Do undocumented migrants earn lower wages than legal immigrants? New evidence from Mexico

"This article examines the extent to which undocumented status lowers wage rates among immigrants to the United States from four Mexican communities. Regression equations were estimated to determine the effect of legal status on wages independent of other demographic, social and economic variables, and special efforts were made to control for possible sample selection biases. Findings suggest that the data are relatively free from selectivity problems that have characterized earlier studies, and that legal status had no direct effect on wage rates earned by male migrants from the four communities. Legal status also had little effect on the kind of job that migrants take in the United States, but it does play an important indirect role in determining the length of time that migrants stay in that country. By reducing the duration of stay, illegal status lowers the amount of employer-specific capital accruing to undocumented migrants, and thereby lowers wage rates relative to legal migrants." Data are for 1982-1983.     

Culture,Structure, and the Refugee Experience in Somali Immigrant Family Transformation

This analysis suggests a theoretical refinement of migrant acculturation theories to deal specifically with refugee acculturation experiences. Using the case of family dynamics among Somali refugees in Minnesota, we find that the same factors that are theorized to affect voluntary migrants are also important for refugees. Specifically, the nature of exit from the sending society, the reception in a new location, and group characteristics all appear to be important. However, within the category of exit from the sending society, there are specific concerns that will be more relevant to refugees than to “voluntary” migrants. Specifically, the ongoing condition of the sending society and the effects of any transitions on transnational ties are critically important in the refugee context. We demonstrate how the societal upheaval that created the Somali refugee community also affected culture and connections within Somalia, and how this has an ongoing impact on the US Somali refugee community. We argue that it is valuable to refine the acculturation framework when considering refugees.     

Optional citizenship; articulation of interests and identities in naturalisations

Citizenship should be understood as a bundle of rights rather than as a legal expression of national membership. The citizenship status of immigrants is characterised by their human rights, their rights of external citizenship provided by sending countries, and their rights as resident aliens provided by receiving states. In this perspective naturalisation is only one amongst several options open to migrants to change and improve their legal position. The normative aspect of citizenship implies that general and basic rights should be distributed equally and universally within society. Raising the standard of alien rights, allowing for dual citizenship and conceiving of naturalisation as an individual option rather than as an obligation or as a discretionary decision of the receiving state would contribute to a more equal distribution of rights within societies of immigration. A model for explaining individual decision to naturalise is presented which is based on a combined analysis of interests and identities. The main factors that enter the model are rules applied by state authorities, social positions occupied by immigrants, the cost/benefit balance of rights in the transition to internal citizenship, and affiliations to different communities in the sending and the receiving state. The combination of rules, rights and social positions makes it possible to distinguish an objective value of internal citizenship for immigrants from transaction prices and subjective utilities. The main theoretical argument is that decisions can be influenced both by a perception of rational individual interests and by communal identities.     

Identifications,communities and connections: intersections of ethnicity and sexuality among diasporic gay men

This paper explores sexual and ethnic-cultural identifications among first- and second-generation gay migrants in Belgium. Based on a theoretical framework highlighting the multiple, fluid and intersectional nature of identifications, 29 in-depth interviews are used to study self-identifications and connections to different communities. Drawing on a diverse sample, three clusters of participants can be distinguished: second-generation migrants, who were born in Belgium; sexual refugees, who escaped to Belgium; and voluntary migrants, who chose to move to Belgium. Ethnic-cultural and sexual identifications interact and vary between these groups of participants, but also within them as they intersect with other social positionings such as class, gender and race.     

The impact of social networks on the occupational status of migrants

This paper postulates that there is a continuous exchange of information and knowledge between those who share the common bond of having migrated to the US. The individual components of this information exchange constitute social networks. The 2 hypotheses tested are 1) immediate social networks and people known in the US facilitate the flow of information both to new migrants and between established migrants, thus promoting upward social mobility; and 2) access to broader network ties, organization membership, extra-ethnic friendships, and familiarity with established institutions smooths the transition process, resulting in increased social position. The data used comes from a study conducted in 1982-1983 in 4 Mexican sending communities (2 rural, 2 urban), for a total of 440 migrants. Results show that migrants in every socioeconomic bracket reported access to some or all social network characteristics. There was contact with either a family member or acquaintances from the migrants' town of origin. Over 50% of migrants reported knowing many fellow townspeople. Twice as many migrants belong to a sports club as to a social or religious organization. Very few rural migrants report knowing no townspeople, while 32% of urban migrants claim no knowledge of fellow migrants from their town of origin. Urban origin migrants report more contacts with those of other ethnicity than rural migrants. Those employed in agriculture are least acquainted with social information and contacts, while those in skilled and service sectors are well acquainted with them. The results of fact and analysis show that 1) access to personal US networks results in an average 4.4 point advantage in occupational prestige scores over no access, and 2) utilizing institutional US networks combined with any cumulative US experience gives a migrant a 5 point advantage over a fellow migrant with identical experience level but no institutional network contacts. This is also true for institutional Mexican networks. Thus success or failure in migrating is partly due to migrants' societal infrastructure and the fact that available information and social networks are accessed and utilized differently by different migrants.     

