Psychological Electoral Neighbourhood Effects

Using combined data from the British Election Study, British Social Attitudes Survey, Census, and the Cambridge Personality and Social Dynamics Research Group, a preregistered large-n regression design demonstrates the continued presence of neighbourhood effects in British elections. In addition to conventional demographic approaches, neighbourhood effects of personality dimensions and ideological orientations are demonstrated. For example, living in an area high on Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is positively associated with one's likelihood of voting Conservative, regardless of one's own RWA. These findings are consistent with models in which aggregate psychological phenomena influence individual decision making, either in elections, or in domestic migration preferences. The research furthers the integration of social psychological theory with electoral analysis, but further work is required to understand the causal mechanism behind neighbourhood effects.

Investigation into the rationale of migration intention due to air pollution integrating the Homo Oeconomicus traits

Air pollution is a considerable environmental stressor for urban residents in developing countries. Perceived health risks of air pollution might induce migration intention among inhabitants. The current study employed the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) to investigate the rationale behind the domestic and international migration intentions among 475 inhabitants in Hanoi, Vietnam – one of the most polluted capital cities worldwide. We found that people perceiving more impacts of air pollution in their daily life are more likely to have migration intention. The effect of perceived air pollution impact on international migration intention is stronger than that of domestic migration. Acknowledging a family member’s air pollution-induced sickness moderated the association between perceived air pollution impact and domestic migration intention, while the personal experience of air pollution-induced sickness did not. In contrast, the moderation effect of personal experience of sickness became significant in the international migration circumstance, but the effect of information about a family member’s sickness was trivial. The findings suggest that urban inhabitants’ consideration of air pollution averting strategies reflects some characteristics of Homo Oeconomicus. Additionally, the individual’s socio-economic decision is seemingly insignificant on a social scale. Still, through environmental stressors as catalysts, such decisions might result in considerable social outcomes (e.g., internal migration and emigration).

Migration aspirations of territory population: A case study of Ukraine

The level of positive migration aspirations of the population is determined by the unfavorable socio-economic environment and ineffective management of territory development, in particular the level of deprivation, including labor, security and living conditions. The paper aims to assess the impact of different components of deprivation on the spread of migration aspirations and create the landscape of a territory migration capacity. The methodological tool of the study is a sociological survey (a case study of Lviv Oblast, Ukraine) using a questionnaire (self-administration), which covered more than 500 people. Processing of results is carried out using SPSS software. The results of the sociological survey across migration vectors show the cause-effect relation between positive external aspirations and deprivation components. According to the assessment, the EU countries vector (72.0%) has the highest level of positive migration aspirations by income deprivation, and domestic migration vector – the lowest level (41.0%). The highest deprivation levels among socio-economic, environmental, and medical-demographical conditions for ineffective management of Lviv Oblast was detected for educational services with the level of 3.6 out of 5 possible, moderate level – for living and environmental conditions (2.9 each), and the lowest one for medical services (2.7). The spread of deprivation components at the territory according to the level of positive migration aspirations analysis shown that the highest deprivation levels in Lviv Oblast are peculiar to components such as the quality of medical services (43.4%), income (36.5%), and living conditions (35.1%). This study is of practical value for forming landscape of territory migration capacity including weighed migration aspirations and socio-economic deprivation levels. AcknowledgmentsThe study has been conducted within the framework of Applied Research “Financial determinants of the provision of economic growth in the regions and territorial communities based on behavioral economy” with the support of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (M. Dolishniy Institute of Regional Research of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the grant Reg. No. 2020.02/0215, 2020-2022).

Relationships between migration and the fiscal sustainability of the pension system in China

There are a few existing studies on whether domestic migration improves China’s pension system’s fiscal sustainability in the context of rapid urbanization and industrialization. In this paper, we systematically investigate the impact of migration on the solvency of the worker’s old-age insurance for urban employees by constructing actuarial and econometric models. We use panel data from 2002 to 2018, collected from 31 provinces in China. The results show that the association between migration and the solvency of pensions is an inverted-U shape along the urbanization process. Further regional comparison showed that the above-stated inverted-U curve is more pronounced in the central and western regions. We also established that the number of participants and the contribution base are the main contributors to these results. Our conclusions are important for future population policies and public pension systems in China.

Domestic and international migration intentions in response to environmental stress: A global cross-country analysis

In light of increasing environmental stress and its likely implications for migration patterns, we conduct a cross-country individual-level analysis of the impact of self-reported exposure to environmental stress on people's migration intentions and their destination choice. We simultaneously model intentions to migrate domestically and internationally for 90 countries worldwide in 2010. We find that self-reported exposure to environmental stress increases the probability to intend to migrate both domestically and internationally in the coming year. In absolute terms, the largest impact is obtained for domestic migration, but controlling for the fact that this is the most common form of migration anyway, environmental stress particularly raises intraregional migration intentions. Overall, the effects on migration intentions to the different destinations are strongest in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, while in high-income countries, and in Europe particularly, environmental stress appears to spur only domestic migration intentions.