Determinants of International Migration of the Philippine Labor Force: A Panel Data Analysis

The continuous outflow of the Philippine labor force contributes to brain drain or the loss of skilled workers. Concerning to this, past researches separately modelled international migration based from push and pull factors which can be attributed to modelling with omitted variable bias. Hence, in a converged model of push and pull factors this study examines the determinants of international migration. The study analyzed five regional migration models by dividing the eighty-two destination countries based on the world regional affiliation. The division includes twelve countries for North and South America; twenty countries in Asia and Oceania; twenty-two countries for Europe; fourteen countries in the Middle East and North Africa; and fourteen countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Thereafter all regional models were put together for the overall migration model. The study analyzed the panel datasets using the years spanning from 1998 to 2014. Results showed that significant push factors are foreign direct investment, inflation, unemployment rate, population growth, adult literacy rate, occurrence of natural and technological disasters, political stability, income inequality and real interest rate. Meanwhile, the significant pull factors or the conditions of the destination countries that draws OFWs to move outside the Philippines includes distance, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, cost of living, population growth, cross exchange rate, and fiscal freedom. Besides, the study found that English speaking and non-Christian countries are the major destination of OFWs.