The Role of Outgroup Network in the Choice of Migration Destination

We analyse the association between cultural contact and international migration decision drawing on the inter-group contact hypothesis. Using data on Turkish migrant stock in 22 countries and immigration from these countries to Turkey between 2000 and 2015, we find a strong association between the Turkish community's size and migration flow of host country nationals to Turkey. Our results are robust to country-specific and year-specific effects as well as to exclusion of different channels of cultural contact. Our research brings a new perspective to the importance of networks in migration destination as most research focuses on the presence of in-group national community in the target country. Our findings contribute to the improvement of extant theories of international migration providing insight in the role of cultural contact with the out-group in the choice of migration destination

Biology · Contact hypothesis · Contact theory · Country of origin · Demographic economics · Economic geography · Economics · Emigration · Extant taxon · Geography · Human migration · Immigration · Outgroup · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Population · Sociology · Turkish · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Demography · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology · Social Psychology