| Migration is integral to the explanation of Puerto Rican poverty. On the one hand, questions about the motives of migration are used to explain poor economic outcomes, while selectivity of migration is used to explain both poor economic outcomes and concentration of poverty. Consequently, we try to understand migration and how it relates to Puerto Rican poverty.;This dissertation uses the human capital hypothesis of migration to analyze the determinants of new, repeat, and return migration for Puerto Rican immigrants. It aims to answer the following questions: First, are economic factors a significant component of Puerto Rican's migration decision? Second, is the Puerto Ricans migration experience a selective process? And lastly, is there any variation across type of moves?;The results of the analysis suggest that economic factors are a significant component of Puerto Ricans migration decisions. In particular, wages have an effect on male's migration out of the island, men's return migration, and for men and women internal migration. In the cases where wages appear not to have an effect, employment status before migration has a significant effect on migration. Hence, I cannot reject the hypothesis that Puerto Rican's migration is a response to economic opportunities.;The results of this dissertation also suggest that selectivity of migration may have an effect on concentration of poverty. From the analysis of second stage migration we observe a movement of the more motivated, more educated, younger group of migrants out of the traditional Puerto Rican location in the United States, New York and some of the northeastern states, and into non-traditional locations in the US or back to the island. However, although greater mobility of more skilled more educated individuals appears to be worsening the problem of concentration of poverty in the northeast, it is in fact the lower economic opportunities in the region that seem to be causing migration in the first place. |
