Fears and Tears : Should More People Be Moving within and from Developing Countries, and What Stops This Movement?
Only one in seven of the world’s population has ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in income possible through international and internal movement. This paper examines the evidence for different explanations given in the economics literature...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099424207252223879/IDU05c47432a0e34c04a9e0a0a600eb85c133d63 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37759 |
| Summary: | Only one in seven of the world’s
population has ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in
income possible through international and internal movement.
This paper examines the evidence for different explanations
given in the economics literature for this lack of movement
and their implications for policy. Incorrect information
about the gains to migrating, liquidity constraints that
prevent poor people paying the costs of moving, and high
costs of movement arising from both physical transportation
costs and policy barriers all inhibit movement and offer
scope for policy efforts to inform, provide credit, and
lower moving costs. However, the economics literature has
paid less attention to the fears people have when faced with
the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and to the reasons
behind the tears they shed when moving. While these tears
reveal the attachment people have to particular places, this
attachment is not fixed, but itself changes with migration
experiences. Psychological factors such as a bias toward the
status quo and the inability to picture what one is giving
up by not migrating can result in people not moving, even
when they would benefit from movement and are not
constrained by finances or policy barriers from doing so.
This suggests new avenues for policy interventions that can
help individuals better visualize the opportunity costs of
not moving, alleviate their uncertainties, and help shift
their default behavior from not migrating. |
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