Global migration trends and determinants

This study explores the influence of vulnerability on migration intentions within the context of Afghanistan. While it is commonplace to conceptualize migration as being driven by certain economic-related factors, in a fragile setting like Afghanistan the difference between voluntary and involuntary movement is not easily distinguishable, making it necessary to approach the subject through a spectrum which does not presuppose migration is strictly economic in nature. With this in mind, we consider the issue through the broader lens of household vulnerability, a measure which incorporates a range of socio-economic factors allowing for a more comprehensive analysis. We first construct a profile of household vulnerability through individual indicators of deprivation along four principle dimensions, and then perform a regression analysis estimating the influence on migration intentions. Our results provide evidence that vulnerable households have a lower likelihood of concrete plans to migrate. This result supports the suggestion that it is not the “poorest of the poor”, or in our case the “most vulnerable of the vulnerable” who aspire to move, indicating households have a realistic understanding of their possibilities taking into consideration the inherent costs and risks associated with cross-border movement.

The plantation systems established during colonial times relied on the ongoing supply of free or low cost labour which was provided through the large movements of people from all corners of the world. African enslaved people first and later indentured labourers from India, China and Indonesia were brought to the Caribbean to undertake specific economic functions. As labour needs changed in the region, such as with the construction of the Panama Canal, workers migrated to take advantage of work opportunities outside of the plantation system. Independence marked a shift in migration prospects. If on one hand people’s ability to migrate was constrained as restrictions to movement were introduced, on the other hand the desire and need to migrate may have increased as new independent states were formed. The aim of this paper is to investigate how migration patterns and migration motives changed before and after independence. More specifically, I will investigate how independence may have affected migration opportunities for different segments of the population in Guyana and Suriname, where highly diverse populations may have had held different expectations of their role in the new independent state and pursued diverse migration strategies.

As a consequence of the economic recession in the United States, and many other factors, migration between Mexico and the United States reached a historic point of net migration zero around 2010. Is this a new era or just a pause? The answer to this question is a major challenge for scholars and policy makers. The Border Survey of Mexican Migration (EMIF) offers a unique data set to follow up on labor migration flows from and to the United States. The main objective of this paper is to present EMIF, a unique methodology of labor migration flows. Operating since 1993, EMIF is the oldest continuous research program tracking original data on the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, whether legally or illegally. The objective of the Border Survey of Mexican Migration is to provide unbiased estimates of the size, composition, and characteristics of Mexican labor flows taking place across the U.S.-Mexico border. The cities and towns along the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border constitute the main migration corridor between the two countries. With more than 90 percent of U.S.-Mexico migration flows passing through the border region, it serves as an ideal observatory.

A specific feature of the Georgian labour migration is that it is largely illegal. Numerous attempts to develop a labour migration law in Georgia have failed for various reasons. Cooperation with different countries aimed at regulating labour migration has also been unsuccessful; for the moment Georgia has not signed bilateral labour migration agreements with foreign countries regulating the labour migration flows of Georgian citizens abroad. In 2009, Georgia together with the European Commission and 16 EU Member States moved to the implementation phase of the Mobility Partnership (MP), which is an important event encouraging circular migration. However, currently there are still no effective mechanisms in Georgia to support legal labour migration in any way. In order to facilitate a circular migration Georgian government should take a leadership in its arrangements and create the special services for its implementation in order to help to organise pre-migration assistance. In October, 2012 as a result of Parliament election the government of Georgia has been changed and cardinal changes in all fields of social policy are expecting. Let us hope that new government will be more effective in facilitation of circular migration in Georgia.

In a great deal of countries do not have statistical records on international migration and the data they use comes from censuses that are carried out in ten-year intervals which are unable to capture cyclical changes of international migration. The purpose of this paper is to present the methodology of estimation of a new source of information on international migration flows in Colombia which is being developed by the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE) and Migración Colombia. This new source consists of individual records of passengers collected at border controls by air, land and sea. With this information, DANE produces an estimate of the international migration flows. The database contains demographic information and geographic information, socioeconomic data and the legal status of travelers. The data used in this study comes from the 41,683,460 international trips registered in the period 2004-2010. The data have been subjected to a process of anonymization so as to allow the reconstruction of individual information on the travel itineraries of 10,461,355 people for the same time period. The methodology and the reconstruction of migration flows (comparing them with those registered in others countries) are some of the aspects discussed in this paper.

