Paris region serves a similar function in France (Lelièvre & Bonvalet, 1994). The investment character of migration leads to the expectation that migration pays off in the long term, but not necessarily in the short term: the time horizon on which the gains are studied matters. From the scarce literature that draws a distinction between the short-term and longer-term impacts of covering a distance by migration, we know that the negative impact of migration on women’s labor market positions tends to fade in the course of one to two years (Spitze, 1984; Clark & Davies Withers, 2002). Over an even longer term, one could expect a long-term benefit of having moved to an area with favorable opportunities. An indication that such a benefit indeed exists can be derived from Van Ham’s (2002) finding that those who live in an area with ample job opportunities on labor market entry have better chances of obtaining a high socio-economic status later in life than those who do not. This impact of the residential location at the time of labor market entry does not fade over the life course, but becomes stronger instead. Apparently, past migration experience may be no less important than recent moves. From the above, we have derived the main hypothesis for this paper: that occupational achievement is influenced by someone’s past life-course trajectory of migrations according to distance and destination. Within this life-course trajectory, different types of migration history are possible. Earlier work on the influence of migration histories used a limited operationalization of these histories, focusing on the difference between onward and return migration. The results of this work suggest that, at least for men, onward migration yields greater gains than return migration (Bailey & Cooke, 1998; Cooke & Bailey, 1999; Newbold, 1996). This finding indicates that migration experience encompassing a variety of regions are more favorable to occupational achievement than migration experience in a more limited number of regions. Our operationalization of migration histories is more detailed: not only do we include the distinction between onward and return migration, but also the crucial aspects of distance and destination. We are confident that this research will contribute to a better utilization of the advantages of longitudinal data (see Clark & Davies Withers, 2002, for a plea for such a better utilization). The following hypotheses will guide the research: migration histories with long-distance moves lead to better occupational achievement in the long term, particularly for men; migration histories with a greater variety of regions lead to better occupational achievement in the long term; and migration histories with a period in a large city lead to better occupational achievement in the long term. Using retrospective survey data for the Netherlands, we explain the respondents’ employment and socio-economic status (measured with the ISEI index; Ganzeboom et al., 1992) in a given year from the migration history up to that year, controlling for other factors known to influence employment and socio-economic status (level of education, age, sex and household situation, for example). Migration histories are classified according to three criteria: whether they include a long-distance move; whether they include a period in a large city; and whether any repeat move was an onward move or a return migration. A classification into ten types then follows: (1) histories without a stay in a large city and without (long-distance) migration; (2) histories without a stay in a large city and with migration; (3) histories inside one large city; (4) histories moving between large cities only; (5) histories starting outside a large city and ending inside; histories starting outside a large city, moving through a large city, and: (6) going back, (7) not going back but moving near a large city, (8) not going back but moving away from a large city; histories starting in a large city and: (9) moving near a large city, (10) moving away from a large city. We have used a two-stage modeling procedure. First, we estimated a logistic regression model of employment. Second, we estimated a least-squares regression model of socio-economic status person-years while correcting for the probability of being employed (compare Heckman, 1979). The units of analysis are person-years; we estimate the standard errors performing a correction for the clustering of person-years within respondents (Huber, 1967). The preliminary findings suggest that migration histories including a stay in a large city are equally beneficial to the occupational achievement of men and women. Both men and women gain from histories including long-distance moves, but men more so than women. Whether a migration history includes just one long-distance move or more than one also matters more to men than to women. Among those who have moved more than once, no great differences in occupational achievement are found between those who have made onward and those who have made return moves. References Bailey, Adrian J. & Thomas J. Cooke. 1998. 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