“Call to Home?” Race,Region, and Migration to the U.S. South, 1970–20001

This research examines recent migration patterns of native‐born blacks and whites to the U.S. South. Our primary research questions concern race and regional migration dynamics, and whether new insights into such can be gleaned by comparing migrants to the South with persons moving within the non‐South. Using samples of 1970–2000 census data, we focus on race differences in the tendency to choose the South as a migration destination, and whether whites and blacks differ in key selection mechanisms shaping movement to different regional destinations. We observe increasing rates of black (compared to white) migration to the South. Additionally, patterns of selectivity within this growing African‐American migration stream are especially dramatic when southern migrants are compared to persons moving within the non‐South. Our analyses also show that black migrants are targeting particular parts of the South (e.g., states where blacks are a larger share of the population), suggesting that future research should disaggregate the “Census South” region to provide a more comprehensive picture of contemporary interregional migration in the United States.     

HOMEWARD BOUND: THE RETURN MIGRATION OF SOUTHERN-BORN BLACK WOMEN, 1940 TO 1990

A major demographic trend of the twentieth century has been the dramatic decrease in the percentage of African Americans residing in the South. The Great Migration reduced the percentage of Blacks living in the South from 90 percent at the turn of the century to 53 percent in 1990. However, since at least 1940 there has been a measurable North to - South counterstream of migrants , and since about 1970 there has been net in - migration of Blacks to the South . This in - migration includes northern - born Blacks, as well as former migrants returning to the South. Prior research on the Great Migration, and its more recent reversal, has tended to overlook the experiences of Black women. In this study, we use the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series to describe the return migration patterns of southern - born Black women in 1940, 1970, 1980, and 1990. Our analysis has four primary objectives: (a) to provide a broad overview of trends in return migration to the South for Black women during the last 60 years of the twentieth century, (b) to determine the selectivity of female return migrants from the larger population of southern migrants residing in the North, (c) to compare female return migrants with southern - born women who had remained in the South, and (d) to help set an agenda for future research on female return migration. Although the focus throughout the article is on the return migration of African American women, parallel information is presented for Whites to provide a comparative perspective.     

Recent Changes in Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Migration Streams1

Abstract In this paper, we examine the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of migration streams between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas for four different years over the period 1975–1993. During this period, there have been three shifts in the direction of net metro-nonmetro migration. Through nonmetro net in-migration, the “nonmetropolitan turnaround” of the 1970s reversed historical patterns of nonmetro loss of human resources, with gains and increased retention of the young and better-educated. The 1980s, however, again saw net-migration loss, including large shifts from gain to loss, especially among the young and better-educated and for workers in white collar occupations. In the 1990s, the overall pattern is again one of nonmetro net-migration gain or reduced loss, with the greatest increases among those higher status groups which experienced the greatest declines during the 1980s. The latest pattern is due largely to increased population retention, whereas previous research has shown the migration turnaround of the 1970s was due about equally to increasing retention and in-migration.     

Chicano return migration to the Southwest: an integrated human capital approach

"This study uses an integrated human capital framework to examine the relationship between human capital, employment and ethnic factors and return migration to the Southwest [United States] among Chicanos. The sample used in the study is derived from the 1980 Public Use Microdata Samples and contains 1,926 Chicano householders between the ages of 25 and 64 who were born in one of five southwest states, lived outside of this region in 1975, and worked in the civilian labor force at any time between 1975 and 1980. The results suggest that various human capital, employment and ethnic composition variables are important predictors of Chicano return migration."     

Relationships between Economics,Welfare, Social Network Factors,and Net Migration in the United States

By using economics, welfare and social network factors as frames of reference, this study aims to explore the relationship between these three factors and net migration to various US states. Adopting related variables collected from official aggregate data, this study first utilizes Logit Regression analysis to draw out seven variables that best explain net migration to the various states, then employs these variables in LISREL analyses to build a model explaining the factors influencing net migration to the various US states. Concretely, this research obtained the following findings: (1) the seven variables ‐‐ the average rate of net migrants of 2002–2005, Medicaid, federal aid, employment rate, non‐poverty population rate, and SSI subsidy ‐‐ all significantly affected (p < 0.01 or p < 0.05) net migration in 2006; (2) the main influences on net migration for the various states are, from highest to lowest, social network, economic, and welfare factors. More specifically, a better explanation is that, through the social network factor, economic and welfare factors exert an increased influence on the net number of migrants; and (3) as for the influence of social network factors on the number of net migrants, the social network factor for the previous year was found to best explain domestic migration flows, while the social network factor for the previous three‐to‐four years best explained international migration flows.     

