International Migration and Cultural Convergence
Does international migration contribute to cultural convergence or divergence
between sending and receiving countries? We investigate this question both theoretically
and empirically. We first develop a compositional model of international
migration and cultural change, where divergence arises from self-selection on cultural
traits and convergence arises from social mixing. The model is then adapted
to allow for horizontal and vertical cultural transmission following Bisin & Verdier
(2000). The model yields a rich set of predictions, which we test empirically using
panel data from the World Value Survey and bilateral migration data for the period
1981-2014. We exploit within country-pair variation in cultural proximity over
time and find support for the cultural transmission hypothesis. As the model with
cultural transmission predicts, migration generates bilateral cultural convergence
even if we exclude migrants from the pool of respondents in both countries (hence
eliminating social mixing). It is also more likely in the long-run, especially after
controlling for economic incentives to migrate and for initial cultural distance,
which is consistent with the cultural transmission hypothesis (but not with compositional
changes). Interestingly, international migration appears as a stronger and
more robust driver of cultural convergence than trade. The results hold for a large
set of time-varying cultural distance measures along different statistical and topical
dimensions.