Is Migration a Learned Behavior? Understanding the Impact of Past Migration on Future Migration

Abstract

Despite growing efforts to conceptualize residential mobility and migration as longterm trajectories, because of methodological challenges and the lack of adequate data, most empirical studies have resorted to examining year-to-year changes in place of residence. As a result, the impact of past migration experiences on future migration behavior remains poorly understood. To shed light on time interdependencies in individual migration trajectories, this paper examines associations between past moves and subsequent migration behavior from birth to age 50, distinguishing between (i) intraregional mobility, interregional migration and international migration and (ii) return and onward moves. By applying multinominal regression models to retrospective life history data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we demonstrate that the decision to migrate at a particular point in time is embedded within a wider migration history that started in childhood. However, we also find that the effect of past moves diminishes as individuals progress in their migration career. These findings hold for intraregional, interregional and international moves. Altogether, these findings lend support to our theoretical proposition that migration is a learned behavior and highlight the importance of accounting for time interdependency in individuals' migration trajectories.

Towards a typology of childhood internal mobility: Do children of migrants and non‐migrants differ?

“…Future research should therefore also consider whether a move involved a downward, upward, or lateral neighbourhood change. Frequent movers experience the above‐mentioned disruptions repeatedly and are therefore a group of children who are potentially most vulnerable to negative mobility effects, the cumulative effect of multiple disruptions in their lives (Mollborn et al, 2018), and potentially less stability in adulthood as well (Bernard & Perales, 2021a). Our current data do not allow to shed more light on the (parental) considerations for moving and how they may mediate potential negative effects on the child.…”

“…Multiple moves are found to have negative effects on educational outcomes (Ersing et al, 2009; Hutchings et al, 2013; Simpson & Fowler, 1994; Tonnessen et al, 2016; Wood et al, 1993), physical and mental health (Busacker & Kasehagen, 2012; Gilman et al, 2003; Paksarian et al, 2015; Price et al, 2018; Tseliou et al, 2016), socioemotional development and problem behaviour (Anderson & Leventhal, 2017; Mollborn et al, 2018; Nathan et al, 2019; Rumbold et al, 2012; Simpson & Fowler, 1994; Wood et al, 1993), delinquent behaviour (Cotton et al, 2017; Vogel et al, 2017), and substance use (Brown et al, 2012; DeWit, 1998; Lee, 2007; Stabler et al, 2015). Additionally, the number of moves during childhood increases the likelihood to move in adulthood (Bernard & Perales, 2021a), indicating that frequent moving during childhood might also result in higher instability in adulthood. However, it remains unclear whether the negative effects of frequent moving are due to the multiple moves or to selection, that is, specific characteristics of frequent movers such as poverty, parental unemployment, single parents, or particular life events such as changes in parental employment or union formation or dissolution (Gasper et al, 2010; Murphey et al, 2012; Vidal & Baxter, 2018).…”

Determinants and consequences of rural‐to‐urban migration patterns in China: Evidence from sequence analysis

“…In particular, early migration experience can affect future migration (A. Bernard & Perales, 2021;De Jong, 2000). However, in the trajectory approach, this possibility is taken account of because past migration experience is incorporated as part of the migration pattern.…”

“…Bernard et al, 2019;Falkingham et al, 2016) or study how past migration experience affects future migration from a life course perspective (A. Bernard & Perales, 2021; A. Bernard & Vidal, 2020).…”

German Labor Emigration in Times of Technological Change: Occupational Characteristics and Geographical Patterns

“…Additionally, we control for respondents' educational degree [10] and assume that the sector or industry the respondents were active before migration as well as changes in the respondents' occupation in the course of migration [57] may influence the migration decision. Finally, we account for respondent's risk attitude [58,59], health status [60,61] and migration background [62] as research suggests that these may influence the individual migration decision. Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics for all variables included in our analyses.…”