Return Migration in Africa and the Relationship between Educational Attainment and Labor Market Success: Evidence from Uganda

The return migration of skilled professionals has been suggested as a policy instrument suitable for reversing the large‐scale emigration of skilled professionals from African countries. However, there are no empirical studies showing how migrant professionals from Africa are reintegrated into the labor market after they return. This study examines the relationship between educational attainment and the likelihood of employment among native‐born African migrants returning home from abroad. The study focuses on the evidence from Uganda since this country has one of the longest histories of skilled migration in Africa. The results show that returning migrants with university degrees and vocational credentials are more likely to be employed than their nonmigrant and immigrant counterparts. However, this employment advantage was not observed among returning migrants with secondary schooling or below. Furthermore, the results show that returning migrants are generally more likely to be employed as district employment rates increase.     

Demographic Change in Nonmetropolitan America, 1980 to 19901

Abstract Between 1980 and 1990, the nonmetropolitan population grew by 3.7 percent. Natural increase accounted for the entire population gain, offsetting a small migration loss (1.7%). A significant net loss of young adults from nonmetropolitan areas was only partially offset by an influx of older adults. The net gain through natural increase was small by historical standards and natural decrease became more common. The demographic trends of the 1980s were neither a repeat of the turnaround of the 1970s nor a reversion to historical patterns. Rather, they straddled the trends of the two preceding periods. These findings provide the demographic groundwork for future theoretical development. The policy implications of such population redistribution and demographic compositional shifts also are considered.     

Too Many Preachers? Black Participation in the Ministry in Northern U.S. Cities during the Great Migration

Past studies have claimed that during the Great Migration the church participation of southern black migrants in northern cities was weakened by the circumstances of urban life. The present study, building on theories of subculture formation and the ethnic niche, challenges this claim by examining the participation of blacks in a religious occupation: the ministry. An analysis of Census data suggests that, in those northern cities with relatively large black populations, a "critical mass" of blacks created by in-migration helped to support the entry of blacks into the ministry. The findings are consistent with the assertion that the Great Migration stimulated the church participation of blacks in these cities. They are also in agreement with the argument that the size and distinctive cultural traditions of an ethnic minority group may, together, sustain some of the group's members in a special occupational niche.     

Determinants of Black Suburbanization: Regional and Suburban Size Category Patterns*

This study analyzes the movement of blacks to the suburbs of American metropolitan areas, using the framework developed by Taeuber and Taeuber (1965) for the analysis of racial transition in inner city neighborhoods. The data are consistent with their model and suggest that the rate of black population growth is a function not only of the characteristies of individual suburbs themselves, but also of the central cities of the metropolitan areas within which they are located. The units of analysis are all suburbs with populations of 10,000 or more in 1960 and 1970. Suburban size is a key characteristic because the independent variables affect black population growth quite differently in different size categories. While there are clear differences between southern and nonsouthern suburbs in average levels of the push and pull variables, as well as the rate at which the black suburban population grew in the 1960s, the effects of these variables on black suburban growth were the same in both regions.     

The Interaction between Race and Nativity on the Housing Market: Homeownership and House Value of Black Immigrants in the United States

There is extensive research investigating race and nativity disparities in the US housing market, but little focuses on the group representing the intersection of the two literatures. This study investigates whether black immigrants are disadvantaged due to racial stratification or are able to leverage human or ethnic capital into positive housing market outcomes compared to US‐born blacks. I find that racial stratification affects the housing market outcomes of black immigrants. However, high homeownership and house value relative to US‐born blacks suggest that immigrants are able to use ethnic community capital to avoid some of the disadvantage experienced by native‐born blacks.     

Wealth in Middle and Old Age in Mexico: The Role of International Migration1

This article examines the impact that past migration to the U.S. has on the current economic well‐being of individuals in middle or old age who have returned to Mexico. A priori, the net effect of U.S. migration on wealth among return migrants is difficult to predict; there are counteracting factors that can affect wealth positively or negatively. Using data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study 2001 and correcting for selection factors, the long‐term effect of U.S. migration for return migrants was found consistently positive in terms of their accumulated personal wealth at middle and old age. This article speculates about the possible mechanisms that can explain this apparent advantage.     

