Guy Stecklov

Domestic and international migration from rural Mexico: Disaggregating the effects of network structure and composition

This article explores the role of migrant networks in Mexican rural out-migration, focusing on how network composition influences rural-to-rural, rural-to-urban, and rural-to-international migration. Using data from rural Mexico, migration is considered in a multiple-choice context that allows for the possibility that rural Mexicans can migrate within Mexico, for agricultural and non-agricultural employment, as well as to the United States. The use of disaggregated measures of migrant networks highlights the complexity of network effects on migration decisions. When modelling the migration choice with aggregate measures, US migrant networks appear more important than migrant networks in Mexico. Once networks are disaggregated, however, certain types of migrant networks in Mexico become very important in the decision to migrate within the country. Further, the impact of migrant networks on the decision to migrate varies with the closeness of the bond: the closer the bond, the greater the impact on the migration decision.

Do conditional cash transfers influence migration? A study using experimental data from the Mexican progresa program

Prior research on Mexican migration has shown that social networks and economic incentives play an important role in determining migration outcomes. We use experimental data from PROGRESA, Mexico’s primary poverty-reduction program, to evaluate the effects of conditional cash transfers on migration both domestically and to the United States. Our study complements a growing body of literature aimed at overcoming longstanding hurdles to the establishment of causal validity in empirical studies of migration. Analysis based on the data collected before and after the program’s onset shows that conditional transfers reduce U.S. migration but not domestic migration. The data also enable us to explore the role of existing family and community migration networks. The results show that migration networks strongly influence migration, but that the effect of conditional transfers on migration is apparently not mediated by existing migration network structures. Our results suggest that conditional transfers may be helpful in managing rural out-migration, particularly to the United States.

Socio-economic status, permanent income, and fertility: A latent-variable approach

This paper examines how permanent income and other components of socio-economic status (SES) are related to fertility in less developed countries. Because permanent income cannot be measured directly, we employ a latent-variable method. We compare our results with those of the more common proxy-variable method and investigate the consequences of not accounting for measurement error. Using data from Ghana and Peru, we find that permanent income has a large, negative influence on fertility and that research must take the latent nature of permanent income into account to uncover its influence. Controlling for measurement error in the proxies for permanent income can also lead to substantial changes in the estimated effects of control variables. Finally, we examine which of the common proxies for permanent income most closely capture the concept. The results have implications beyond this specific dependent variable, providing evidence on the sensitivity of microanalyses to the treatment of long-term economic status.

Defining health inequality: why Rawls succeeds where social welfare theory fails

While there has been an important increase in methodological and empirical studies on health inequality, not much has been written on the theoretical foundation of health inequality measurement. We discuss several reasons why the classic welfare approach, which is the foundation of income inequality analysis, fails to provide a satisfactory foundation for health inequality analysis. We propose an alternative approach which is more closely linked to the WHO concept of equity in health and is also consistent with the ethical principles espoused by Rawls [A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971]. This approach in its simplest form, is shown to be closely related to the concentration curve when health and income are positively related. Thus, the criteria presented in our paper provide an important theoretical foundation for empirical analysis using the concentration curve. We explore the properties of these approaches by developing policy scenarios and examining how various ethical criteria affect government strategies for targeting health interventions.

GENDER AND MIGRATION FROM ALBANIA

This article examines the dynamics and causes of the shift in the gender composition of migration, and more particularly, in women’s access to migration opportunities and decision-making. Our analysis focuses on Albania, a natural laboratory for studying international migration where out-migration was essentially nonexistent from the end of World War II to the end of the 1980s. Interest in the Albanian case is heightened because of the complex layers of inequality existing at the time when migration began: relatively low levels of inequality within the labor market and educational system—a product of the Communist era—while household relations remained heavily steeped in tradition and patriarchy. We use micro-level data from the Albania 2005 Living Standards Measurement Study, including migration histories for family members since migration began. Based on discrete-time hazard models, the analysis shows a dramatic increase in male migration and a gradual and uneven expansion of the female proportion of this international migration. Female migration, which is shown to be strongly associated with education, wealth, and social capital, appears responsive to economic incentives and constraints. Using information on the dependency of female migration to the household demographic structure as well as the sensitivity of female migration to household-level shocks, we show how household-level constraints and incentives affect male and female migration differently. Throughout this period, however, women’s migration behavior appears more directly aligned with household-level factors, and there is little evidence to suggest that increased female migration signals rising behavioral independence among Albanian women.

