Family Migration Capital and Migration Intentions

Does a history of migration in the family influence one’s decision to move abroad? This paper argues that intergenerational transmission of ‘migration capital’ accumulated in the family is a significant determinant of current decisions to migrate. Using an ordered probit methodology to analyse data from a survey of 2161 respondents conducted in Latvia in 2007, we find support for our hypothesis: children of former migrants are more likely to migrate themselves, compared to people without family migration experience. The country of Latvia serves as an unusually instructive laboratory for our analysis due to the planned nature of its 1945–1991 immigration flows.     

Migration Trends and Migration Policy in Europe

This paper summarizes the latest information on both stocks and flows of migrants in Europe, focusing specifically on arrivals from developing countries. It starts out by setting this into its historical context by showing how flows of labour migrants were followed by flows of family members, and later by asylum seekers and refugees. Then it looks more closely at recent migration data, though it finds these to be frequently incomplete and inconsistent. The most comparable cross–national data come from the OECD and Eurostat, which indicate that Germany had the largest flows of migrants in the 1990s followed by the United Kingdom. In addition to these arrivals there are probably between 2 and 3 million undocumented immigrants in Europe – accounting for 10 to 15 per cent of the total population of foreigners. The paper also traces the countries from where immigrants are leaving. Sources vary considerably from one immigration country to another, reflecting a number of factors, of which the most important are former colonial links, previous areas of labour recruitment, and ease of entry from neighbouring countries. In recent years, however, immigrants have been coming from a wider range of countries and particularly from lower–income countries. The paper also examines changes in immigration policy. National policies were fairly liberal during the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming restrictive from the 1970s on. Recently, however, a number of governments have been revising their policies to take better account of employment and demographic needs. The paper also traces the emergence of a cross–national European response to immigration, as European Union (EU) countries have become more concerned about their common external frontier. Thus far European countries have done little to try to control migration through cooperation with sending countries. They could, for example, direct Official Development Assistance to those countries most likely to send immigrants, though few appear to have done so in a deliberate fashion. The paper concludes that in the future immigration to the EU is likely to increase, both as a result of the demand for labour and because of low birth rates in the EU. In the short and medium term many of these requirements are likely to be met by flows from Eastern Europe, particularly following the eastward expansion of the EU. But, the longer–term picture will probably involve greater immigration from developing countries.     

Migration pressure

"The basic message of this paper is that migration pressure is caused by an excess supply of migration-willing people relative to migration demand in immigration countries....I will also analyse the willingness of destination countries to accept immigrants.... This article concentrates more on political (in-)stability as probably the most important determinant of migration pressure....I also focus on the enormous migration-retarding effect of stable and well defined political institutions." Data concerning migration from Turkey to Europe, and especially to Germany, are used to illustrate. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Gender and Migration: Integrating Feminist Theory into Migration Studies

In approximately three decades, gender and migration scholarship has moved from a few studies that included women immigrants or included gender as a dichotomous variable to a burgeoning literature that has made significant contributions to understanding numerous aspects of the migration experience. The larger field of migration studies, however, has not yet fully embraced feminist migration analysis and theory. In this article, I describe the development of gender and migration research and its theoretical underpinnings. Afterward, I highlight the key contributions that feminist migration scholars have made to our knowledge of labor migration, migrant families and social networks, transnationalism and citizenship, sex trafficking, and sexuality. Considering these important contributions, I explore the reasons why feminist migration research still lies largely outside the mainstream of the broader field and how it might achieve better integration.     

Migration and Aging

Abstract

This paper is based on a study in Zimbabwe of older people over age 60 living in Harare, Mutare, and villages up to 50 km from these two cities. The major areas studied were the types of migrants, preferred residence, and their overall life satisfaction. Interviews were carried out by unemployed school dropouts from the two cities, especially trained for the job. The results showed that the rural-urban migrants constituted the largest group, while returnee migrants were the smallest. Among the respondents were also foreign, rural-rural, and non-migrants. There were significant differences by location and gender. Three-quarters of the respondents preferred to live in a village than in a city. Returnee migrants were consistently the most satisfied, and those who had not migrated, the least. Policy implications are discussed.     

