Understanding Mass Migration

Unifying Theories of Migration and Remittances

Developmental Consequences of Migration

Gender and Cumulative Causation of Migration

Bayesian Methodology

Network Homophily and Diffusion of Internet Adoption

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching

Papers

Filiz Garip

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Biographical Note

Filiz Garip received her Ph.D. in Sociology and M.S.E in Operations Research & Financial Engineering both from Princeton University. Her empirical research spans the substantive fields of migration, inequality, diffusion, social networks, economic sociology, and development. Her methodological approach is to develop and employ custom analysis techniques that can most effectively answer the substantive question at-hand. She primarily applies quantitative methods and analyzes large survey data, yet supplements the empirical results with insights from qualitative field observation. Besides flexibility with respect to different styles of analysis, her research is characterized by openness to multiple disciplinary viewpoints. Coming from an engineering background, she often combines different approaches, ideas or methods that are typically separated by disciplinary boundaries.

Filiz’s research questions typically focus on situations where individuals’ choices are affected by the choices of others around them, and consequently aggregate patterns cannot simply be extrapolated from isolated individual characteristics. Her first line of research deals with a puzzle in the Thai internal migration context: While migration to urban areas reaches mass levels in some sending communities, it lingers at low levels in other communities that are at first glance very similar. Filiz argues that this macro-level puzzle can be explained by individual level interactions within social networks that connect migrants to other community members. Specifically, the accumulation and distribution of social capital (defined as information or assistance provided by prior migrants that can facilitate migrating for potential migrants) can explain the divergent migration outcomes in sending communities.

The other two lines of research ask similar questions, and similarly attempt to understand puzzling aggregate patterns by identifying underlying individual level mechanisms. Her second line of work, in collaboration with Sara Curran, merges insights from gender studies and cumulative causation theory of migration, and finds that differential information-sharing patterns of men and women in rural Thailand lead to gender-specific cumulative migration patterns to urban areas. In January 2006, this project was awarded an NSF grant for additional data collection. Filiz’s third line of work, in collaboration with Paul DiMaggio, questions the variation in internet adoption rates of different socio-economic groups in the U.S., and combines economic theory on network externalities with diffusion models to provide an explanation.

Listed below are brief descriptions of the papers Filiz is currently working on. (Links to the copies of the published papers are provided at the end of the page. Posting of these papers for downloading is intended for educational purposes only and adherence to copyright laws is assumed. Please send email to obtain the latest versions of the unpublished work.)

UNDERSTANDING MASS MIGRATION

How can we explain mass migration? Why is it that some communities reach high levels of migration, while others linger at much lower levels? How can we explain these divergent outcomes?

Social Capital and Migration: How Do Similar Resources Lead to Divergent Outcomes?
Filiz Garip. 2008. Demography 45(3). Winner of the 2006 Best Student Paper Award of the ASA Population Section.

This article investigates how migrant social capital differentially influences individuals’ migration and cumulatively generates divergent outcomes for communities. To combine the fragmented findings in the literature, the article proposes a framework that decomposes migrant social capital into resources (information about or assistance with migration), sources (prior migrants), and recipients (potential migrants). Analysis of multilevel and longitudinal data from 22 rural villages in Thailand shows that the probability of internal migration increases with the available resources, yet the magnitude of increase depends on recipients’ characteristics and the strength of their ties to sources. Specifically, individuals become more likely to migrate if migrant social capital resources are greater and more accessible. The diversity of resources by occupation increases the likelihood of migration, while diversity by destination inhibits it. Resources from weakly tied sources, such as village members, have a higher effect on migration than resources from strongly tied sources in the household. Finally, the importance of resources for migration declines with recipients’ own migration experience. These findings challenge the mainstream account of migrant social capital as a uniform resource that generates similar migration outcomes for different groups of individuals or in different settings. In Nang Rong villages, depending on the configuration of resources, sources, and recipients, migrant social capital leads to differential migration outcomes for individuals and divergent cumulative migration patterns in communities.

Increasing Migration, Diverging Communities: Changing Character of Migrant Streams in Rural Thailand
Filiz Garip and Sara Curran. 2008. Working Paper.