Intergenerational Resource Flows in Cote d'Ivoire: Empirical Analysis of Aggregate Flows

Application of new intergenerational resource flow models to data from the Ivory Coast 1) reveals that wealth flows from older to younger generations in this high-fertility setting 2) indicates how wealth is accumulated by individuals and 3) exposes the complementary role of private and public transfers in the redistribution of resources between different age groups. The article begins with a review of the theory and evidence covering intergenerational transfers. The next section notes that data for the present study were gathered from the World Banks 1986 Living Standards Measurement Study of the Ivory Coast and discusses 1) reasons for the fact that per capita consumption is about 20% greater than per capita labor income 2) the assumptions used to allow individual-level consumption and labor earning measures to be derived from the household-level data and 3) how individual labor earning estimates were derived. The third section provides the analysis of the consumption and labor income profiles and section 4 explains the derivation of per capita wealth and per capita transfers. Section 5 deals with the role of population growth and the sixth section covers the intergenerational flows of public-sector resources through a look at the composition of the public sector in the Ivory Coast government expenditures government revenues and the combination of family and public-sector flows. It is concluded that application of this new framework has yielded important findings including the fact that wealth flows downward in this high-fertility setting. Public-sector flows were also strongly downward and were dominated by education expenses. The average citizen in the Ivory Coast experiences negative life-cycle wealth until nearly age 50. High fertility may continue despite the high cost of children as long as children remain the best source of old-age support for parents.

From Patrick to John F.: Ethnic Names and Occupational Success in the Last Era of Mass Migration

Taking advantage of historical census records that include full first and last names, we apply a new approach to measuring the effect of cultural assimilation on economic success for the children of the last great wave of immigrants to the United States. We created a quantitative index of ethnic distinctiveness of first names and show the consequences of ethnic-sounding names for the occupational achievement of the adult children of European immigrants. We find a consistent tendency for the children of Irish, Italian, German, and Polish immigrants with more “American”-sounding names to have higher occupational achievement. About one-third of this effect appears to be due to social class differences in name-giving, and the remaining two-thirds to signaling effects of the names themselves. An exception is found for Russian, predominantly Jewish, immigrants, where we find a positive effect of ethnic naming on occupational achievement. The divergent effects of our new measure of cultural assimilation, sometimes hurting and sometimes helping, lend historical empirical support to more recent theories of the advantages of different paths to assimilation. The effects of ethnic first names are also found for a restricted analysis of recognizably ethnic last names, suggesting that immigrants’ success depended on being perceived as making an effort to assimilate rather than hiding their origins.

Family planning program structure and performance in West Africa.

This study used summaries of case studies and facility surveys to examine the role of vertical and integrated structures and their effectiveness/efficiency in provision of family planning (FP) services in West Africa. Case studies pertain to Cote dIvoire Nigeria Benin Guinea and Ghana. The case studies offer a description of existing FP structures in each country. The analysis of facility-based surveys pertains to Cote dIvoire and Nigeria and detailed data on resource use among providers. The analysis of surveys and case studies focused on vertical and integrated structures as relevant to the implementation of the 1994 Cairo Plan of Action. Vertical programs operated by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provided 44% of all couple-years of protection (CYP) in Cote dIvoire and about 25% in Benin and Guinea. In Nigeria only integrated programs had most of the CYP in 1994. Facility surveys indicate that vertical programs have more efficient staff use. In Cote dIvoire private vertical programs had higher utilization rates than government integrated programs. In Nigeria vertical programs in private or public programs had generally higher utilization rates but results were more ambiguous. Local context appears important in determining effectiveness of vertical vs. integrated programs. It is unclear what the role of higher quality services greater organizational dedication or weakness of the government service system are in determining effectiveness. The trend is for vertical NGOs to expand into government facilities and for IPPF affiliates to include non-FP services in their clinics.

Agency, education and networks: gender and international migration from Albania

This paper examines the causes and dynamics of the shift in the gender composition of migration, and more particularly, in the access of women to migration opportunities and decision making. The context of the analysis is Albania, a natural laboratory for studying migration developments given that out-migration was practically eliminated from the end of World War II to the end of the 1980s. The authors use micro-level data from the Albania 2005 Living Standards Measurement Study including migration histories for family members since migration began. Based on discrete-time hazard models, the analysis shows an impressive expansion of female participation in international migration. Female migration, which is shown to be strongly associated with education, wealth, and social capital, appears responsive to economic incentives and constraints. Yet, using unique data on the dependency of female migration to the household demographic structure as well as the sensitivity of female migration to household-level shocks, the authors show that it is the households themselves that are the decision-making agents behind this economic calculus and there is little to suggest that increased female migration signals the emergence of female agency.

Societal Responses to Endemic Terror: Evidence from Driving Behavior in Israel

In this article, using data on traffic volume and fatal accident rates in Israel from 2001 to 2004–a period spanning much of the Second Intifada–we examine the population-level responses to endemic terror to uncover whether societies become habituated so that the response weakens following repeated attacks or whether they become increasingly sensitized so subsequent attacks have a greater impact. Our analysis, using distributed-lag time series models, supports earlier findings while highlighting the persistence of the response to terror attacks even several years into the violence. There are, however, signs that the reaction to terror has accelerated. This shift, which is not naturally seen as evidence for either habituation or sensitization, is suggestive of social learning of norms over time.