Choosing Your Country: Networks, Perceptions and Destination Selection among Georgian Labour Migrants

Abstract

Existing literature demonstrates that social networks play a key role in international migrants' selection of destinations. But how do such networks begin? The Republic of Georgia is an example of a country from which migrants travel to many different destination countries, most of which had no Georgian population before the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paper uses a combination of nationally representative survey data and semi-structured interviews to identify the patterns and logic of men's and women's destination choices. I find that a wide variety of micro- and macro-level factors influence the desirability of destinations and that perceived gender differences in the labour market demands of the destination countries and variation in the accessibility of different countries explain much of the variation in destination selection among migrants. Social networks play a vital role in shaping perceptions of destination countries, which can be highly localised and changeable in the early stages of migration.

Keywords:

• Georgia
• International Migration
• Social Networks
• Gender

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Cynthia Buckley, Robert Hummer, Daniel Powers, Sharmila Rudrappa, Steven Trejo, Amy Bailey, Jessica Lucero and the anonymous reviewers for many helpful comments on this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under [grant numbers 1105875 and 1003217], and by a Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training grant from the American Councils for International Education (ACTR/ACCELS).