New Patterns of Internal Migration in Emigrant‐Sending Communities: the Case of China

Despite the large number of migrants at both international and internal scales in developing countries, literature on building the links between the two migration processes is still lacking. Using survey data from China's Fujian Province, we elaborate a novel link between international and internal migration processes by examining the response of internal migration to international migration in the migrant origins. Our findings suggest that emigration of one individual initially deterred the internal migration of other family members. Yet, over time individuals from emigrant‐related households had an increasing propensity to migrate internally. During the internal migration process, emigrants’ family members received greater financial returns and had reached farther destinations than other internal migrants. Those emigrant‐related internal migrants with enhanced economic profiles would benefit their domestic destinations in a variety of ways. These benefits support a more optimistic view on the impact of international migration on the development of migrant‐sending countries.     

How does Conflict in Migrants’ Country of Origin Affect Remittance‐Sending? Financial Priorities and Transnational Obligations Among Somalis and Pakistanis in Norway

This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants’ remittance‐sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi‐structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance‐senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in‐depth comparison to explore the differences in how Somali and Pakistani migrants decide about remittance‐sending. Second, we use survey data on all 10 migrant groups to evaluate whether the differences that are not explained by socioeconomic characteristics, may partly reflect whether or not there is ongoing conflict in the country of origin. In our analyses we differentiate between (1) the effect of migrants’capacity to remit and their prioritizing of local and transnational expenditures, and (2) the impact of state collapse and absence of human security on migrants’ and refugees’desire to remit. We find that ongoing conflict in the country of origin exerts an upward pressure on remittance‐sending.     

Discrimination Experienced by Immigrants,Racialized Individuals,and Indigenous Peoples in Small- and Mid-Sized Communities in Southwestern Ontario

We investigate discrimination experiences of (1) immigrants and racialized individuals, (2) Indigenous peoples, and (3) comparison White non-immigrants in nine regions of Southwestern Ontario containing small- and mid-sized communities. For each region, representative samples of the three groups were recruited to complete online surveys. In most regions, over 80 percent of Indigenous peoples reported experiencing discrimination in the past 3 years, and in more than half of the regions, over 60 percent of immigrants and racialized individuals did so. Indigenous peoples, immigrants and racialized individuals were most likely to experience discrimination in employment settings and in a variety of public settings, and were most likely to attribute this discrimination to racial and ethnocultural factors, and for Indigenous peoples also their Indigenous identity. Immigrants and racialized individuals who had experienced discrimination generally reported a lower sense of belonging and welcome in their communities. This association was weaker for Indigenous peoples. The findings provide new insight into discrimination experienced by Indigenous peoples, immigrants and racialized individuals in small and mid-sized Canadian communities, and are critical to creating and implementing effective anti-racism and anti-discrimination strategies.     

Human Rights,Income and International Migration

This study contributes to the literature of migration studies by addressing the question: why does international migration persist despite welfare improvements in migrant‐sending countries? We propose that the human rights condition of the origin countries is an important determinant of global migration. Although the human rights issue is not new to researchers in migration studies, the concern is primarily about the rights of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers or migrant workers in a host country. We undertake a bilateral panel data analysis to examine the pattern of global bilateral migration between 1995 and 2010. We find that international migration is positively associated with human rights conditions and income. Similar results are also obtained when we control for multilateral resistance and possible sample selection biases in a panel context. Our study implies that efforts to promote human rights may also be assessed in relation to their contribution to migration flows.     

