The economic and poverty impact of migration: is repeated migration better than one-way migration?

Scholarly discourse on migration has traditionally examined the welfare implications for migrants and non-migrants, yielding diverse perspectives. However, the conventional portrayal of migration as a one-way, overlooks the dynamic nature of contemporary migration, rendering discussions on the impact of migration less comprehensive. This study fills the gap by investigating the economic and poverty impacts of repeated migration versus one-way migration in Indonesia. Using panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) from 1993 to 2014, we apply a multinomial endogenous switching regression model and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to analyze migration outcomes across different migration trajectories. Our findings reveal that migrants who engage in onward migration generally experience higher economic welfare than one-way migrants. Among one-way migrants, those who migrated as children have the highest economic outcomes, while one-way migration in adulthood tends to be less beneficial. In terms of poverty impact, migrants who moved as children have the most significant effect on poverty reduction, followed by onward migrants, while migrants who move as adults do not significantly reduce poverty. These results underscore the importance of considering migrant quality, migration duration, and migration trajectory in achieving migration outcomes. In addition, these findings show the importance of classifying migration as not only one way but also repeated migration. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.