Co-Ethnic Networks in Ethnic Minority's Migration Destination Choices

Abstract

Co-ethnic networks influence people's migration destination choices, particularly for vulnerable populations and ethnic minorities. While the influence of co-ethnic networks has been well-documented in the context of international migration, its impact on internal migrants in multi-ethnic countries remains underexplored. Moreover, previous research has failed to disentangle the impacts of co-ethnic networks and native-place networks on migrants' destination choices in the context of internal labour migration due to data limitations. This study takes advantage of a full sample of 53,733 ethnic-minority labour migrants from X County in China to examine how co-ethnic networks impact ethnic minority's migration destination choice, and how these impacts vary with migrants' labour mobility. Our findings reveal two key insights: First, migrants are more likely to choose destinations with a large co-ethnic network compared to migrants from the same region but with different ethnic backgrounds. Second, migrants with disadvantaged attributes, who typically exhibit lower labour mobility, tend to show a stronger preference for destinations with large co-ethnic communities. This study quantifies the influence of co-ethnic networks on internal labour migration destination choices and explores their interactions with migrants' labour mobility.