Forced migration and human capital. Evidence from post-WWII population transfers.

Autor/inn/en	Becker, Sascha O.; Grosfeld, Irena; Grosjean, Pauline; Voigtländer, Nico; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina
Institution	University of Warwick / Department of Economics
Titel	Forced migration and human capital. Evidence from post-WWII population transfers. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Zwangsmigration und Humankapital. Erkenntnisse aus Umsiedlungen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.
Quelle	Coventry (2018), 76 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	Warwick economic research paper. 1164
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie
ISSN	2059-4283
Schlagwörter	Bildung; Bildungsmobilität; Generation; Bildungsabschluss; Zweite Generation; Migration; Mobilität; Investition; Nachkriegszeit; Auswirkung; Ziel; Dritte Generation; Flüchtling; Pole; Herkunftsland; Polen; Sowjetunion
Abstract	"We exploit a unique historical setting to study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, the Polish borders were redrawn, resulting in large-scale migration. Poles were forced to move from the Kresy territories in the East (taken over by the USSR) and were resettled mostly to the newly acquired WesternTerritories, from which Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey data to show that, while there were no pre-WWII differences in education, Poles with a family history of forced migration are significantly more educated today. Descendants of forced migrants have on average one extra year of schooling, driven by a higher propensity to finish secondary or higher education.This result holds when we restrict ancestral locations to a subsample around the former Kresy border and include fixed effects for the destination of migrants. As Kresy migrants were of the same ethnicity and religion as other Poles, we bypass confounding factors of other cases of forced migration. We show that labor market competition with natives and selection of migrants areal so unlikely to drive our results. Survey evidence suggests that forced migration led to a shift in preferences, away from material possessions and towards investment in a mobile asset - human capital. The effects persist over three generations." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku).
Erfasst von	Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg
Update	2018/4