This paper studies how increasing migration changes the character of migrant streams in sending communities. Cumulative causation theory posits that past migration patterns determine future flows, as prior migrants provide resources, influence, or normative pressures that make community members more likely to migrate. The theory implies uniform patterns of exponentially increasing migration flows that are decreasingly selective. Yet, recent research identifies heterogeneity in the cumulative patterns and selectivity of migration in communities. We propose that this heterogeneity might be explained by the differential accessibility of previously accumulated migration experience. Multi-level, longitudinal migration data from 22 rural Thai communities allow us to measure the distribution of past experience and capture its accessibility to community members. We find that migration becomes a less-selective process as migration experience accumulates, and migrants become increasingly diverse in terms of age, sex, and marital status. Yet, the selectivity within migrant streams persists if migration experience is not uniformly distributed among, and hence not equally accessible to, all community members. The results confirm that the accumulation and distribution of prior migrants’ experiences distinctly shape future migration flows, and may lead to diverging cumulative patterns in communities over time.

International Migration in Context: Migrant Types, Strategies and Outcomes
Filiz Garip. 2008. Working Paper.

This paper explores types of migrants from Mexico to the United States in the period 1970-2000. Prior work analyzes the distinctions between migrants and non-migrants and suggests a number of theories that explain migration behavior. While each theory uncovers a different facet of migration flows, no single theory is able to capture the complexity of individuals’ migration choices. Furthermore, focusing on what distinguishes migrants from non-migrants, prior research effectively treats migrants as a homogenous group, assuming that they respond to changes in the migration context in the same way. This paper develops a context-dependent model of migration and argues that variations in the social, economic and political context of sending and receiving regions create different conditions for migrating. These conditions are heightened or lessened by migrants’ demographic characteristics and family networks. Hence, together all these elements help identify different types or strategies of migrants. A cluster analysis, informed by theories of migration, finds five distinct types of migrants from Mexico to the United States: network migrants (those who follow family or community migrants), income-maximizing migrants (those who seek to increase their income), risk-diversifying migrants (those who migrate to diversify their sources of income), push migrants (those who migrate to escape worsening economic conditions in Mexico), and pull migrants (those who take advantage of favorable migrating conditions to the U.S.). The relative presence and dominance of each migrant type follows a clear time pattern, signifying critical changes in the Mexican-U.S. migration context. Moreover, migrant types seem to influence several outcomes (legal or illegal entry, subsequent trips, length of stay), and lead to specific predictions not foreseen by the theories of migration. These results not only provide novel insights into the migration process between Mexico and the U.S., but they also show that different theories about why individuals migrate may each be correct in different contexts. Future research should focus on the interrelations among different theories of migration, and identify the specific contexts under which different ideas work.

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UNIFYING THEORIES OF MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES

How are migration and remittance choices related? What is the (empirical and theoretical) cost of treating them as separate phenomena?

An Integrated Analysis of Migration and Remittances: Modeling Migration as a Mechanism for Selection
Filiz Garip. 2007. Working Paper.

Prior work models individuals’ migration and remittance behavior separately, and finds mixed empirical support for altruistic or contractual motives for remitting. This paper argues that the inconsistency of prior findings may result from selection bias. To control for this bias statistically, this study treats migration as a mechanism for selection and employs a censored probit model to evaluate hypotheses about remittance motives. Using unique longitudinal and multi-level data from the Thai internal migration context, the study reports three findings: First, altruistic and insurance motives positively influence both migration and remittance probability. Second, bargaining, inheritance seeking and investment motives decrease probability of migrating, but increase probability of remitting. Third, these results are considerably different than those obtained by a conventional approach of modeling remittances separately. The study concludes that migration and remittances are related processes, and it is crucial for an analysis of remittances to control for the selectivity of migration.

Origin Community Networks and Diffusion of Remittance Behavior Among Mexico-U.S. Migrants
Filiz Garip. 2008. Working Paper.

Remittances from migrants constitute an increasingly important component of livelihoods in developing countries, and of scholarly debate in the literature. Prior research suggests altruism, insurance or investment as potential motives for migrant remittances. This paper suggests an alternative view: Remittances may result from social interactions in origin community networks, and migrants may be influenced by other migrants’ behavior. Using longitudinal survey data from the Mexican Migration Project, this paper analyzes the remittance flows between Mexico and the United States from 1970 to 2000, and argues that the increase in the amount of remittances over time can be partially attributed to peer effects. To separate peer effects from other confounding influences, the paper utilizes an identification strategy outlined by Manski (1993), and introduces nonlinear and lagged measures of aggregate group behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that, even controlling for the most important determinants of remittances suggested by prior work, migrants’ behaviors are strongly correlated with aggregate remittance patterns in the origin community. These results seem robust to the addition of community fixed-effects. These encouraging findings indicate the potential cumulative nature of remittance behavior, and invite the application of additional analysis to determine future predictions and policy directions.

