Migration, recessions and social protection in the EU
Médédé Tchakpalla  1, @  , Florence Huart * , @
1 : Lille - Economie et Management  (LEM)  -  Website
CNRS : UMR9221, Université Lille I - Sciences et technologies, Fédération Universitaire et Polytechnique de Lille
* : Corresponding author
We want to determine what are the main push and pull factors of migration in Europe. To do so, a gravity model is estimated on a new dataset of bilateral migration ows between 28 member countries of the European Union (EU) over the period 1980-2015. We also look at migration factors in a sub-sample of countries which are members of the Euro area (EA). We pay special attention to the response of migration to domestic and foreign macroeconomic conditions, in particular during periods of recession, and to the role of unemployment and social benets. Our main results are as follows: i) migration ows react to wage and unemployment dierentials between destination and origin countries in the EU but not to wage dierentials in the EA; ii) intra-EU and intra-EA mobility increased during the Great Financial Crisis, the Euro Crisis, and recessions in the origin country; iii) furthermore, unemployment benets have a positive eect on migration within the EU whereas social benets act as a deterrent to potential emigrants in the EA; iv) however, national disparities in social benets do not play a role in the direction of migration ows within the EU but they do in the EA.

 

Subject : : Article
Language of text : English
Topics : Finance and Development 1
Keywords : Migration ; labour mobility ; European monetary union ; optimum currency areas.
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