Migrant Selectivity and Grit

Keywords: Migration, Urbanization, Longitudinal Survey, Population Geography, Grit. Selectivity
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 2

Abstract

Migrant selectivity complicates our understanding of who migrates, when, and where. The primacy of economic motivations for labor migration is well-established in the literature. This in turn has given rise to strong expectation about the selectivity of migration along key demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, and education. At the same time, scholars of migration acknowledge that migratory behavior is likely to be selective on additional characteristics, and the field has expanded to incorporate a variety of other individual and community measures as predictors of individual migratory behavior.

In this study we aim to test for a relationship between a composite psychosocial measure of “grit” and migratory behavior, net of other standard covariates. What is more, we carry out our analysis in South Africa, a setting characterized by a transition economy that generates both conventional rural-urban migration and substantial temporary migration, especially from rural homelands, such as the location of our study population.

We draw on the Migration and Health Follow-Up Survey (MHFUS) a longitudinal survey with annual interviews since 2018. Included in the survey population are both long-term stable residents of the rural origin area and those who had migrated but remained attached to their origin household. MHFUS sample members are followed irrespective of their degree of involvement with the original household. Most migrants relocate to urban areas between the origin community and the more economical vibrant areas of Gauteng province (which includes Johannesburg), typically in search of employment.