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DEVELOPMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF MIGRATION

What are the distributional consequences of migration and remittance flows for sending communities? Which socio-economic groups benefit most by sending migrants and receiving remittances?

Internal Migration, Remittances and Community Development
Filiz Garip. 2007. Working Paper.

This paper evaluates how rural-urban migration and remittance flows alter the level and distribution of household assets in 22 sending communities in Nang Rong, Thailand. Principal components analysis is used to construct an index of household assets from sixteen asset indicators measured in 1994 and 2000. The index is decomposed into productive and consumer assets, which constitute two broad categories of investments, with potentially different implications for future household wealth and community development. The changes in the total, productive and consumer asset indices over 6 years are then modeled as a function of migration-remittance behavior of households in 1994, and other household and village characteristics in 1994 and 2000. Because households’ migration-remittance behavior is non-random, a two-stage estimation technique is used to correct for selectivity bias, where selection is specified as a multinomial choice among three household strategies: not migrate, migrate-not remit, migrate-remit. Separate models are estimated for poor, medium-wealth and rich households to evaluate the changes in wealth distribution in communities as a result of migration and remittances. The findings show that households’ migration and remittance choices have a significant effect on the level and nature of their subsequent investments, and this effect depends strongly on households’ initial wealth. Specifically, while rich households face a decrease in productive assets due to migration of their members, poor households gain assets, and improve their relative status within their communities.

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GENDER AND CUMULATIVE CAUSATION OF MIGRATION

How does migration create a cumulative, self-feeding dynamic? How does this cumulative mechanism differ by gender context in origin and labor market context in destination?

Gendered Migrant Social Capital: Evidence from Thailand
Sara Curran, Filiz Garip, Chang Chung, and Kanchana Tangchonlatip. 2006. Social Forces 84(1): 225-255.

Employing longitudinal data from Thailand to replicate studies of cumulative causation, we extend current knowledge by measuring frequency of trips, duration of time away, level of network aggregation (village or household), and sex composition of migrant networks and estimating a model of prospective migration among men and women in Thailand. We find that trips and duration of time away have distinct influences upon migration; that household level migrant networks are more influential than village level migrant networks; that female migrant networks and male migrant networks have different influences upon migration outcomes; and, that migrant social capital influences men and women’s migration differently. Our elaboration provides significant quantitative evidence for how gender and family variously imbue migration dynamics.

Mapping Gender and Migration in Sociological Scholarship: Is It Segregation or Integration?
Sara Curran, Steven Shafer, Katherine Donato, and Filiz Garip. 2006. International Migration Review 40(1): 199-223.

Sociology scholarship has evolved over the last thirty years to demonstrate the substantial ways in which gender fundamentally organizes the social relations and structures influencing the causes and consequences of migration. We describe the intellectual evolution of this scholarship and note that most empirical and theoretical insights are based in studies employing qualitative methods. We then evaluate leading quantitative migration scholarship through systematically coding all of the articles that have been published in the leading Sociology journals between 1994 and 2004: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and Social Forces. We find little evidence that gender is treated as a constitutive element in quantitative migration studies in Sociology during the 1990s and early 21st century and continue to find one-fifth of the migration studies failing to acknowledge the sex composition of their sample. We conclude that migration scholarship continues to be methodologically segregated vis-à-vis gender and offer suggestions for integration in future research.

Heterogeneous Migration Flows Across Destination and Gender in Thailand.
Sara Curran, Filiz Garip, and Chang Chung. 2007. Working Paper.

