(iPoster) Material Self-Interest, Status Threat, and Skilled Emigration

• In Event: Poster Session: International Political Economy II

Abstract

While international migration has garnered bourgeoning attention in Political Science, we have yet to seriously examine how potential migrants in developing countries—as opposed to native-borns and interest groups in developed countries—respond to immigration openness in developed countries. With the combination of a pre-registered survey experiment, observational data, and qualitative interviews, this paper presents the first systematic study of how the Chinese skilled upper-middle class—one of the largest sources of economic potential and skilled labor in the world—reacts differently to appeals and opportunities of migration to developed countries, when those appeals and opportunities are interacted with changes in different dimensions of China’s domestic material conditions. The paper finds significant evidence that material disparities between sending and receiving countries alone do not incentivize skilled migration of the upper-middle class; such disparities must also negatively affect the social status of this class stratum in the sending country. Some comparative material “shortcomings” in the origin country, such as the inefficient and insufficient provision of public goods and welfare, can paradoxically highlight the social privilege and exclusivity enjoyed by the upper-middle class, discouraging this class stratum from migrating in response to better material conditions in the destination country. By contrast, comparative material shortcomings in the origin country that hamper the upper-middle class’s capacity for private consumption and wealth accumulation can threaten the status of this class stratum, encouraging migration to destination countries with more appeal for private consumption and wealth accumulation. Taken together, the findings suggest that skilled migration from developing to developed economies occurs only when both economic and sociotropic conditions are met; they elucidate the overlooked role of socio-tropics in existing assumptions about skilled migration incentives, which have overwhelmingly focused on material self-interests.

The academic and policy importance of my research agenda and findings are three-fold. First, understanding the patterns that undergird international human capital flows complements International Political Economy’s traditional emphasis on the cross-national movements of firms, goods, and money. My investigation of the global movements of high-skilled upper-middle class citizens from migrant-sending countries sheds light on the international human-capital induced distribution of economic resources. Second, by analyzing how high-skilled immigration openness interacts with various material conditions in the origin country and conceptualizing the decision to migrate in the context of a range of responses (e.g., Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty framework) that one can adopt to deal with material shortcomings in the origin country (“push factors”), my research connects international migration more closely to domestic political behavior, bridging gap between International Relations and Comparative Politics. Third, I integrate materialist, psychological, and sociological concepts on international migration from adjacent fields (Economics and Sociology), which have thus far been treated as distinct logics, to construct a unifying framework on the micro-foundational incentives that determine the international distribution of skilled human capital. This materialist-psychological approach contributes to the bourgeoning effort to integrate foundations of political psychology into IPE.

Author

• Lucy Song, Harvard University