Destination choices among Senegalese migrants in Europe. The role of labor market and immigration policies

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the role of labor market and immigration policies in shaping migrants’ destination choices, after controlling for other determinants of migration at the individual and household level. We exploit the differences between France, Italy and Spain to examine whether: 1) The availability of employment opportunities has a positive effect on migration, 2) Migration rates decrease significantly when the destination countries adopt stricter immigration laws and/or border controls, and 3) The development of migrant communities and networks increase the likelihood of international movement We use life history data from the survey “Migrations between Africa and Europe” (MAFE-Senegal), as well as several contextual indicators for the destination countries studied. The destination choices are modeled using event history techniques (multinomial logistic regression). The preliminary results obtained provide support to the labor demand hypothesis for migrations to Spain, and less clearly to Italy, but not to France. Regularizations are related to an increase in migration in Spain, but not in France or Italy. Finally, we find a strong support for the role of network (and partner) in destination country.