In an age of migration, anticipating, directing, or stemming migration flows is a leading dilemma for policy makers confronting a broad range of concerns. A critical research finding is that migration flows can develop a self-sustaining momentum that is difficult to redirect. This phenomenon, predicted by cumulative causation theory, hypothesizes that migration flows gain momentum and eventually become self-sustaining due to the accumulation of migration experience in the form of migrant social capital. Migration studies evaluating the theory are substantial, especially for the Mexican-U.S. case, but also for other sites, powerfully demonstrating how macro social structures influence behavior and vice versa. However, recent research also shows that rather than uniformity in the macro-micro migration dynamic, instead there is still substantial heterogeneity in migration patterns at both the community and individual level. We propose that this heterogeneity in patterning can be explained by further theorizing the mechanisms that underlie cumulative causation. Specifically, we propose that migrant social capital evolves differently depending the historical continuity of migration flows to and from a particular destination and the social proximity of migrants to potential migrants in origin communities. We examine longitudinal data from Thailand to test this theoretical modification by estimating migration models to substantively different destinations, observing migration experiences at multiple levels of social proximity (individual, household, and community). Our models also include a gender account of these patterns, since gender is a fundamental social organizing mechanism. We find significant cumulative differences in migration patterns that can be explained by historical continuities to destinations and social proximity within origin communities. In addition, men’s and women’s accumulated migration experiences, differential social proximity, and differential access to migrant social capital demonstrate that heterogeneity in migration flows is also driven by gender.

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BAYESIAN METHODOLOGY

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Bayesian approach in analyzing comparative data?

Bayesian Analysis of Comparative Survey Data
Bruce Western and Filiz Garip. 2008. Working Paper.

Bayesian hierarchical models provide a useful way of analyzing multilevel survey data. The Bayesian estimates have good statistical properties, make good predictions, and realistically account for clustering in the data. Still the Bayesian estimates can be biased in the presence of omitted variables and fixed effect models might sometimes be preferable. Bayesian statistics for model comparison and evaluation—posterior predictive checks and the Deviance Information Criterion—assist an empirical approach to distinguishing between hierarchical models and their alternatives. These ideas are illustrated with an analysis of migration data from 22 villages in the Nang Rong district of Thailand.

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NETWORK HOMOPHILY AND DIFFUSION OF INTERNET ADOPTION (with Paul DiMaggio)

Internet adoption is a process with network externalities (i.e., the more people adopt the more attractive the technology). Are processes with network externalities more prone to generating and sustaining inter-group inequalities? Can homophily within social networks help us understand the inequalities among social groups in the diffusion of the internet or the diffusion of migration?

Intergroup Inequality as a Product of Diffusion of Practices with Network Externalities Under Conditions of Social Homophily: Applications to the Digital Divide in the U.S. and Rural/Urban Migration in Thailand
Paul DiMaggio and Filiz Garip. 2008. Working Paper.

Research in social stratification has tended to view intergroup inequality in one of two ways. Work in the status-attainment tradition focuses on individual outcomes and, by implication, views the reproduction of intergroup inequality as a consequence of agents with differing endowments attaining outcomes that vary depending on the level of those endowments. More recent work has deviated from this aggregationist strategy in two ways. First, researchers have introduced social structure, in the sense of ego-centered social networks, as an additional kind of resource upon which actors draw in their efforts to retain privilege or achieve social mobility. Second, other researchers have studied how collective action may alter the terms of competition by changing state policies or the practices of private actors in response to claims by mobilized groups. In this paper, we introduce a third mechanism, which we contend chronically reproduces and, under some conditions, may generate or even efface intergroup inequality. That mechanism is (a) the diffusion of goods, services, and practices that (b) are characterized by strong network externalities under conditions of (c) social homophily. When the value of a good or practice to an agent is a function of the number of persons in that agent’s network who also possess the good or engage in the practice, and when networks are homophilic with respect to certain social characteristics, this mechanism will exacerbate initial individual-level differences in access to the good or practice and, under some conditions, induce persistent intergroup inequality. We illustrate this claim in two empirical contexts. For the first, the diffusion of access to and use of the Internet, we start with observed data on the relationship between cost and adoption and between adoption levels and price, and produce a computational model that permits us to predict variation in intergroup inequality over time as a function of variation in the strength of network externalities and the extent of social homophily. For the second, the practice of rural-to-urban migration by young people in rural Thailand, we use village-level data on family resources and migration patterns to explore the relationship between information sharing, homophily, and intergroup differences in migration. We conclude with a discussion of the scope conditions of our argument and the range of phenomena to which this mechanism may apply.

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10/12/2008

Curriculum Vitae

Courses Offered This Academic Year

Papers available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

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