Migration Basic

Migration Analysis:Basic InformationAlfred Otieno Population Studies and Research InstituteUniversity of Nairobi

Migration Issues1. Types of MigrationWhat are the major forms of migration?2. Selective MigrationWhy migration can be considered as a selective process?3. Brain DrainWhat is the extent of movements of skilled labor?

Types of MigrationEmigration and immigrationChange in residence.Relative to origin and destination.Requires informationPeople and conditions.Two different places.Two different times.DurationPermanent.Seasonal / Temporary.Choice / constraintImprove ones life.Leave inconvenient / threatening conditions.ABProblems or benefits?Problems or benefits?EmigrantImmigrant

Types of MigrationGross migrationTotal number of people coming in and out of an area.Level of population turnover.Net MigrationDifference between immigration (in-migration) and emigration (out-migration).Positive value:More people coming in.Population growth (44% of North America and 88% of Europe).Negative value:More people coming out.Population decline.1EmigrationImmigrationNet migrationGross migration

Types of MigrationInternational MigrationEmigration is an indicator of economic and/or social failures of a society.Crossing of a national boundary.Easier to control and monitor.Laws to control / inhibit these movements.Between 2 million and 3 million people emigrate each year.Between 1965 and 2000, 175 million people have migrated:3% of the global population.

Types of MigrationInternal MigrationWithin one country.Crossing domestic jurisdictional boundaries.Movements between states or provinces.Little government control.Factors:Employment-based.Retirement-based.Education-based.Civil conflicts (internally displaced population).1

Types of MigrationLocal MigrationNo state boundaries are crossed.Buying a new house in the same town or city.Difficult to research since they are usually missed in census data.Based on change of income or lifestyle.Often very high levels of local migration.Americans change residence every 5 to 7 years.Central CitySuburb

Types of MigrationVoluntary migrationThe migrant makes the decision to move.Most migration is voluntary.InvoluntaryForced migration in which the mover has no role in the decision-making process.Slavery:About 11 million African slaves were brought to the Americas between 1519 and 1867.In 1860, there were close to 4 million slaves in the United States.Refugees.Military conscription.Children of migrants.Situations of divorce or separation.1

Types of Migration

Selective MigrationContextMany migrations are selective.Do not represent a cross section of the source population.Differences:Age.Sex.Level of education.Age-specific migrationsOne age group is dominant in a particular migration.International migration tends to involve younger people.The dominant group is between 25 and 45:Peak age of immigrants is 26.Studies and retirement are also age-specific migrations:Emergence of international retirement migration.

Population Pyramid of Native and Foreign Born Population, United States, 2000 (in %)MaleFemaleFemaleMaleForeign BornNativeAge

Selective MigrationSex-specific migrationsMales:Often dominant international migrations.Once established, try to bring in a wife.Females:Often dominate rural to urban migrations.Find jobs as domestic help or in new factories.Send remittances back home.Filipino females 17-30 to Hong Kong and Japan.Mail-order bride:100,000 150,000 women a year advertise themselves for marriage.About 10,000 available on the Internet at any time.Mainly from Southeast Asia and Russia.Come from places in which jobs and educational opportunities for women are scarce and wages are low.2

Selective MigrationEducation-specific migrationsMay characterize some migrations (having or lacking of).Educational differences:21% of all legal immigrants have at least 17 years of education.8% for native-born Americans.20% of all immigrants do not have 9 years of schooling.Foreign students:Often do not return to their home countries after their education.Often cannot utilize what they have learned.Since 1978 some 130,000 Chinese overseas students have returned while some 250,000 have remained abroad.Most research-oriented graduate institutions have around 40% foreign students.

Selective MigrationImmigration and jobsRelated to the economic sector.High level:Filling high skilled position in science, technology and education.Not enough highly trained personnel in the US.Result in recruiting abroad (see brain drain).Low level:Filling low paid jobs (minimum wage) that most people do not want (agriculture and low level services).Maintain low wages in low skilled jobs.Possibility of an informal economy.

Brain DrainDefinitionRelates to educationally specific selective migrations.Some countries are losing the most educated segment of their population.Can be both a benefit for the receiving country and a problem to the country of origin.Receiving countryGetting highly qualified labor contributing to the economy right away.Promotes economic growth in strategic sectors: science and technology.Not having to pay education and health costs.It costs about $300,000 to educate an average American.30% of Mexicans with a PhD are in the US.

Brain DrainCountry of originEducation and health costs not paid back.Losing potential leaders and talent:Developing countries lose 15% of their graduates.Between 15 and 40% of a graduating class in Canada will move to the US.50% of Caribbean graduates leave.Long term impact on economic growth.Possibility of remittances.Many brain drain migrants have skills which they cant use at home:The resources and technology may not be available there.The specific labor market is not big enough.

Brain DrainA reverse migration trendHigh costs in developed countries.New opportunities in developing countries.Part of the offshoring process of many manufacturing and service activities.Qualified personnel coming back with skills and connections:

Migration Explanations1. Push - Pull TheoryWhat are the major push and pull factors behind migration?2. Economic ApproachesHow can migration be explained from an economic perspective?3. Behavioral Explanations to MigrationHow can migration be explained from a human behavior perspective?

