Personality traits, migration intentions, and cultural distance

Resumen

This paper investigates the relationship between Big Five personality traits and individuals' intentions to migrate in countries that vary in their culture. Using data collected from university students in Germany, we find that extraversion and openness are positively associated with migration intentions, while agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability negatively relate to migration intentions. Openness positively and extraversion negatively relate to the willingness to move to culturally distant countries after controlling for geographic distance and economic differences between countries. Extravert and conscientious individuals are less likely to prefer linguistically distant countries contrary to agreeable individuals. Este artículo investiga la relación entre los rasgos de personalidad de los Cinco Grandes y las intenciones de los individuos de emigrar a países con culturas diferentes. Utilizando datos obtenidos de estudiantes universitarios en Alemania, se encontró que la extraversión y el talante abierto se asocian positivamente con las intenciones de migración, mientras que la afabilidad, la diligencia y la estabilidad emocional se relacionan negativamente con las intenciones de migración. La apertura y la extraversión se relacionan de forma positiva y negativa, respectivamente, con la voluntad de emigrar a países culturalmente distantes, una vez controladas la distancia geográfica y las diferencias económicas entre países. Los individuos extrovertidos y concienzudos son menos propensos a preferir países lingüísticamente distantes que los individuos afables. 本稿では、ビッグ・ファイブ・パーソナリティ特性と文化的に異なる国に移住する個人の意思との関連性を検討する。ドイツの大学生のデータから、移住の意思と外向性 (extraversion)および開放性 (openness)に正の関連が、協調性 (agreeableness)、誠実性 (conscientiousness)、情緒安定性 (emotional stability)とは負の関連が認められた。2国間の地理的距離と経済的な違いで調整した場合では、文化的な違いのある国への移住意思と開放性は正の関連、外向性は負の関連を示した。外向的で誠実な人は、協調的な人とは反対に、言語が大きく異なる国を選考する傾向が弱い。 In neoclassical economic literature, labour migration is theorized as an investment decision driven by human capital characteristics of individuals and expected wage gains (Massey et al., 1993). Despite the significant impact of economic differentials between regions on individuals' decision to migrate, these differentials are not sufficient to explain why some individuals migrate while others do not, even if they share the same socio-demographic characteristics and the same prospects for economic gains upon migration. This is because the decision to migrate is a complex process that is also influenced by non-economic factors such as social networks (Manchin & Orazbayev, 2018), cultural differences (Belot & Ederveen, 2012) and individuals' perception of potential costs and benefits of migration (Bauernschuster, Falck, Heblich, Suedekum, & Lameli, 2014). These perceptions are shaped by preferences (Bauernschuster et al., 2014; Czaika, 2012; Groenewold, Bruijn, & Bilsborrow, 2012) and psychological dispositions (Fawcett, 1985). Personality traits are influential in a large array of economic decisions and behaviours (Becker, Deckers, Dohmen, Falk, & Kosse, 2012) but have been overlooked in economic models of migration. This paper contributes to this thin literature by investigating the relation between personality traits and individuals' intentions to migrate to culturally different alternative destinations. This paper hypothesizes that individuals' personality traits affect the way they weigh the psychic costs and benefits of migrating to alternative locations. Using rich data that cover German students, we test to what extent personality traits relate to migration intentions and the country-location choice. Alternative locations differ in their economic (e.g., growth rates, employment opportunities) and non-economic characteristics (e.g., culture). The attractiveness of high-income regions with better employment opportunities is well documented in the literature (Bertoli, Fernández-Huertas Moraga, & Ortega, 2013; Czaika & Parsons, 2017; Mayda, 2010; Pedersen, Pytlikova, & Smith, 2008). Compared to such traditional economic motives, culture as one of the non-economic dimensions influencing the attractiveness of alternative destinations for potential migrants, has a non-negligible impact on migration flows. 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