Self-selection,earnings and Chicano migration: differences between return and onward migrants

"The purpose of this article is to extend the empirical literature on Chicano return migration by examining earnings differentials between return and onward Chicano migrants. Our approach reflects the complexity of estimating such effects in terms of selectivity biases and the interaction between individual and locational attributes. We use data derived from the public use microdata sample (PUMS) of the 1990 U.S. census. After controlling for migration and labor force self-selection, results indicate that Chicano return migrants are not negatively self-selected. Chicano return migrants have smaller earnings profiles largely due to the negative effects of living in areas with higher concentrations of co-ethnics. Apparently, return migrants, at least in the short run, are willing to accept lower earnings for the nonpecuniary benefits of living in the Southwest."     

The politics of cross-border engagement: Mexican emigrants and the Mexican state

Reacting to migrants’ many, ongoing involvements with their home communities, sending states have increasingly adopted policies designed to resolve the problems of citizens living abroad and to respond to expatriates’ search for engagement, doing so in ways that best meet home state leaders’ goals. This article seeks to understand the factors shaping this interaction between sending states and emigrants abroad by studying two contrasting aspects of the Mexican experience—expatriate voting, a relatively new development, and provision of the matrícula consular, a long-standing component of traditional consular services, though one that has recently been transformed. Focusing on the complex set of interactions linking migrants, sending states, and receiving states, the article identifies the key differences and similarities between these two policies. Both policies suffered from a capacity deficit inherent in sending state efforts to connect with nationals living in a territory that the home country cannot control; both also generated conflict over membership and rights. Nonetheless, Mexico’s efforts to resolve the immigrants’ identification problems in the receiving society proved useful to millions; by contrast, a tiny proportion of emigrants took advantage of the first opportunity to vote from abroad. These diverging experiences demonstrate that sending states can exercise influence when intervening on the receiving society side, where the embeddedness of the immigrant population provides a source of leverage. By contrast, the search to re-engage the emigrants back home encounters greater difficulties and yields poorer results, as the emigrants’ extra-territorial status impedes the effort to sustain the connection to the people and places left behind. In the end, the article shows that extension to the territory of another state yields far more constraints than those found on home soil as well as unpredictable reactions from receiving states and their peoples, not to speak of nationals who no longer perceive the migrants as full members of the society they left.     

Poverty Catchments: Migration,Residential Mobility,and Population Turnover in Impoverished Rural Illinois Communities

Abstract Research has thoroughly documented how out‐migration of the educated and skilled from rural areas leaves behind a poorer population and creates pockets of rural poverty. Recently, studies have recognized that the poor are also geographically mobile and that poverty migration patterns can reinforce rural poverty concentrations. In this process, certain impoverished rural communities in economically depressed regions receive a disproportionate share of poverty migrants, concentrating poverty in certain locations. This paper examines the conditions and processes through which poor rural communities become likely destinations for a highly mobile segment of the rural poor and near‐poor. Utilizing case studies of depressed rural Illinois communities, it investigates how the interplay of community factors and the behavior of migrants transforms rural communities from residentially stable to highly mobile, impoverished places.     

Relating European emigration and marriage patterns

This article discusses a number of the ways in which marriage and migration interacted in European sending areas for migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also speculates as to some of the ramifications of those changes in marriage and migration patterns. In particular, it uses sources from the Netherlands in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to illustrate a few patterns, some quantitative ones already well known to scholars of demography and some qualitative ones which have received less attention, and poses some hypotheses which other researchers can pursue for other emigration regions and periods. Unlike international migrants from many sending regions, where single men dominated the migration of this period, those from the Netherlands at the turn of the century tended more often to move in family units. In discussing these issues, this article demonstrates the degree to which marriage in the sending country was affected by migration, offering a variety of insights into the way in which these changes were of a gendered nature.     

Crossing Borders,Crossing Seas: The Philippines,Gender and the Bounding of Cumulative Causation

In this study, we assess how the composition of migrant workers varies with migration prevalence within Filipino communities. Specifically, we test the hypothesis of past cumulative causation scholars that increased migration prevalence results in a decline in migrant selectivity. The Philippines has a social, political and geographical context that differs from that of many other countries characterized by high migration. In this study, we consider whether these different contexts and contingencies might alter the process by which the social phenomenon of cumulative causation occurs. Multiple fixed‐effects models were estimated at the municipality level, with the dependent variable in each model being a demographic characteristic related to the propensity to migrate: marital status, age, sex and years of education. We find, consistent with cumulative causation theory as posited by Douglas S. Massey, that increased migration prevalence did yield a decline in selectivity for education and marital status. However, migration prevalence had no effect on the gender composition of migrants, while time did impact the gender composition, suggesting sustained selectivity by gender attributable to global demand for specifically gendered, migrant labour.     