Push - PullContextMigrations as the response of individual decision-makers.Negative or push factors in his current area of residence:High unemployment and little opportunity.Great poverty.High crime.Repression or a recent disaster (e.g., drought or earthquake).Positive or pull factors in the potential destination:High job availability and higher wages.More exciting lifestyle.Political freedom, greater safety and security, etc.

Push - PullIntervening obstaclesMigration costs / transportation.Immigration laws and policies of the destination country.The problem of perceptionAssumes rational behavior on the part of the migrant:Not necessarily true since a migrant cannot be truly informed.The key word is perception of the pull factors.Information is never complete.Decisions are made based upon perceptions of reality at the destination relative to the known reality at the source.When the migrants information is highly inaccurate, a return migration may be one possible outcome.1

Economic ApproachesLabor mobilityThe primary issue behind migration.Notably the case at the national level.Equilibrate the geographical differences in labor supply and demand.Accelerated with the globalization of the economy.RemittancesCapital sent by workers working abroad to their family / relatives at home.$126 billion in 2004:$16 billion each year goes out of Saudi Arabia as remittances.2nd most important most important source of income for Mexico (after oil and before tourism); $22 billion in 2005.Labor shortagesHigh wagesSurplus laborLow wagesMigration

Economic Approaches(Illegal) Immigration and the welfare stateWelfare policies appear to be promoting illegal immigration.Welfare:Creates a disincentive to work among the national population.Attracts immigrants seeking benefits (e.g. health and education).Some analysis indicate that low skilled immigrant (illegal or not) cost more than they bring to an economy.Employment laws (minimum wage, benefits):Make employing nationals artificially high. Attracts immigrants that can offer lower wages and no benefits.Emergence of a significant black labor market used even by large corporations (through subcontracting).The government, in an attempt to protect U.S. workers, has priced them out of the market.

Behavioral Explanations of MigrationLife-cycle factorsMigration linked to events in ones life.People in their 30s are the most mobile.Education, career, and family are being established.Later in life, flexibility decreases and inertia increases.Retirement often brings a major change.Large migrations of retired people have been occurring in the direction of amenities-oriented areas.

25

50

75Stay with parentsMove to collegeFirst jobPromotionMarriageRetirementChildren leave homeLoss of mobility

Behavioral Explanations of MigrationMigrants as risk-takersWhy, among a population in the same environment (the same push factors), some leave and some stay?Migrants tend to be greater risk-takers, more motivated, more innovative and more adaptable.Non-migrants tend to be more cautious and conservative.Can be used to explain the relative dynamism in some societies, like the USA since the 1800s.SummaryNo one theory of migration can adequately explain this huge worldwide phenomenon.Each brings a contribution to the understanding of why people move.

Refugees1. DefinitionWhat is a refugee and how one qualifies for this status?2. Contemporary EvolutionHow the refugee situation has evolved in time?

DefinitionThe United Nations definitionThe 1951 Convention Regarding the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees:..... any person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for any reasons of race, religion, nationality, member of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country. .The problem lies in the definition of who is a refugee.There are no international agreements to protect people who cross boundaries for their economic survival.

DefinitionConditions to qualify for refugee statusPolitical persecution must be demonstrated.An international boundary must be crossed:Domestically displaced persons do not qualify.Protection by ones government is not seen an alternative:The government may be the persecutor.Could be incapable of protecting its citizens from persecution.

DefinitionEnvironmental and economic refugeesPeople who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of what are primarily environmental or economic factors of unusual scope.Sources:Natural disaster.Human alterations to the environment; climate change.Contamination (pollution) of the environment.Lack of development and opportunities.Render continued residence in that particular location unsustainable.Mozambique, February 2000:Floods made 1 million people homeless.Destroyed agricultural land and cattle.

Contemporary EvolutionOriginsThe first recorded refugees were the Protestant Huguenots who left France to avoid religious persecution.About 200,000 at the end of the 17th century.Went to England, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the English colonies in North America.Pre-WW II and during WW IIPrimarily political elites:Fleeing repression from the new government, which overthrew them.Usually small in number and often had substantial resources available to them.War-driven refugees:About 12% of the European population displaced.Usually could be expected to repatriate after the war ended.

Contemporary EvolutionPost WW IIChange in the patterns of refugee flows:The majority of refugees are now coming from the developing world.De-colonization in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean:Political unrest in many newly independent states.Multi-ethnic nature of those states.The result of the drawing of colonial boundary lines by Europeans.The Cold War also increased political instability in a number of countries.Political instability in Latin America increased due to the vast social inequalities existing in that region.New kind of refugee flow:Large and of long (or permanent) duration.

Contemporary EvolutionCurrent issuesRefugees are a controversial issue:Especially in the developed world.Only a small share of the asylum seekers are granted the refugee status.Less than 20% for the European Union.Increasingly, refugees are no longer accepted.Economic refugees resorting to asylum as the only way to get a legal status.1996 amendment to US immigration law:Enforcing detention for all refugees entering the United States.INS can summarily deport those who arrive without valid travel documents.4,000 detained on any given day.

Origins and Destinations of Refugees, 2003Red = OriginGreen = Destination

Source: US Census Bureau, 2000.Source: UNHCR.