Heterogeneity in migration network effects across cultures

Abstract

I empirically assess the importance of socially interdependent origin cultures as opposed to socially independent ones for network effects in inter-national migration. I propose that societies that emphasise collectivist behaviour accumulate larger levels of communityspecific social capital than individualist societies. Furthermore, while community-specific social capital makes migration away from the group costly it can be recovered by entering a corresponding network abroad. My estimates show consistent positive effects of social interdependence on the importance of migrant diasporas for bilateral emigration rates from all over the world to 30 OECD destinations across a plethora of specifications. For people from an origin with maximal emphasis on collectivism the network effect can be up to more than twice as large as for people from the individualist pole of the scale. The pattern is reflected when comparing trust in other people across different degrees of generalisation, suggesting that the heterogeneous diaspora effect may indeed be driven by higher ingroup-specific social capital in collectivist cultures.