An international labour migration to developing countries in Asia: a case study of Korea

This study is based on a random sample of 431 temporary migrant workers from developing countries in Korea. Interviews were conducted from mid-October 1995 to mid-March 1996 with 105 Pakistanis, 77 Filipinos, 71 Sri Lankans, 67 Bangladeshi, 40 Indonesians, 26 individuals from Myanmar, 22 Chinese, 16 Nepalese, 2 Iranians, 2 Kazakstanians, 1 Malaysian, 1 Vietnamese, and 1 Ghanaian. Migration follows legal and illegal patterns. Legal trainee migrants leave before their contract time due to low pay, inadequate living conditions, forced overtime work, and lack of freedom. Trainees tend to be ethnic Koreans born in China and Chinese nationals. The number of illegal migrants is increasing. Foreign workers gain entry illegally through smuggling networks and legally through industrial work or tourist visas. Sample data reveal that the average age ranged from 26 to 32 years. Almost 70% were unmarried, and most were males. Filipinos tended to be older and show gender and marital balance. Age, marital status, religion, and education varied widely by ethnic group. Indonesians and Sri Lankans had lower household income than Pakistanis and Filipinos. Pakistanis tended to come from larger families. Total travel costs ranged from $3000 to $5000. Korea is one of four rapidly developing countries that shifted from being a major exporter of labor to a major importer of workers. Shortages of workers accompanied the shift. This case study illustrates that the traditional structural paradigm does not explain some unique features of international labor migration (ILM) in Asia, including the encouragement of illegal migration. The clandestine networks are different from those in developed countries. State policies mediate the flow of ILM.     

Social factors of migration from rural to urban areas with special reference to developing countries: The case of Korea

The current state of Korean internal migration in 1961–75 is examined from three perspectives: (1) where migrants go; (2) who moves; and (3) why they move. It is followed by a closer examination of the experiences that in-migrants to Seoul, the capital city of Korea, undergo in regard to (1) decision-making of migration; (2) job mobility; (3) settlement patterns; and (4) living conditions of squatters. Evaluation of the migration policies named in the Seoul population dispersal and relocation plans leads to a conclusion that they have little concern with the welfare of the urban poor and in-migrants to Seoul.     

The role of environmental perceptions in migration decision-making: evidence from both migrants and non-migrants in five developing countries

Research has demonstrated that, in a variety of settings, environmental factors influence migration. Yet much of the existing work examines objective indicators of environmental conditions as opposed to the environmental perceptions of potential migrants. This paper examines migration decision-making and individual perceptions of different types of environmental change (sudden vs. gradual environmental events) with a focus on five developing countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Peru. The survey data include both migrants and non-migrants, with the results suggesting that individual perceptions of long-term (gradual) environmental events, such as droughts, lower the likelihood of internal migration. However, sudden-onset events, such as floods, increase movement. These findings substantially improve our understanding of perceptions as related to internal migration and also suggest that a more differentiated perspective is needed on environmental migration as a form of adaptation.     

The influence of rural-urban migration on migrants' fertility in Korea,Mexico and Cameroon

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the relationship between rural-urban migration and fertility in Korea, Mexico, and Cameroon. Using an autoregressive model, the results show a significant rural-urban migration adaptation effect in Korea and Mexico, a reduction of 2.57 and 1.45 children during the entire childbearing period, respectively, when compared to a rural stayer, even after the effect of selection has been controlled. Rural-urban migration has a very small impact on fertility in Cameroon. The unexpected result for Cameroon is due to the fact that the fertility-increasing effect of urban residency on the improved supply conditions of births, such as reduced infertility, offsets the fertility-depressing effect of urban residency on the demand for births. As a result of the adaptation to urban fertility norms, the number of country-wide births was reduced significantly in Mexico and Korea over the time periods studied.     

