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1. The Impact of Migration and Remittances on Wealth Accumulation and Distribution in Rural Thailand

Author:
Filiz Garip
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper studies the impact of internal migration and remittance flows on wealth accumulation and distribution in 22 rural villages in Nang Rong, Thailand. Using data from 943 households, the study constructs indices of household productive and consumer assets with principal components analysis. The changes in these indices from 1994 to 2000 are modeled as a function of households' prior migration and remittance behavior while correcting for potential selectivity bias with propensity score matching. The findings show that rich households face a decrease in productive assets due to migration of their members, while poor households with migrants gain productive assets and improve their relative status in their communities. These results suggest an equalizing effect of migration and remittance flows on wealth distribution in rural Thailand.
Topic:
Migration, Poverty, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Thailand and Southeast Asia

2. Increasing Migration, Diverging Communities: Changing Character of Migrant Streams in Rural Thailand

Author:
Filiz Garip
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper studies how increasing migration changes the character of migrant streams in sending communities. Cumulative causation theory posits that past mi- gration patterns determine future flows, as prior migrants provide resources, influence, or normative pressures that make individuals more likely to migrate. The theory implies uniform patterns of exponentially increasing migration flows that are decreasingly selective. Recent research identifies heterogeneity in the cumulative patterns and selectivity of migration in communities. We propose that this heterogeneity may be ex- plained by the differential accessibility of previously accumulated migration experience. Multi-level, longitudinal migration data from 22 rural Thai communities allow us to measure the distribution of past experience as a proxy for its accessibility to community members. We find that migration becomes a less-selective process as migration expe- rience accumulates, and migrants become increasingly diverse in socio-demographic characteristics. Yet, selectivity within migrant streams persists if migration experience is not uniformly distributed among, and hence not equally accessible to, all community members. The results confirm that the accumulation and distribution of prior mi- grants' experiences distinctly shape future migration flows, and may lead to diverging cumulative patterns in communities over time.
Topic:
Migration, Political Economy, and Sociology
Political Geography:
Thailand and Southeast Asia

3. Model Comparison and Simulation for Hierarchical Models: Analyzing Rural-Urban Migration in Thailand

Author:
Filiz Garip and Bruce Western
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Sociological research often examines the effects of social context with hierarchical models. In these applications, individuals are nested in social contexts-like school classes, neighborhoods or villages-whose effects are thought to shape individual outcomes. Although applications of hierarchical models are common in sociology, analysis usually focuses on inference for fixed parameters. Researchers seldom study model fit or examine aggregate patterns of variation implied by model parameters. We present an analysis of Thai migration data, in which survey respondents are nested within villages and report annual migration information. We study a variety of hierarchical models, investigating model fit with DIC and posterior predictive statistics. We also describe a simulation to study how different initial distributions of migration across villages produce increasing inter-village inequality in migration.
Topic:
Migration, Social Stratification, and Sociology
Political Geography:
Asia, Thailand, and Southeast Asia