Migration and health

Investigation of migration and health often forces us to acknowledge that the types of migration (international, internal, and residential) interact with each other as well as other population parameters such as the age/sex structure, sexual activity, fertility, mortality, and family structure. Research on migration is often obscured by these interactions. In fact, the adoption of a health perspective in the design of migration research represents a substantial improvement over traditional approaches that are based on distinctions among the various types of population movement. This is because a health perspective treats population movement as a dynamic process by which individuals are related to specific locations by reason of their participation in human networks. In other words, migration is regarded as a human process rather than a discrete event, and accordingly, it becomes less important to describe the individual's involvement with human networks and the institutions sustaining them. The use of a health perspective in migration research often calls our attention to the ways in which the types of migration are interconnected. For example, a migrant from Mexico might exhibit considerable internal mobility and may circulate between Mexico might exhibit considerable internal mobility and may circulate between Mexico and the US over several years until he develops enough contacts in the US to settle in a particular community in which his personal contact with human networks and place-specific institutions are conducive to settlement. Through him, family members may attach to the community. In the process, they all encounter health risks, make demands on the health care system, change the demographic/health characteristics of both sending and receiving places, sometimes act as transmitting agents of disease to those with whom they interact and, undergo changes in their levels of personal development and well-being. A research perspective that investigates these processes will consider all of the types of movement and characterize them as dynamic processes rather than as discrete events. The articles in this issue all touch on the ways in which migration can affect the health of migrants, and show the circle range of ways migration and health are interrelated. A special introductory note also suggests Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) should receive special attention in the study of this interrelationship. The uneven distribution of AIDS is heightening concern about the health implications for receiving countries.     

Migration and AIDS

This article presents the perspectives of UNAIDS and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on migration and HIV/AIDS. It identifies research and action priorities and policy issues, and describes the current situation in major regions of the world. Migration is a process. Movement is enhanced by air transport, rising international trade, deregulation of trade practices, and opening of borders. Movements are restricted by laws and statutes. Denial to freely circulate and obtain asylum is associated with vulnerability to HIV infections. A UNAIDS policy paper in 1997 and IOM policy guidelines in 1988 affirm that refugees and asylum seekers should not be targeted for special measures due to HIV/AIDS. There is an urgent need to provide primary health services for migrants, voluntary counseling and testing, and more favorable conditions. Research is needed on the role of migration in the spread of HIV, the extent of migration, availability of health services, and options for HIV prevention. Research must be action-oriented and focused on vulnerability to HIV and risk taking behavior. There is substantial mobility in West and Central Africa, economic migration in South Africa, and nonvoluntary migration in Angola. Sex workers in southeast Asia contribute to the spread. The breakup of the USSR led to population shifts. Migrants in Central America and Mexico move north to the US where HIV prevalence is higher.     

Measuring Undocumented Migration

This article reviews standard sources of demographic data‐censuses, intercensal surveys, registration systems, and specialized surveys and describes their inability to provide accurate data on immigrants, particularly those without documents. We discern a need for data that can identify undocumented migrants and their characteristics, measure trends over time, support longitudinal research, compare the characteristics of migrants before and after they enter, provide sufficient sample sizes for detailed analyses, study transitions between different legal statuses and movements back and forth, and monitor the effects of policy changes on a timely basis. We suggest that the ethnosurvey design satisfies these criteria. We describe the theory, structure, and organization of the ethnosurvey and then describe its application in the Mexican Migration Project. We then highlight its application in other locations around the world and outline an agenda for future comparative research.     

Evaluating Climate Migration

Climate change will negatively impact human communities and ecosystems, including driving increased food insecurity, increased exposure to disease, loss of livelihood and worsening poverty. Recent climate debates have focused attention on climate migrants, people who are displaced by the ecological stresses caused by climate change. To date, these debates have focused a great deal of attention on state security issues and have left the gender implications largely unexplored. In this article we examine the securitization of climate migration debates through gender lenses. We find that gender helps reveal and focus attention on the human security implications of climate migration and offers a useful discourse for climate policymaking.     

Religiously Motivated Migration

Self‐interested motives are typically assumed when addressing migration causation. However, values, such as those from religion, can also motivate migration. This study develops a theoretical framework of religiously motivated migration. Inasmuch as values are derived from and reinforced within groups, religions with strong cohesion are more likely to act on one of three value‐based religious migration motivations: sacred command, context conducive for religious practice, and awareness of potential membership losses from competition. This theoretical framework is demonstrated through Amish‐Mennonite migration. Generalizability is suggested from a brief review of the Puritans, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Russian Mennonites.     

