On Private Unobserved Returns to International Migration in a Couple

Abstract

This paper examines the private unobserved migration propensity of married individuals using bounds to circumvent the issue of partial observability. Applied to the population of Danish couples aged between 25 to 39, this approach leads to two main results. First, we find convincing evidence that married individuals differ from single individuals in their migration propensity even after controlling for their observable characteristics. Second, after assessing the relative importance of male and female partners' characteristics in the decision to emigrate, we cannot reject the hypothesis that both partners' observed characteristics are equally weighted in the migration decision.