Global migration trends and determinants

This research seeks to describe socio demographics profiles of returned migrant in Latin American contexts. Specially, it aware of changes and continues, among different generations, about demographics and socio-economics profiles´ returning migrant in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia y Ecuador. It pretends to contribute to promote discussions about return migration, and its inclusion in Latin American´s social research agendas. This proposal research will be based on Mexican Migration Project and Latin American Project databases, which provided empirical evidence about migratory trajectories of household head’s and family members.
The databases allow you to identify the time in which occurred the migratory return of United States of the head of household. Given the prospect of lifetime, is possible to know the socio-demographic characteristics and economic of the returnees. It is intended to a descriptive analysis of the sociodemographic characteristics of the population returned according to country of origin. Through a comparative look at the time is also intended discuss possible changes and continuities in the profiles sociodemgraphics in generations and return contexts.

Financial constraints may prevent people from migrating even in the presence of positive net benefit from migration. It is so because they -typically the poorest members of the society- can neither use their own savings to internally finance migration nor to borrow funds from external sources because they lack the collateral to borrow against. Improvement in economic development at home should provide less incentive to migrate. However, it also relaxes the financial constraints of those in the lower income distribution, thus increasing their capability to migrate. Therefore, in theory the effect of financial constraints relaxation is ambiguous, at best.

This paper investigates the impact of financial constraints on international migration. Typically, it aims to analyse the role of external sources of financial constraints relaxation (social policy and financial development). I conduct an empirical analysis utilizing the bilateral migration stock data from 1960-2000. I use various indicators of social spending and financial development to see how these channels of financial constraints relaxation affect international migration. I also address any bias resulting from multilateral resistance to migration. We expect our findings to shed light on the theoretically ambiguous relationship between financial constraints and migration.

Data on international migration trends are crucially lacking, especially in developing countries. The lack of basic information on migration is in sharp contrast with the increasing importance of migration in the population and development agenda.
Demographic surveys offer unique opportunities to collect original data on international migration. A few simple questions in relatively small-scale surveys can be used to reconstruct migration trends with a reasonable degree of precision, and can greatly improve the knowledge of levels, trends, and patterns of international migration. The objectives of this paper are threefold: (1) To describe the data and method used to reconstruct trends in first departure and returns.
(2) to reconstruct trends in migration in Senegal, Ghana and DR Congo with data from the MAFE project , and (3) to assess the quality of these estimates.

India ranks first in the volume of remittances and it has grown from US $13 billion in 2000 to US $58 billion in 2011. The remittances sent back home by the emigrants helps in reducing poverty.This paper analyzes the effects of foreign employment on poverty in India. The explanatory variables used in the model are, foreign employment as percentage of total labour force, labour availability in agriculture as percent to the total labour force, public expenditure in agriculture per unit of agriculture labour, investment in agriculture per unit of agriculture labour, dependency ratio and adult literacy rate. The results of the analysis show that remittances sent by the international migrants helped in reducing poverty in India, as this variable is highly significant with negative sign. The results show, with increase in remittances per unit of agricultural labour by one rupee will reduce the poverty head count by 0.002 percent. The increase in total investment per unit of labour force also has a positive impact on reducing the poverty head count ratio. However, agricultural credit and public expenditure on agriculture has demonstrated no significant impact on poverty head count.

International mobility of students has increased tremendously over the last decade. At the same time the share of “frequent movers” has expanded. Under the conditions of a stiff global competition for highly qualified labour force, strategies of attracting and keeping the elite of these students are high on the political agenda of most countries. This raises questions about the benefits of this mobility. Looking closer at the national sub-groups shows, that the answers to these questions are nation-specific. The contribution approaches them by comparing Indian and Chinese international students in Germany, one of the countries which undertake strong efforts to retain specific human capital within its borders. The investigation presented is based on a literature review and pilot surveys among students. Preliminary results suggest that while India supplies comparatively few students, their transferred human capital is at a high level, as they cluster in master, post-graduate, PhD and post-doc programs. Chinese students are larger in number, and are mostly found at lower studies levels. Third countries, first of all the U.S. reap a comparatively high share of the investment done in the countries of origin as well as in the countries of follow-up studies.