Assessing the Differences in Distance of Interstate Migration, 1980

Abstract

Distance is an integral dimension of migration; yet, in recent years, ignored in migration research except as a control variable. This study examines distance of 1975–80 interstate migration and several explanations for the relations between distance and characteristic of migrants and locations. While earlier research provides only a few findings to replicate, the literature is replete with suggestions concerning the relation between distance and both areal and individual characteristics. These include that distance represents transportation costs, psychic costs — e.g., separation from family and friends and cultural dissimilarity of areas — intervening opportunities and competing migrants, geographic scope of labor market and diminishing information about opportunities.

Observations are individual records from the 1980 one-in-ten-thousand PUMS files. The sample is restricted to nonblack, noninstitutionalized head of households, age 25 to 64 in 1980. Respondents must be civilians and residing in the contiguous 48 states in both 1975 and 1980. Individual characteristics include distance of migration, sex, age, marital status, nativity, education, personal income, occupation, employment status and student status. Most location characteristics are from County Statistics File 2. These characteristics include average wage, per capita income, unemployment, average number of days per year below freezing and variables on local government taxes, educational expenditures, health expenditure and welfare expenditures. Additionally, we use proportion of the population born in state of origin residing at destination as a measure of information flow between origin and destination. We correct for sample selection bias in restricting the study to migrants.

We find outmigration is shaped by characteristics of individuals; however, distance of migration is shaped by characteristics at locations. Findings lend support to an interpretation of distance reflecting psychic costs and information and are consistent with a cost/benefit view of factors contributing to distance of migration.     

Darfurian Livelihoods and Libya: Trade,Migration, and Remittance Flows in Times of Conflict and Crisis1

Labor migration and commerce between Sudan and Libya have long been features of livelihoods in Darfur. This paper describes the importance of historical trade and migration links between Darfur and Libya, and provides a background to the political and economic situation in Libya which has influenced opportunities for Sudanese migrant workers. A case study of the situation of the Darfurian migrants in Kufra (an oasis and transnational trade hub in southern Libya) illustrates how the recent Darfur conflict has affected migration patterns from Darfur and remittance flows in the opposite direction. Official estimates of Darfurian migrant workers in Libya were unavailable but were estimated to be between 150,000 and 250,000. The closure of the national border between Sudan and Libya in May 2003, largely a result of insecurity in Darfur, stopped the traffic of migrant workers between northern Darfur and southern Libya (which prevented the onward travel to Sudan of several thousand migrants in Kufra), and curtailed the well‐established trade routes, communications, and remittance flows. The current limited economic prospects for migrant workers in Libya, combined with the threat of detention, difficulties of return to Sudan, and loss of contact with and uncertainty about the fate of their families in Darfur, have created a sense of despair among many Darfurians. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations to improve the conditions of the Darfurian migrants in Libya, including an amnesty for illegal migrants, and also to ease the travel of migrants, promote communications between Libya and Darfur, and support the flow of remittances.     

Take Me “Home”: Return Migration among Germany's Older Immigrants

This paper examines the determinants of return migration as foreign‐born men approach old age in Germany. Return migration in later life engages a different set of conditions from return migration earlier on, including the framing of return as a possible retirement strategy. Using 23 years of longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel, this paper investigates how social and economic resources of immigrant men influence decisions to return “home.” Results suggest that immigrants from former guest worker recruitment countries within the European Union are more likely to return than non‐EU immigrants. In addition, return migrants are “negatively selected” so that those with the least education and weakest attachments to the labor force are more likely to emigrate. However, findings vary greatly depending on the immigrant's age and country of origin. Results from this paper highlight the heterogeneity of older immigrants and the factors that motivate their return “home”.     

India's internal migrants and the first wave of COVID-19: The invisibility of female migrants

This article highlights the plight of India's internal migrants during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, when media images depicted scores of these migrants hustling to return home. Using literature and newspaper searches, the article describes background factors influencing the large flows of internal migrants and the complexities of accurately defining and studying them. The study spotlights the lack of attention paid to female migrants and how gender remains a neglected dimension of migration, even though the challenges faced by female migrants are far more acute during migration, postmigration, the pandemic lockdown, and the economic fallout likely to occur following the pandemic.     

