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Who Wants to Migrate from Arab Countries and Why?

Karl Kaltenthaler (University of Akron)

Keywords: Comparative research

Abstract

Who Wants to Migrate from Arab Countries and Why?
Karl Kaltenthaler
University of Akron/Case Western Reserve University
kck@uakron.edu

Munqith Dagher
IIACSS
munqith_daghir@iiacss.org

One of the most important political issues of last few years in many countries has been the immigration of unprecedented numbers of people from the Arab world. This research focuses on the questions of who in the Arab countries of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia wants to migrate and why they want to take that step. These countries are included in the study because they were part of the ArabTrans Survey of 2014, which asked a host of questions on migration and factors that may affect an individual’s decision to stay or leave the country. We argue that there are economic, political, security, religious, and personal risk taking factors that will raise the propensity for the residents of the Arab countries explored in this study to desire to migrate.

We hypothesize that Arabs with more negative assessments of the national economic, security, and/or political conditions in their country are more likely than others to want to leave their countries. Also, Arabs who do not trust their national government are more likely than others to consider leaving their countries. Conversely, Arabs who want an Islamic state are more likely than others to want to stay in their countries. But we also argue that basic psychological predispositions toward risk-taking will also play a large role in the decision to migrate. People with a comparatively higher propensity to take risks are more likely than others to consider leaving their countries. This would include the demographic groups of younger people, men, and the more educated. They are more likely to have the confidence that they can start a new life outside of their countries that will be successful.

These hypotheses will be tested in each country’s case using the data from the ArabTrans Survey in an ordered logit regression analysis with a first differences marginal effects analysis to determine the relative causal weight of the independent variables.