Female Brain Drains and Women's Rights Gaps: A Gravity Model Analysis of Bilateral Migration Flows
48 Pages Posted: 21 Dec 2012 Last revised: 15 Mar 2014
There are 2 versions of this paper
Female Brain Drains and Women's Rights Gaps: A Gravity Model Analysis of Bilateral Migration Flows
Female Brain Drains and Women's Rights Gaps: A Gravity Model Analysis of Bilateral Migration Flows
Date Written: March 15, 2014
Abstract
In this paper we model the migration decisions of high-skilled women as a function of the benefits associated with moving from an origin with relatively low women´s rights to a destination with a relatively high women´s rights. However, the costs faced by women are decreasing in the level of women´s rights provided. The model predicts a non-linear relationship between the relative levels of women’s rights in destination versus origin countries (the women’s rights gap) and the gender gap in high-skilled migration flows (the female brain drain ratio). In particular, starting from large values of the women´s rights gap (where women´s rights are very low in the origin) decreases in the gap may be associated with increases in the female brain drain ratio. However, starting from lower levels of the gap the relationship is positive: a greater gain in women´s rights moving from origin to destination is, all else equal, associated with a greater likelihood of migration. Using a cross section of over 3,000 bilateral migration flows across OECD and non-OECD countries and the women’s rights indices from the CIRI Human Rights Dataset, we report evidence consistent with the theory. A statistically significant and nonlinear relationship exists between women’s rights gaps and female brain drain ratios. The evidence is particularly strong for the case of women’s political rights.
Keywords: female brain drain, high-skilled female migration, bilateral migration flows, women’s rights, institutional quality, gravity models
JEL Classification: F22, J11, J61, J16, O17, O43
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Brain Drain: Curse or Boon?
By Simon John Commander, Mari Kangasniemi, ...
-
Brain Drain and Ldcs' Growth: Winners and Losers
By Michel A. R. Beine, Frédéric Docquier, ...
-
Skilled Migration: The Perspective of Developing Countries
By Frédéric Docquier and Hillel Rapoport
-
Brain Drain in Developing Regions (1990-2000)
By Frédéric Docquier, Olivier Lohest, ...
-
Human Capital Flight: Impact of Migration on Income and Growth
By Nadeem Ul Haque and Se-jik Kim
-
Measuring the International Mobility of Skilled Workers (1990-2000): Release 1.0
-
Brain Gain: Claims About its Size and Impact on Welfare and Growth are Greatly Exaggerated
-
A Gendered Assessment of the Brain Drain
By B. Lindsay Lowell, Abdeslam Marfouk, ...