Local attachments and transnational everyday lives: second‐generation Italians in Switzerland

Many descendants of migrants grow up in the context of lively transnational social relations to their parents' homeland. Among southern Italian migrants in Switzerland, these relations are imbued with the wish to return among the first generation, a dream fostered since the beginning of their migration after the Second World War. Second‐generation Italians have developed different ways of negotiating the transnational livelihoods fostered by their parents on the one hand, and the wish for local attachments on the other. In this article I discuss how the children of Italian migrants have created their own cultural repertoires of Italianità and belonging within Switzerland and with co‐ethnic peers, and how, for some, this sense of belonging evokes the wish for ‘roots migration’, the relocation to the parents' homeland. With the example of two trajectories of local attachment and transnationalism among members of the second generation of the same origin, I question existing work on the second generation that assumes commonalities among them on the grounds of ethnicity and region of origin.     

The Renewal of Population Loss in the Nonmetropolitan Great Plains

Abstract An analysis of population trends in 293 nonmetropolitan Great Plains counties from 1950 to 1990 reveals that the population turnaround of the 1970s has indeed ended. During the 1980s, 84 percent of these nonmetropolitan counties had total population declines, a proportion greater than any other decade studied. A majority of counties had natural population increase, but such increases were offset by net outmigration as 96 percent of the counties had such losses during the 1980s. The influence of the independent variables on population change shifted from decade to decade. The most important variable in producing positive population trends was the ability of the county to attract retirement migrants.     

New Chinese Migration to Germany: Historical Consistencies and New Patterns of Diversification within a Globalized Migration Regime

Chinese migration to Germany is not very well documented, even though sojourners arrived in this country as early as the first half of the eighteenth century. There is some research on particular issues in specific historical contexts, such as the discrimination and persecution during the Third Reich (Yü‐Dembski, 1996, 1997), Chinese students in Germany between 1860 and 1945 (Harnisch, 1999), Chinese‐German mixed marriages (Groeling‐Che, 1991), and irregular immigration and human trafficking during the 1980s and 1990s (Giese, 1999a). Yet, no systematic research on the history of Chinese migration or continuous analysis of more recent migration trends and related political issues has been carried out so far. Some of the reasons for this include: Chinese communities have always formed only a small minority among the non‐German population; after World War II, Chinese communities were dispersed over the whole of (West) Germany and they have not created any visible “Chinatown” yet; and, until very recently, there seemed to be virtually no political or social problems related to Chinese migrants, and the few emerging political issues still appear insignificant compared to those related to other ethnic groups. As a result, Chinese immigration and the lives of Chinese migrants — widely ignored as a potential research topic for Modern China Studies in Germany — have not yet received attention from scholars of social sciences. This article will attempt to offer a comprehensive summary of the history of new Chinese migration to Germany from the early 1970s to the end of the second millennium. Mainly based on official statistics, it will then discuss recent trends in Chinese immigration for different groups of migrants since the 1990s, focusing on policy‐related issues and political implications of these recent and potential future developments.     

Impacts of Return Migration on Rural U.S. Communities

Rural population loss is caused as much by low in‐migration as by high out‐migration, and for geographically disadvantaged nonmetropolitan counties in the United States, return migration plays a crucial role. This research captures impacts of return migrants on population, economy, and society in declining rural U.S. communities using a qualitative, multisited approach. Interviews conducted at high school reunions with rural returnees in their late 20s to late 40s show that the vast majority of returnees brought spouses and children back with them, increasing the short‐term and long‐term population. They also brought back much needed human capital, including education, job skills, and life experiences, and filled professional positions that are often hard to fill in rural communities. Entrepreneurial activities and self‐employment of many return migrants favorably affected rural economies by improving the employment base and expanding available services. Interviews show how decisions to move back were grounded in social relations that promoted civic engagement. While they mainly moved back for their children and their families, return migrants valued involvement in familiar social networks and the opportunities to make a difference in their rural hometowns.     

To stay or to return? Return migration intentions of Moroccans in Italy

Using data from the Statistics on Income and living conditions of families with migrants carried out by ISTAT in 2009, we empirically examine the effect of micro level determinants on Moroccans’ return migration intentions. Although Moroccans living in Italy do not have a clear aspiration to return, the socio‐economic and work conditions in Italy determine their migration intentions. Furthermore, our research led us to argue that macro‐level determinants should also be considered. In particular, emigration, immigration and integration policies represent key elements in the analysis of the dilemma between to stay or to return. Therefore, the promotion of long‐term immigration policies, which allow the achievement of a permanent residence in the host country, combined with institutional reforms, which make the origin country socially, economically and politically more attractive for migrants are essential to complete the debate about to stay or to return.