Figure 4 - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Content may be subject to copyright.
Predicted probabilities of emigration to the United States by class origin and rural/urban residence. Note: See Figure 3.
Source publication
We examine selection by class origin and gender in the emigration from Sweden to the United States during the age of mass migration. We use full-count census data linked to emigration lists to create a panel of over one million men and women. Class selection was similar for men and women, with children from medium-skilled backgrounds being most lik...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... shown in Figure 4, the selection patterns are similar in rural and urban areas, but the differences by class origin for men are somewhat larger in rural areas than in urban areas. In rural areas, the skilled workers are the most migration prone, while in the urban areas individuals from farming origins are most likely to emigrate, which could reflect a stagemigration pattern where individuals first move out of the rural areas and then onwards (see, e.g. ...
Citations
Unlabelled:
A standard proposition in the migration literature is that emigrants are not drawn randomly from their source population, but rather compose a self-selected group in terms of labour market characteristics. Such self-selection refers to observed characteristics, such as education, or occupation, as well as unobserved characteristics such as cognitive abilities. However, due to data limitations, most previous studies on selectivity have analysed immigrants' characteristics at destinations rather than using data from their source countries. This paper assesses emigrants' selectivity patterns by following the full-risk population of natives over a long period of time (over 20 years). It also includes an innovative measure of selectivity on unobserved characteristics-namely, school performance-as a proxy for individual motivation and cognitive abilities, and it compares it to the widely used measure of income residuals. We use Swedish register data and assess the probabilities of leaving Sweden between 1993 and 2014 among men and women born in Sweden between 1975 and 1978. We further look for differences among Swedish emigrants who chose different countries of destination. The findings suggest that emigrants are positively self-selected in terms of their observed characteristics, whereas selectivity patterns in terms of unobserved characteristics are more complex. When we assess unobservable characteristics using compulsory school grades as a proxy, emigrants are found to be positively self-selected, while when using income residuals, we find that the effect is U-shaped. Individuals leaving to non-Nordic countries are also found to be more positively self-selected than those heading to neighbouring countries. We discuss these findings and their implications in light of economic and sociological theories.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09634-3.
