This project will examine the determinants of migration in Indonesia and Malaysia over the last 30 to 40 years using data from the Indonesian and Malaysian Family Life Surveys (IFLS and MFLS).
The first aim of this research is to investigate the connection between mobility and development, and to isolate the most salient aspects of economic development that encourage mobility. As economic development proceeds, demand shocks are typically far from spatially uniform, with some sub- areas enjoying considerably greater growth than other areas. This uneven growth gives people incentives to move (at least temporarily) from economically stagnant areas to places with rapid job and wage growth. In addition, development is often associated with improved infrastructure across several dimensions that can affect mobility. As the roads are built and improved and alternative modes of transportation develop, the costs of moving from one place to another may decline rapidly. Differential regional development may also alter the relative values of living in different communities as community infrastructure (schools, health clinics, water and sanitation) are built and improve at different rates. Finally, governmental policies may explicitly encourage and subsidize migration into certain areas to alleviate real or perceived problems of over-population and congestion. In our research, we will imbed these migration decisions within the framework of an extended household. Our prior research has indicated that there are three distinct life-cycle stages of migration decisions--pre- marriage, at marriage, and post-marriage. In countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, the extended family appears to make collective location decisions, sharing information about geographically diverse labor markets, specializing in income producing activities for remittances, and helping each other in time of need. The motives for migration are quite distinct between these three stages, and economic development appears to have quite different impacts on each stage. Finally, this project will conduct an analysis of sample attrition (and its relation to prior mobility) between the panels of the IFLS and MFLS surveys.
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