Brexit, collective uncertainty and migration decisions

Abstract

Brexit - the United Kingdom leaving the European Union - continues to create an unpredictable social and political landscape. Uncertainty and perceptions are influential drivers when it comes to migration decisions, and yet, the literature's inference typically relies on individual-level data. This leaves the possibility of unobserved confounding factors being simultaneously associated with uncertainty perceptions. We leverage the British referendum of 2016 to leave the European Union as a unique natural experiment to demonstrate how collective uncertainty, induced by national government policy, affects the migratory behaviour of the citizens of an entire nation. Using official bilateral migration statistics, we highlight a substantial increase in migration flows from the UK to the remaining EU/EFTA countries. Exceptional spikes in naturalisation figures further indicate that UK-immigrants already living in other EU member states are actively taking decisions to mitigate the negative impact Brexit can have on their lives and livelihoods. We analyse encompassing interview data conducted among UK-immigrants in Germany to show that uncertainty about future bilateral relations and concerns about a negative economic outlook and social consequences in the UK, have been by far the most important driver of migration and naturalisation decisions in the post-referendum period.