The Economic Influences On Internal Labour Force Migration1
| Date | 01 June 1972 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1972.tb00517.x |
| Author | R. A. Hart |
| Published date | 01 June 1972 |
THE ECONOMIC INFLUENCES ON
INTERNAL LABOUR FORCE MIGRATION’
R.
A.
HART
1
ECONOMIC
THEORY
AND
INTERNAL LABOUR MOBILITY
Economic explanations of the causes of internal labour migration find their
roots
in
neoclassical general equilibrium theory. Within the neoclassical
framework, the existence
of
labour earnings differentials among areas will
induce labour to migrate from areas with low
to
areas with high relative
earnings with the ultimate effect of equilibrating earnings Com-
plete equalisation depends on the assumption that migration costs are zero.
The condition of general equilibrium can occur without earnings equalisa-
tion within the neoclassical framework. Firstly, the removal of the zero
migration cost assumption will introduce the notion of the ‘friction
of
distance
’,
one of the fundamental conditions
of
the gravity and potential
formulae used in many probabilistic models of migration movement.
Secondly, other geographical social costs, due for example to different
cultural, religious and psychological valuations on the part
of
potential
migrants will also lead to friction barriers in the general equilibrium modeL3
With these conditions in mind, migration will take place up
to
the point
where labour payments in the areas of net inward migration will equal
labour payments in the areas of net outward migration plus the physical and
social cost incurred by the migrant.
Post-neoclassical theories of labour movements stem basically from three
added assumptions
:
a)
the removal
of
the conditions of general equilibrium analysis;
b) the migration flows leading to
‘
de-stabilising offsets
’4
resulting from
c) a dynamic process of migration movement which is
‘
change induced
’
The existence
of
conditions
(a)
and (b) provides the possibility that labour
movement will assist in the process of the rich areas becoming relatively
richer and the poor areas relatively poorer and hence to a disequilibrium
theory
of
migration movement. Further, condition
(c)
assumes, that migra-
area multipliers with a value in excess
of
unity;
as opposed to
‘
level induced
’.
*
I
am grateful
to
Mr A.
M.
Millwood,
Dr
F.
R. Oliver and Prof,
G.
H.
Peters
for some useful comments on an earlier draft of
this
paper. Any mistakes,
of
course,
are my own.
Olsson (1965).
25).
For
the full neoclassical assumptions see Richardson (1969), pp. 294,’295.
For
two general references
on
models of this type see (1) Ter Heide (1963), (2)
The phrase is taken from Archibald (1967), where the main offsets are listed (page
151
R. A. HART
152
tion is induced by the relative changes from one disequilibrium position to
another disequilibrium position, in part caused by the migration flow itself,
and not simply as an adjustment to the first level of disequilibrium. As a
corollary to this latter condition, an equilibrium situation will be prevented
from occurring due to the fact that a given disequilibrium position will have
changed before the migration flows have had time to counteract it.
Disequilibrium theories of migration movement have added another basic
causal variable to migration models, namely unemployment differentials. The
possibility of unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, due to
the breakdown of the neoclassical assumptions, the intra-area multiplier
effects and lagged migration responses to economic changes provides for
another type of potential migrant, the unemployed man in search of a job.
The Need for
a
‘
Fuller’ Theory
As
a consequence of the sort
of
reasoning above, income and unemploy-
ment differentials have been used as the central economic variables in
empirical studies of migration. Two major problems are still posed, however.
Firstly, does the existence of different earnings levels, and changes in the
levels, among different areas in the economy provide strong enough causation
in the migration process as the widely quoted passage in Hicks
’,
‘
Theory
of Wages
’
would suggest?
‘
The movement of labour from place to place is insufficient to iron out
local differences in wages. But the movement does occur, and recent re-
searchers are indicating more and more clearly that differences in net
economic advantages, chieffy differences in wages, are the main causes of
migration
’
(Hicks,
1963,
p.
76).
While there have indeed been several studies, principally American?
which would generally support this statement, other writers have not been
so
certain.
‘Most studies concerned about (the response of migrants to labour
earnings differentials)
.
. .
have found a relationship between income or
earnings and migration, and usually in the expected direction (that is, high
earnings are associated with net in-migration, low earnings with net out-
migration). The qualifications, however, are numerous; and the observed
relationship is usually quite small and weak
’
(Sjaastad,
1962).
Secondly, is the existence
of
an unemployment differential,
no
matter how
large, a sufficient inducement to
an
unemployed man to migrate?
It
is a
variable which is apparently confusingly one-sided since the migrant would
presumably require a job at the end of his journey. Further, it is by no means
certain that the comparative lack
of
unemployment elsewhere necessarily
means that there is the availability of a job elsewhere.
The missing link
in
all this is surely
‘
employment opportunity
’.
For the
employed man the simple fact
of
higher pay elsewhere does not provide suffi-
See,
for
example, Raimon
(1962).
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