The Psychic Costs of Migration: Evidence from Irish Return Migrants

38 Pages Posted: 12 Feb 2012

See all articles by Alan Barrett

Alan Barrett

Economic and Social Research Institute; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Irene Mosca

National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUI Maynooth)

Abstract

Within the economics literature, the "psychic costs" of migration have been incorporated into theoretical models since Sjaastad (1962). However, the existence of such costs has rarely been investigated in empirical papers. In this paper, we look at the psychic costs of migration using alcohol problems as an indicator. Rather than comparing immigrants and natives, we look at the native-born in a single country and compare those who have lived away for a period of their lives and those who have not. We use data from the first wave of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) which is a large, nationally representative sample of older Irish adults. We find that men who lived away are more likely to have suffered from alcohol problems than men who stayed. For women, we again see a higher incidence of alcohol problems for short-term migrants. However, long-term female migrants are less likely to have suffered from alcohol problems.

Keywords: migrants, psychic costs of migration, alcoholism

JEL Classification: F22, J61, I10

Suggested Citation

Barrett, Alan M. and Mosca, Irene, The Psychic Costs of Migration: Evidence from Irish Return Migrants. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6324, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2003657 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2003657

Alan M. Barrett (Contact Author)

Economic and Social Research Institute ( email )

4 Burlington Road
Dublin 4
Republic of Ireland
+35 31 667 1525 (Phone)
+35 31 668 6231 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Irene Mosca

National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUI Maynooth) ( email )

Maynooth, County Kildare W23 F2H6
Ireland

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
59
Abstract Views
713
Rank
648,431
PlumX Metrics