How Do Pacific Island Households and Communities Cope with Seasonally Absent Members?

Publication:
How Do Pacific Island Households and Communities Cope with Seasonally Absent Members?

Date

2009

ISSN

08178038

Published

2009

Author(s)

Rohorua, Halahingano

Gibson, John

McKenzie, David

Garcia Martinez, Pilar

Abstract

Households and communities in the Pacific islands are increasingly likely to have some of their most productive members regularly absent due to growing opportunities for seasonal work abroad. If these absences are costly for the family left behind, the net development benefits of seasonal migration will be less than what they appear from remittances and repatriated foreign earnings, and there might be a role for government policies in host and source countries to mitigate some of the effects of absence. This article provides the first evidence of how Pacific island households and communities are affected by and cope with seasonal absences. We find that Tongan households have succeeded in mitigating many of the potential adverse effects associated with seasonal separation of members, whereas households from Vanuatu with members participating in the RSE appear to have suffered some short-term costs in terms of diet and health.

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How Pro-Poor Is the Selection of Seasonal Migrant Workers from Tonga under New Zealand's Recognized Seasonal Employer Program?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-08) Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Rohorua, Halahingano
Temporary migration programs for unskilled workers are increasingly being proposed as a way to both relieve labor shortages in developed countries and aid development in sending countries without entailing many of the costs associated with permanent migration. New Zealand's new Recognized Seasonal Employer program is designed to enable unskilled workers from the Pacific Islands to work in horticulture and viticulture in New Zealand for a period of up to seven months. However, the development impact on a sending country will depend not only on how many workers participate, but also on who participates. This paper uses new survey data from Tonga to examine the process of selecting workers for the Recognized Seasonal Employer program, and to analyze how pro-poor the recruitment process has been to date. The findings show that recruited workers come from largely agricultural backgrounds, and have lower average incomes and schooling levels than Tongans not participating in the program. Comparing the characteristics of program workers with those of Tongans applying to permanently migrate to New Zealand through the Pacific Access Category, the program workers are more rural and less educated. The program therefore seems to have succeeded in creating new opportunities for relatively poor and unskilled Tongans to work in New Zealand.
The Long-Term Impacts of International Migration
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Rohorua, Halahingano; Stillman, Steven
This study examines the long-term impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The long-term gain in income is found to be similar in magnitude to the gain in the first year, despite migrants upgrading their education and changing their locations and occupations. This results in large, sustained benefits to the migrants’ immediate family, who have substantially higher consumption, durable asset ownership, savings, and dietary diversity. In contrast, the study finds no measureable impact on extended family.
The Impacts of International Migration on Remaining Household Members : Omnibus Results from a Migration Lottery Program
(2009-06-01) Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Stillman, Steven
The impacts of international migration on development in the sending countries, and especially the effects on remaining household members, are increasingly studied. However, comparisons of households in developing countries with and without migrants are complicated by a double-selectivity problem: households self-select into migration, and among households involved in migration, some send a subset of members with the rest remaining while other households migrate en masse. The authors address these selectivity issues using the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category of New Zealand s immigration policy. They survey applicants to the 2002-05 ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining household members of emigrants with those for members of similar households that were unsuccessful in the ballots. The immigration laws determine which household members can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument to address the second selectivity issue. Using this natural experiment, the authors examine the myriad impacts that migration has on remaining household members, focussing on labor supply, income, durable assets, financial service usage, diet, and physical and mental health. The analysis uses multiple hypothesis testing procedures to examine which impacts are robust. The findings indicate that the overall impact on households left behind is largely negative. The findings also reveal evidence that both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies that fail to adequately address them to misrepresent the impact of migration.
The Long-term Impacts of International Migration
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-02-01) Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Rohorua, Halahingano; Stillman, Steven
We examine the long-term impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The long-term gain in income is found to be similar in magnitude to the gain in the first year despite migrants upgrading their education and changing their locations and occupations. This results in large sustained benefits to their immediate family who have substantially higher consumption, durable asset ownership, savings, and dietary diversity. In contrast we find no measurable impact on extended family.
The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-10) Gibson, John; McKenzie, David; Rohorua, Halahingano; Stillman, Steven
This paper studies how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. The setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration lottery program. In a 10-year follow-up survey of individuals applying for this program, the study elicited risk and time preferences and pro-market beliefs. It also linked migrants and potential migrants to a partner household consisting of family members who would stay behind if the migrants moved. Survey participants played lab-in-the-field games designed to measure the degree of intra-family trust and the efficiency of intra-family decision-making. Migration provides a large and permanent positive shock to income, a large change in economic institutions, and a reduction in interactions with partner household members. Despite these changes, the study finds no significant impacts of migration on risk and time preferences, pro-market beliefs, or the decision-making efficiency of transnational households. This stability in the face of such a large and life-changing event lends credence to economic models of migration that treat these determinants of decision-making as time-invariant, and contrasts with recent evidence on preference changes after negative shocks.

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