Migration und Finanzkrise

This paper analyzes the impact of the financial and economic crisis on migration within Europe and towards Germany. The crisis has triggered a diversion of migration flows from the new EU Member States to prospering countries such as Germany rather than a large increase of migration from the mainly affected countries. Novel estimation procedures, which consider systematically conditions in alternative destinations, show that the overwhelming share of the migration surge in Germany can be attributed to the deterioration of economic conditions in alternative destinations. Furthermore, micro data from the new IAB-SOEP migration sample demonstrate that the share of individuals who did not immigrate from their birth countries in all arrivals has significantly increased since the begin of the crisis. The share of individuals, who have been non-employed before their arrival in Germany, has not increased in the course of the crisis. However, average education levels of new arrivals have declined.     

Rational Migration Policy Should Tolerate Non-zero Illegal Migration Flows: Lessons from Modelling the Market for Illegal Migration

The debate on the immigration policies in OECD countries has turned its attention towards illegal migrants. Given that migration flows are determined by immigration laws, the probability of potential detection, penalties for unauthorized migrants and their employers, and income differences between sending and receiving countries, this paper presents a new approach to the problem of illegal migration, grounded on the economic theory of illegal behaviour. The framework considers the interaction of potential migrants, citizens, employers, and the government. After introducing the supply function of illegal migration and its determinants, the trade-off between social costs and benefits of preventing and combating illegal migration is demonstrated. This trade-off results in an optimal level of migration larger than zero. A complete "market model" of illegal migration is offered by presentation of a demand curve of illegal migration, based on the tolerance of the society towards clandestine foreigners. Equilibrium forces predict a non-zero level of illegal migration. The rule of law of our legal systems, according to which any illegal activity has to be reduced to zero, bears the danger of producing inefficient disequilibria. A reasonable policy of wanted and unwanted migration should address the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Ignoring social optima and equilibrium forces means to abandon public resources that could be used for other public assignments, such as schooling or foreign aid, for instance, i.e., measures that could strike the problem of illegal migration at its root.     

Moving the Migration Frontier: A Chinese Qiaoxiang Migration Model?

The New Chinese Migration is frequently contrasted to the earlier 19^th century mass migrations in terms of its origins (urban vs rural), migrant types (students and professionals vs coolies) and destinations (developed vs developing countries). A significant component of this new migration from the PRC however, continues to originate from the qiaoxiang – the emigrant‐sending areas of the 19^th century migrations. Based on an extensive review of the literature on the old and new Chinese migration, as well as several years of fieldwork in the major rural sending areas or qiaoxiang of China, we examine the continuities between the new qiaoxiang migration and the old, and propose a qiaoxiang migration model of the entrepreneurial nature of the migration enterprise to account for the sustained and global character of the mobility generated.     

Managing Migration,Managing Motherhood: The Moral Economy of Gendered Migration

For the past two decades, women have been migrating from Mexico to the United States on temporary work visas to pick meat from blue crabs in small coastal factories. Within a theoretical framework that argues for the relevance of a moral economic perspective to gendered migration, we examine the how participating in this migration influences migrants' families, including their abilities to produce higher‐quality lives. Specifically, we focus on the various factors that feed into the decision to migrate, the immediate consequences of those decisions for the relations among migrants, children, spouses and other family and community members, and the longer‐term consequences in terms of gender relations, the restructuring of parent–child relationships and the material benefits of work abroad. We find that women negotiate a variety of contradictions and paradoxes to participate in the programme, many of which directly influence their quest to reaffirm their abilities, as mothers, to produce quality human beings. These findings reflect more general global appeals for valuing human life by measures other than those of conventional political economy.     

International Newsletter on Migration

The International Newsletter on Migration is a publication of the Research Committee on Migration (RC: No. 31) of the International Sociological Association. Address all correspondence to the Editor of the Newsletter, Catherine Wihtol de Wenden (50, Avenue Duquesne, 75007 Paris, France, Tel. 47‐34‐77‐85) or to Lydio F. Tomasi, Editor of IMR, E‐mail: < cmslft@aol.com >.