The impact of origin community characteristics on rural-urban out-migration in a developing country

It is widely believed that structural variables such as inequitable land distribution, lack of rural employment opportunities, and rural-urban wage and amenity gaps influence population movements in developing countries. Yet quantitative evidence is scant. In this paper a multilevel model is used to investigate the effects of individual-, household-, and areal-level factors on rural-urban out-migration in the Ecuadorian Sierra. Data from a detailed survey carried out in 1977-1978 and from government macro-areal statistics are used to investigate factors affecting the out-migration of youths aged 12-25. Preliminary conclusions are presented on the usefulness of multilevel models in studying migration and policy implications for Ecuador.     

Fertility transition in Arab countries: A re-evaluation

During the two decades extending from the late 1970s, average TFR in Arab countries declined by more than two births per woman. The paper examines changes in the proximate determinants of Arab fertility and evaluates some of the underlying factors that are variously held to have influenced the fertility transition. The proximate and underlying determinants of fertility in Arab countries are compared with those of other regions. Among the factors examined are economic hardship, delayed marriage, and female education and labour force participation. The roles of oil revenues and of the Islamic religion are also considered. An interesting feature is that fertility declined despite continued desires for large families.     

Fertility and son preference in Korea

In Korea, total fertility declined from 6.0 in 1960 to 1.6 in 1990, in spite of a strong preference for male offspring. This paper addresses the notion that son preference hinders fertility decline, and examines the effects of patriarchal relations and modernization on fertility using the 1991 Korea National Fertility and Family Health Survey. It was found that women who have a son are less likely to have another child, and that women with a son who do progress to have another child, take longer to conceive the subsequent child. This pattern prevailed for women of parity one, two, and three, and became more pronounced with higher parity. A multivariate analysis showed that preference for male offspring, patriarchy, and modernization are all strong predictors of second, third, and fourth conceptions.     

Population settlement alternatives in developing countries

Until recently it was almost an article of faith that urbanization and capital intensive technology are the keys to development. However, many critics now maintain that the Western-inspired urban-industrial model may not be applicable to developing nations. The first part of this paper critically examines the role of large cities in developing countries. Although primate cities and economic dualism are associated with serious inter-class and inter-regional inequity problems, the principal alternative development strategies-promotion of medium-size growth centers and emphasis on rural development-also are beset by conceptual and practical difficulties. If no single development trategy appears to have universal validity, suggestions nevertheless are made for improving social welfare through a better organization of human settlement systems.     

Comparing migrants to non-migrants: The case of Dutch migration to New Zealand

We analyse post-war Dutch migration to New Zealand. We document that history, reflect on analytical and econometric modelling and then combine a sample of Dutch migrants in New Zealand with a representative sample of Dutch in The Netherlands to estimate wage equations and the determinants of the migration decision. We use the results for ex post evaluation of the migration decision.Joop Hartog is Fellow of IZA (Bonn), CESifo (München), AIAS and Tinbergen Institute (Amsterdam). Work on this project was begun when Hartog was Erskine Visitor at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch New Zealand. Rainer Winkelmann is Fellow of CEPR and IZA (Bonn). This paper is produced as part of a CEPR research programme on European Migration from Economic Analysis to Policy Response, supported by a grant from the Commission of the European Communities under its Human Capital and Mobility Programme (no. ERBCHRXCT940515).It was presented at the European Society for Population Economics meetings in Bonn, June 2000. We gratefully acknowledge comments by Justin Lee Tobias, Jacques Poot, Ed Vytlacil, an anonymous referee and Paul Schultz. Responsible editor: T. Paul Schultz.     

