The objective of this paper is to determine whether the participation in social organizations represents a complement or a substitute with respect to international emigration. To address this research question, an instrumental variable approach is used, as group participation and international migration are potentially jointly determined. This is the case if the family considers emigration and group participation as alternative strategies to cope with uncertainty or a liquidity need, or alternatively when the family decides to invest in group participation in order to gain information helpful to emigrate. The results of the empirical estimation reveal that families participating in social organizations are more likely to migrate internationally and therefore social networks act as a complement for emigration. This may indicate that families recourse to social networks in order to collect important information that facilitates international migration.