This paper uses a mixed methods approach to examine the impact of transnational family and material ties on return migration to Senegal and DR Congo. It compares the case of migrants from these two African countries which have experienced different political, economic and social evolutions and where migratory traditions are not the same. This comparison is based on the quantitative biographic dataset of the MAFE project that includes individuals surveyed both at origin and in Europe. Results show that migrants who live with their family in the destination country tend to return less to their home country, and this is even stronger for Congolese migrants. Findings are interpreted in the light of qualitative analysis data collected among return migrants in the regions of Dakar and Kinshasa.

Advances in projecting international migration have been hindered by a lack of adequate data. Consequently, international projection-making agencies commonly use simplistic assumptions of net-migration measures derived as residuals from demographic accounting. However, past net migration can be often volatile and are known to introduce inaccuracies when projecting populations (Rogers, 1990). This paper presents a set of global population projections to 2060, focusing on alternative international migration assumptions. Expert-based assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration developed for the new edition of the Wittgenstein Centre (WiC) global population projections are combined to project each country’s population. We overcome the limitations of using net-migration models and zero convergence assumptions by drawing on a first-of-a-kind set of estimated quinquennial bilateral migration flows developed by Abel (2012). Using a multiregional cohort-component projection model, alternative future migration trends are explored based on a set of ‘what-if?’ scenarios. Our results highlight differences in the future level and distribution of populations around the globe between a constant-rates, a convergence to zero-net, a zero flows and two ‘what-if’ scenarios.

An important aspect of the dynamics of international migration is the effect on educational attainment of members left behind in the origin country. A priori, one can expect both positive and negative effects of migration on education on other members of the household. Migrations can through remittances increase household income and reduce budget constraints that enable the household members left in the household to devote more time and spending on education. On the other hand, with fewer members in working age in the household the remaining members might be required to devote more time to work within the household or the labor market. Furthermore, the psychological cost of migration of a household member can also affect the motivation and educational achievements of household members left behind, particularly in the case of parental migration.

This paper investigates the effects of migration of children of the household head on school attainment of remaining siblings in the household in Ethiopia. I use a recently conducted migration household survey and apply a household fixed effects model, making use of the variation in sbilings' age at the time of migration, to control for unobserved, time-invariant household characteristics.

Note: Work in progress, no results avaiable

Our aim is to explore the factors related to emigration in 28 post-communist countries and shed light on how economic circumstances following the crisis influence plans to emigrate. Data are drawn from The Life in Transition survey II, a rich dataset that includes migration intentions and information about individuals’ current economic and family situation as well as recent experiences. The survey was conducted jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank in late 2010. The dependent variable in our paper is intention to move abroad. The multivariate analysis is modeled as a multi-level model for binary responses. This approach makes it possible to explore between-country variance in migration intentions. those who report that the economic crisis has had a significant impact on the household are 37% more likely to express the intention to migrate within 12 months after the survey as compared to those who claim to be unaffected by the crisis. Both upwardly mobile and downwardly mobile are more likely (18% and 28%, respectively) to express the intention to migrate as compared to those who stayed in the same status relative to the period four years before the survey. Individuals of reproductive age and those who live separately from their spouse are most likely to intend to migrate.

Summary:

This paper aims to analyze in depth the characteristics of the recent immigration in Uruguay in socio-demographic terms and the level and processes of socioeconomic integration of these immigrants.

The socioeconomic integration of recent immigrants to the Uruguayan society is analyzed through the study of their economic and educational participation, the access to public services and their location within the territory. With this purpose, a set of integration indicators were created in an attempt to show the following dimensions: a) Access to health, b) Access to education, c) Access to labor market, d) Access to housing, e) Spatial distribution and f) Type of family arrangement. Indicators are disaggregated by gender, regions of origin and age structure.
Likewise, the social integration of recent immigrants is addressed from a qualitative perspective, with the purpose to understand this process from the point of view of these individuals.

The methodological approach used was the “combined methods” design. The source of quantitative data was the 2011 Population Census. For the qualitative analysis information from in depth interviews to recent immigrants were used.

Keywords: immigration / integration / demography