Children's living arrangements in developing countries

This paper documents the wide variation in living arrangements experienced by children in developing regions using data from 19 Demographic and Health Surveys. Traditionally, researchers and policymakers concerned with child welfare have assumed that, apart from exceptional cases, children live with their mothers, experience childhood together with their siblings, and have access to resources from both biological parents. Data presented in this paper contradict this assumption. The data demonstrate that, in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America as opposed to parts of Asia and North Africa, children spend substantial proportions of their childhood years apart from one or both parents and, by extension, apart from at least some of their siblings. The mothers of many of these children do not live with a partner or are in marital circumstances that may attenuate the link between the child and the father. In countries where child fostering is practiced, the likelihood that children will live apart from their mothers is negatively related to their mother's access to the resources of their fathers and other relatives and positively related to the number of younger siblings. The focus of the paper is on four essential elements of children's living arrangements that influence their access to resources: (1) mother-child co-residence, (2) father-child coresidence, (3) household structure and (4) the number, presence and spacing of siblings. The research suggests that significant proportions of young children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, benefit from the support provided by family members other than their parents. This support, which involves the coresidence of family members beyond the nuclear unit, can take many forms: the co-residence of three generations within the same household, the inclusion of a single mother and her children as a sub-family within a more complex household, or the exchange of children between kin. Surprisingly, despite enormous variations between countries in current fertility rates (ranging from roughly 2 to 7 births per woman), children in countries as diverse as Thailand and Mali spend their childhood with no more than 2 to 3 children on average sharing the same household. Thus, childhood as it is experienced in many parts of the developing world has much that is common despite apparent differences and much else that is different despite apparent similarities.This is a substantially revised version of a paper presented at the Demographic and Health Surveys World Conference in Washington, DC, 5–7 August 1991.     

Fertility change in five Latin American countries: A covariance analysis of birth intervals

This paper analyzes patterns of childbearing throughout the reproductive career of Latin American women, using a hazards model of birth interval life tables. Data come from five fertility surveys of the World Fertility Survey Programme. The analysis, within each country and across time, assesses how demographic factors of reproduction influence the fertility history of women throughout their reproductive lives.     

Quality of life in retirement: A case study of Zulu return migrants

The quality of late life in technologically advanced societies has been well-researched. In contrast, very little systematic research has been conducted among the aged in less developed societies. An interesting case of retirement in a society in transition is that of returning Zulu contract workers. The apartheid laws of South Africa constrain migrant movements: contract workers typically spend their working lives in the urban-industrial milieu of the core economy and later return to a rural lifestyle in their areas of origin in the peripheral “homelands”. The retirement circumstances of 253 male return migrants in five rural areas of KwaZulu were assessed in an in-depth study. The subjective well-being of the Zulu retirees was found to be influenced mainly by such factors as health, perceived financial security, social activity and participation, and positive sentiment towards retirement life. The conclusion is drawn that migrant workers’ needs in retirement have a universal quality. This finding has social welfare policy implications in a society which is characterised by unequal distribution of privilege.     

Fertility differences in Andean countries: A reply to W. H. James

Abstract The lower fertility of the Indian-speaking parts of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru compared with the Spanish-speaking parts of these nations has been the topic of several previous articles in this journal. In last year's journal William H. James argued that higher altitude was the chief cause of this reduced fertility level, whereas D. M. Heer has earlier argued that it might be accounted for by higher proportions of women in the labour force. James's data and Heer's further computations suggest that James's explanation has substantially more merit than that originally advanced by Heer.     

Family planning and population control in developing countries

This essay aims at a critical analysis of the major assumptions of the family planning movement and their implications for population and development policy in the less developed countries. A neo-Malthusian perspective, in which a reduction of the current high rates of population growth is considered to be a necessary condition for economic development in the less developed countries, is dominant among professionals in family planning. Population control has come to be regarded as a kind of“leading sector” in the development process. The position taken in this paper is that the contention that fertility reduction is crucial to short term economic development is not substantiated empirically and represents a distorted view of the economic development process. Nor is there good evidence that demographic modernization can move far ahead of other aspects of modernization. Skepticism about the success of family planning tends to lead to advocacy of alternative methods of population control which are generally beyond the economic, administrative, and political capacities of the less developed countries and are sometimes repressive in tone. The family planning movement, in overstressing the independent contributions of fertility reduction programs, has tended to underplay conditions such as improved health, lowered mortality, and altered opportunity structure which make these contributions possible at all.     