The present study sets out to explore the effect of education on migration and remittance-sending within the post-conflict environment of Afghanistan. The fact that cross-border movement in Afghanistan may have more to do with security concerns than it does with economic prospects may very well change the importance of educational background. The research question to be answered is three-fold: (1) are relatively higher educated Afghans more prone to migrate; (2) are relatively higher educated Afghan migrants more likely to find success at destination; and (3) are those same Afghan migrants more prone to contribute to households in the country of origin through remittance transfers? Aside from the level of education as the main predictive variable, we also incorporate a number of vulnerability-related factors appropriate to a fragile environment like Afghanistan. In order to empirically measure the effect of education, we employ a logit regression model for the propensity to migrate, to be employed at destination, and to remit to households back home; and a tobit regression model for average monthly income and amount of remittances sent. The analysis relies on a unique nationally-represented dataset incorporating some 1,088 return migrants who provide retrospective information regarding their time abroad.

The goal of this presentation is to analyze the situation of children left behind "children live with one of his parents, while the other parent lives abroad". Our paper will be structured around two broad themes. The first concerns the link between migrants and their families remaining in their country of origin. The second theme focuses on the education attendance of the children left behind. We will try to examine the effects of mother’s or father’s migration on school attendance of their children.
Our methodology based on comparative analyses between male and female and between children of migrants and those of non-migrants. We developed descriptive and comparative analyses, between women and men and between countries. We conducted also multivariate analyses based on logic regression to measure the probability to leave the school. We use individual data from census 2004 and from MIREM survey conducted in 2006 by Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

In contrast with the global trend observed in the nineties, between 2000 and 2010 the migration of highly-skilled Mexicans to the United States has shown a relative decline. Focusing the attention on Mexico, we find that in recent years, the population with levels of postgraduate degrees (masters and doctorate) has substantially increased. This resulted in a major transformation in the structure of the Mexican labor force. Does this change the supply of skills and abilities?. Is it reflected in the conditions of the national labor market?. Does it impact the levels and characteristics of skilled migration?. Does it affect the type of labor incorporation achieved in the United States?

The paper explores the sociodemographic, migratory and labor characteristics assumed by the skilled workforce in Mexico compared with its counterpart in the United States. In particular, the paper analyzes the transformations on the labor market: the participation, activity and unemployment rates; the characteristics of occupations -including the relationship with the skill level of occupation-, as well as the main careers and sectors in which they are inserted in each country. Such knowledge will provide better inputs for further discussions on "drain", "waste" and "circulation" of highly qualified human resources.

We develop two indexes to measure the capacities of communities to welcome and integrate newcomers: (1) a welcome-ability index – an indicator of integration capacity and opportunities in communities, and (2) an integration index – a measure of economic, social, and political integration of individuals. The latter is an outcome of the processes measured by the former. The first, a community-level measure, takes into account opportunities and facilities, including employment and educational opportunities, facilities for health care, positive attitudes towards immigrants, and opportunities for political participation. The second, an individual-level measure, takes into account the multi-dimensionality of societal integration, specifically, economic inclusion and parity, social recognition and belonging, political involvement that insures the legitimacy of institutions, and civic participation. The welcome-ability index is illustrated with data gathered for a project that collated baseline information on Ontario communities served by local partnerships specifically tasked with enhancing the capacities of communities to welcome newcomers.
The integration index is developed with data from the 2008 Canadian General Social Survey on Social Networks.

In an insecure environment like Afghanistan, many families consider establishing household members at different geographic locations as a way to hedge against risks to a sustainable livelihood. Whether such a household strategy rests on remittance transfers as an alternative source of income remains to be seen. The analysis uses the way in which migration is financed as a discriminating factor, with the objective to infer if remittance flows are sent as compensation for debt-financed migration suggesting an explicit household strategy. Ultimately, our results show remittance transfers are in fact lower for debt-financed migrants, and the influence of certain individual and household characteristics of interest are in line with what we would expect if altruism is the dominating motivation. In light of this finding, we conclude that the sending of a household member abroad as a risk-coping strategy may be less about having an alternative source of income and more about having an alternative location to escape to if the security situation happens to take a turn for the worse.