Migration within the EU: the role of education, wage differences and cultural barriers
There exist marked differences in the educational attainment of immigrants, depending on both the level and
distribution of income in the country of origin and destination. This paper estimates an education-specific gravity
equation for migration between European countries. Given the lack of data on migration flows by level of education,
these are proxied by the difference in resident migrants by nationality and level of education, between the years
2000 and 1990. I find that highly educated individuals are more likely to migrate. They are less sensitive to
geographical and cultural distance as barriers to migration, but are not unambiguously more responsive to wage
differentials. Controlling for education-specific wage differences between origin and destination removes only part
of the observed differences in migration behaviour between education groups.
PERSYN Damiaan;
2017-02-02
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC104494
978-92-79-64431-3,
1831-9424,
EUR 28286 EN,
OP LF-NA-28286-EN-N,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC104494,
10.2791/373605,
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