Population growth overshooting and trade in developing countries

This paper examines a developing economy using a family-optimization model in which the number of children is a normal good. Trade liberalization generates two effects: the income effect that increases population growth and the gender wage effect that, in the short run, increases, but, in the long run, decreases population growth. With higher income, families invest more in capital if the status of the capital is significant. Because female labor is complementary to capital, higher investment increases the relative wages of women and attracts them from child rearing into production. Ultimately, the population growth falls below the original level.      

Perspectives on family and fertility in developing countries

Abstract Two aspects of the family in relation to fertility in developing countries are discussed: set stratification within the family and extended family networks. As both these are central to J. C. Caldwell's theory of fertility transition, the paper is structured as a critique of his position. Drawing on examples and data from Asia, it is argued that the causal significance of sex stratification for fertility lies in the economic risks it imposes on women, deriving from their dependence on men, rather than, as Caldwell suggests, in the disproportionate gain that men derive from their dominant position within families. While Caldwell and others associate strong extended family networks of mutual obligation and support with persistent high fertility, it is argued here that such systems should, instead, facilitate fertility decline. Close-knit and strong kin networks can be viewed as alternatives to children as sources of insurance, and may facilitate fertility decline by preventing children from becoming the focal point of parental concerns for security.     

Rural-urban mortality in developing countries: An index for detecting rural underregistration

This study begins with a brief analysis of past and present urban-rural mortality in those countries which are presently considered to be developed. The same analysis centers in developing countries, for it is thought that their rural mortality should be greater than their urban mortality. Since available statistics generally show the contrary, a way is presented for constructing possible means of sub-registering vital statistics in some areas of these countries. The index would vary to agree with the system of the registry of vital statistics in a given area. Mexico is used as an example-the result of constructing and analyzing the index is to show in which areas there should be a subregistry of deaths. Finally, the cases of India and Taiwan are analyzed in order to confirm the hypothesis that in developing countries there will be a higher mortality rate in. rural than in urban areas.     

Household dynamics and fuelwood consumption in developing countries: a cross-national analysis

Previous research has suggested a link between household dynamics (i.e., average household size and number of households) and environmental impacts at the national level. Building on this work, we empirically test the relationship between household dynamics and fuelwood consumption, which has been implicated in anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. We focus our analysis on developing countries (where fuelwood is an important energy source). Our results show that nations with smaller average households consume more fuelwood per capita. This finding indicates that the household economies of scale are, indeed, associated with the consumption of fuelwood. In addition, we found that number of households is a better predictor of total fuelwood consumption than average household size suggesting a greater relative contribution to consumption levels. Thus, insofar as declining average household sizes result in increased number of households and higher per capita consumption, this trend may be a signal of serious threats to biodiversity and resource conservation. We also found further support for the ??energy ladder?? hypothesis that economic development reduces demand for traditional fuels.     

Urban poverty and health in developing countries: Household and neighborhood Effects

In the United States and other high-income countries, there is intense scholarly and programmatic interest in the effects of household and neighborhood living standards on health. Yet few studies of developing-country cities have explored these issues. We investigated whether the health of urban women and children in poor countries is influenced by both household and neighborhood standards of living. Using data from the urban samples of 85 Demographic and Health Surveys and modeling living standards using factor-analytic MIMIC methods, we found that the neighborhoods of relatively poor households are more heterogeneous than is often asserted. Our results indicated that poor urban households do not tend to live in uniformly poor neighborhoods: about 1 in 10 of a poor household’s neighbors is relatively affluent, belonging to the upper quartile of the urban distribution of living standards. Do household and neighborhood living standards influence health? Using multivariate models, we found that household living standards are closely associated with three health measures: unmet need for modern contraception, attendance of a trained health care provider at childbirth, and young children’s height for age. Neighborhood living standards exert a significant additional influence in many of the surveys we examined, especially for birth attendance.