Following in their footsteps: an analysis of the impact of successive migration on rural household welfare in Ghana

Abstract

We explore patterns of successive migration within rural households in Ghana and the impact that these successive migrants have on household welfare outcomes. Specifically, we use a household panel survey collected in 2013 and 2015. We exploit the panel nature of the data and a weighting method to overcome sources of bias. Welfare is measured with an index of housing quality. We find that successive migrants face lower migration costs, and few of them remit. We find no effect of sending a new migrant on the housing quality index. We conclude that the different nature of migration of successive migrants implies neither an economic gain for the household nor a loss. The reason is that the successive migration becomes less costly for migrants from households with prior migration experience, but at the same time, these migrants remit less or not at all compared to earlier waves of migrants.