Comparative Internal Migration

• In Event: The Politics of Identities

Abstract

This paper studies differences in government policies to encourage or limit internal migration in nations around the world. Most studies focus on international migration for its important connection to economic growth, violent conflict, and human development. However, internal migration is a far more common phenomenon with critical links to economic development and government accountability and responsiveness. Despite economists' insistence that internal migration policies should allow for free flow of citizens, most developing nations, in particular, have policies that limit mobility, especially for less educated citizens or those from particular ethnic, linguistic, or religious groups. We provide the first, to our knowledge, comparative review of internal migrations policies around the world, which we classify according to nations' restrictiveness and the nature of their restrictions. We then develop a conceptual model for why countries may impose internal migrations policies. We focus on the political implications of population movement as a key reason to put restrictions in place. Finally, we test whether the empirical expectations from our conceptual model are realized in a rich new dataset of internal migration policies.

Authors

• Melissa Ziegler Rogers, Claremont Graduate University

• Yuzhu Zeng, Claremont Graduate University