Rights or Identity? Naturalization Processes among “Labor Migrants” in Germany

The determinants of the decision to naturalize for first and second generation “labor migrants” in Germany are examined. We assume that Turkish migrants' comparatively high naturalization rate cannot be explained by the legal advantages they gain by naturalizing. We argue instead that naturalization offers an opportunity for individual upward mobility to Turkish migrants who have achieved a high level of individual assimilation. Using data from the GSOEP, we show that individual assimilation does in fact promote naturalization for Turkish migrants, but not for members of other ethnic groups, which generally have higher status within German society.     

Social remittances: migration driven local-level forms of cultural diffusion

"Many studies highlight the macro-level dissemination of global culture and institutions. This article focuses on social remittances--a local-level, migration-driven form of cultural diffusion. Social remittances are the ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving- to sending-country communities. The role that these resources play in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, community and family formation, and political integration is widely acknowledged. This article specifies how these same ideas and practices are remolded in receiving countries, the mechanisms by which they are sent back to sending communities, and the role they play in transforming sending-country social and political life." The data concern migrants from the Dominican Republic to the Boston area of the United States.     

Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights: An Analysis of the Global Compact for Safe,Orderly and Regular Migration

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that states incorporate data on migration into a more cohesive governance regime that does more to promote cooperation on the issue of international migration. However, many concerns remain. Using a legal analysis and cross‐national policy data, we find that the GCM neither fully articulates existing law nor makes use of international consensus to expand the rights of migrants. In its first section, this article provides a concise analysis of the GCM's compliance with a set of core principles of existing international human rights law regarding migrants. In the second section, we apply a novel instrument to create an objective, cross‐national accounting of the laws protecting migrants’ rights in various national legal frameworks. Focusing on a sample of five diverse destination and sending countries, the results suggest we are close to an international consensus on the protection of a core set of migrants’ rights. This analysis should help prioritize the work necessary to implement the GCM.     

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.     

Impact of the Group of Co‐migrants on Strategies of Acculturation: Towards an Expansion of the Berry Model

This article proposes expanding Berry’s theory of acculturation strategies into a three‐fold model to be applied to the case of acculturation among migrants. The expanded model includes the community of co‐migrants as a distinct referent. It addresses the dynamic and multi‐directional relationship between the three referents and the individual migrant, which all interact to create the experience of acculturation among migrants. An expanded typology is presented representing positive or negative attitudes toward each referent. The typology delineates eight possible strategies of acculturation among migrants, namely positive attitudes towards all three referents, negative attitudes towards all three, and the six possible variations between these extremes. Though not previously conceptualized and formalized, examples of all eight strategies were found in the existing literature. Some examples are cited, supporting the assertion that in the socio‐psychological phenomenon of acculturation among migrants, the community of co‐migrants plays a role which may be differentiated from the home culture and the host culture referents of the Berry model. The model provides a structure for exploring expression of these acculturation strategies among various sub‐groups within a community of co‐migrants. The current article is essentially a hypothesis paper, citing support for each of the proposed strategies of acculturation from published empirical studies carried out among a wide variety of migrant populations. A preliminary testing of the typology ( Taieb, 2008 ) found that the cultures of the home, host and co‐migrant communities do play distinct roles in the acculturation process, and verified that the eight profiles may be recognized in an empirical study. Directions for further empirical verification and refining the preliminary model are suggested.     

Poles Apart? EU Enlargement and the Labour Market Outcomes of Immigrants in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was one of only three countries to allow migrants from accession countries to enter their labour markets more or less without restriction following European Union enlargement in May 2004. Therefore, it is important to establish the characteristics and labour market performance of migrants from these countries who have subsequently entered the United Kingdom. We principally analyse Labour Force Survey data to compare the labour market outcomes of recent migrants from Poland and other accession countries to those of earlier migrant cohorts from these countries as well as to those of other recent migrants to the United Kingdom. We find that the majority of post‐enlargement migrants from the new member states have found employment in low paying jobs, despite some (especially Poles) possessing relatively high levels of education. It follows that recent Polish migrants typically have lower returns to their education than other recent arrivals. Migrants from the new member states who arrived immediately prior to enlargement have similar characteristics and labour market outcomes, apart from displaying a higher propensity to be self‐employed. These results are discussed in the context of policy changes, migration strategies, assimilation effects and possible impacts on the sending countries.