Modeling dyadic decision-making processes of regional mobility and their labour market outcomes

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Petra Stein
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 246764666

Purpose of this research project is the modelling of decision-making processes of regional mobility and their labour market outcomes. The starting point is the assumption that mobility decisions are not made in isolation, but are the result of a bargaining process, which is embedded in the respective regional as well as partnership context. Consequently, the decision to migrate is modelled from a dyadic perspective with multiple levels of explanation as well as multiple decision stages. Through the formal implementation of the decision-making process of spatial mobility in the form of a multivariate non-linear probit model with multilevel structure, it is possible to model the dyadic decision-making process differentiated in relation to the multi-level character (individual, household, and contextual level) of the exogenous migration determinants. As a result, the diverse characteristics of spatial mobility decisions, which have been identified in previous research, can be simultaneously estimated in a single model. Because of the distinction between actor-specific mobility dispositions and the mutual mobility decision, we are able to consider dyadic interactions as well as relative decision weights of the included actors. Therefore it is possible to incorporate the social process, which leads to the decision itself. Furthermore we are able to incorporate the complex mechanisms of local opportunity structures in the decision-making process of multiple actors through the estimation of contextual effects and individual-context interactions on the actor-specific mobility dispositions. In the second part of the research project, we inspect the labor-market outcomes of regional mobility. Here we are able to model the potentially varying mobility consequences of heterogeneous mobile agents because of the explicit distinction between actor-specific differences in labour market resources and the consideration of the actor-specific regional localization. As a result, it is possible to identify the key individual and context constellations, which determine the profit level of regional mobility and thus locate economically diverse successful groups of mobile agents. The Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) provides the basis for the empirical implementations using small-scale structural features (SOEP geodata).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants