Migration and Mental Health : Evidence from a Natural Experiment
People migrate to improve their well-being, whether through an expansion of economic and social opportunities or a reduction in persecution. Yet a large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful process, with potentially negative impact...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/02/7396776/migration-mental-health-evidence-natural-experiment http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7178 |
| Summary: | People migrate to improve their
well-being, whether through an expansion of economic and
social opportunities or a reduction in persecution. Yet a
large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful
process, with potentially negative impacts on mental health,
reducing the net benefits of migration. However, to truly
understand the effect of migration on mental health one must
compare the mental health of migrants to what their mental
health would have been had they stayed in their home
country. The existing literature is not able to do this and
typically settles for comparing the mental health of
migrants to that of natives in the destination country,
which takes no account of any pre-existing differences
between these groups. This paper overcomes the selection
problems affecting previous studies of the effect of
migration on mental health by examining a migrant lottery
program. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to immigrate
each year with a lottery used to choose among the excess
number of applicants. A unique survey conducted by the
authors in these two countries allows experimental estimates
of the mental health effects of migration to be obtained by
comparing the mental health of migrants who were successful
applicants in the lottery to the mental health of those who
applied to migrate under the quota, but whose names were not
drawn in the lottery. Migration is found to lead to
improvements in mental health, particularly for women and
those with poor mental health in their home country. |
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