Should I Stay or Should I Go : Do Cash Transfers Affect Migration?
The paper reviews the evidence on a "hot" and yet underexplored question -- that is, whether and how social assistance programs (especially cash transfers) affect domestic and international migration. Out an initial sample of 269 papers,...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/609571531402897490/Should-I-stay-or-should-I-go-do-cash-transfers-affect-migration http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29998 |
| Summary: | The paper reviews the evidence on a
"hot" and yet underexplored question -- that is,
whether and how social assistance programs (especially cash
transfers) affect domestic and international migration. Out
an initial sample of 269 papers, 10 relevant empirical
studies examine the question. The programs are classified
into three clusters: (i) social assistance that implicitly
deters migration centering on place-based programs, (ii)
social assistance that implicitly facilitates migration by
relaxing liquidity constraints and reducing transaction
costs, and (iii) social assistance that is explicitly
conditioned on spatial mobility. The paper finds that
impacts on migration generally align with the implicit or
explicit goals of interventions. Under cluster (i), the
likelihood of moving declined between 0.22 and 11 percentage
points; among schemes in clusters (ii) and (iii), the
probability to move soared between 0.32-25 and 20-55
percentage points, respectively. The analysis also finds
spillover effects within households and communities. While
social assistance seems not to determine migration decisions
per se, it nonetheless enters the broader calculous of
mobility decision making. As such, social protection can be
an important part of public policy packages to manage
mobility. More research is needed to improve understanding
of the role of social protection in structural
transformation -- a process underpinned by domestic mobility
and the performance of which may ultimately affect
international migration. |
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