Remittance Decay among Polish Emigrants in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Ireland: An Age-Period-Cohort Approach

Martin Piotrowski , University of Oklahoma
Pawel A. Strzelecki, SGH Warsaw School of Economics

Using data on Polish migrants living in four destinations within the European Union (i.e., Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands), collected between the years 2008-2018, we examine the remittance decay hypothesis. We extend the literature on this topic in two ways. First, we use a variation of an age-period-cohort statistical model to disentangle duration effects from those of migration cohort and period, finding that duration sometimes operates independently of the other two effects. Second, we attempt to understand the decay effect in the context of the various destinations we study and find evidence for it in Germany and the United Kingdom, but only mixed results in Ireland and none in the Netherlands. We reason those factors associated with the movement and settlement of country-specific migration streams (e.g., the maturation of those streams or concentration of migration within time windows) influence the formation of the decay effect.

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 Presented in Session 61. EuroMigration Insights: Unraveling Patterns and Returns in European Mobility