Global migration trends and determinants

Increasing numbers of Sri Lanka women are migrating for overseas employment as domestic workers. Consequently, transnational families in which mothers are absent for a significant part of the growing up of their children are increasingly common. Although these migrants and the country receive economic benefits, their migration involves social costs such as denounced living and working conditions of women abroad, harmful consequences of the long-term separation of mothers on the well-being of children and other family members and broken marriages due to prolonged separation from their spouses. Therefore, investigation of both economic benefits and social costs of women’s migration and identification of specific strategies that could be used to minimize social costs and maximize economic benefits would be worthwhile. This paper reports the findings of the survey done in 2008 by interviewing 400 migrant families and focus group discussions to investigate the economic and social impact of Sri Lankan transnational domestic workers on families in Sri Lanka. It first explains the background information of migrants and methodology of the study. Next, it examines the economic and social impact of their migration on families. It concludes with some policy recommendations based on the findings of the survey.

Prior research, mostly focused on Asian and Latin American contexts, found that women are increasingly present in international migration flows, especially so as independent economic actors. This paper examines the extent to which these two trends - the feminization of migration flows and an increase in autonomous female migration – can be observed in the African context. It uses data collected within the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project in Senegal, DR Congo and several European countries. Discrete-time event-history analysis reveals only moderate increases in the likelihood of female migration over time, but no decline in gender gaps. The collection of rich retrospective information from both current and return migrants allows a more in-depth investigation of the nature of women’s moves. Several indicators are used to grasp the extent to which women moved autonomously or in association to their partner. While some evidence of a rise in autonomous female migration was found among the Congolese, no salient change was visible in Senegal. This was interpreted in light of the more rigid patriarchal system prevailing in Senegal. The paper also shows that different indicators do not all point in the same direction suggesting that the borders between autonomous and associational moves are often blurred.

We provide the first attempt in France to evaluate the Immigrant Assimilation Hypothesis. This latter predicts the convergence of immigrants’ wages since arrival towards those of natives. Coupling the only two national specific surveys on immigrants, our pseudo-panel methodology nets out the cohort and period effects. Three country-specific profiles stand out: (1) for Sub-Saharan and North African immigrants, the recent highly-educated arrival cohorts record higher earnings convergence rate but witnessed at entry higher earnings disadvantage and worse labor market conditions compared to their less-educated earlier cohorts, thus making the occurrence of the earnings crossover with natives unlikely; (2) conversely, the Turkish and South-East Asian group improves its relative earnings position across successive cohorts of arrival via a reduction in the entry earnings gap, shortening considerably the duration before the catch-up earnings ; (3) the group of Portugal is by far the less skilled group but the most successful: all successive cohorts manage to reach earnings parity more and more precociously and, better still, overtake native earnings. The negative relationship emerging between economic successfulness and skill level suggests, with the immigrants low return to education, the existence of an education-to-job mismatch.

This paper analyzes the international migration of Brazilians to Japan, regarding its historical conformation and the migratory policies that largely define this process. This immigration began around 1980 and in the last three decades the flow of Brazilians towards Japan became significant and dynamic. To understand the migratory dynamics along this period, we adopt a perspective of the migratory processes’ temporal expectation (Roberts, 1995) that contemplates three main dimensions: 1) a formal and prescribed dimension; 2) the ethnic group dimension; and 3) the family groups dimension. This paper focuses on the analysis of the formal and prescribed dimension through the migratory policies that guide flow of workers. We also approach the 2008 international economic crisis period, considering Brazilian and Japanese governments’ official guidelines. The crisis’ context worsened immigrants’ situation in Japan, provoking a decrease in Brazilian population in that period. The methodology is based on the descriptive analysis of official statistics of the Japanese government on migration and the registry of foreigners in the country. Publications of Brazil’s National Immigration Council (CNIg – “Conselho Nacional de Imigração do Brasil”) were also consulted.

This study aims to examine the effect of national identity on the acceptance of foreign immigrants as citizens among Koreans. According to the existing literature, Koreans tend to hesitate to accept foreign immigrants as Korean citizens while accepting them as friends or co-workers. Although there has been a lot of interest in social distance among different ethnic groups, there are few studies examining why Koreans are so much committed to the meaning of being “citizen”. This paper focuses on the role of national identity in explaining Koreans’ hesitation to accept foreign immigrants as citizen. Since Korean hold strong national identity such as ethnic identity and national pride, they are less likely to accept other ethnic groups as the same member of nation. This paper argues that exclusive attitudes toward other ethnic groups can be understood if we examine the role of national identity.
Analyzing the 2010 Korean General Social Survey, this study examines the effect of national identity on acceptance of other ethnic groups as citizen. The results show that ethnic identity has the strongest impact on the acceptance of other ethnic groups as citizen.

The role of social interaction is crucial in the process of assimilation. It is through social contacts and the climate created by the possibility of such contacts that people develop a sense of belonging in a particular social space. Therefore in this paper attempt has been made to highlight the scenario which affecting the assimilation process of Chakma refugees into the local host society of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Chakma people have been living since 1964 in Arunachal Pradesh, after their livelihood became threat in Bangladesh, because of ethnic clash and submergence of their land due to the construction of Kaptai Dam. This Study is based on primary as well as secondary sources. Study has been categorized into different broad domains; ethnic relation and assimilation, companionship and assimilation and Role of government and local people. Chakma refugees are facing numerous challenges as they struggle to assimilate into indigenous societies while trying to retain their ethnic identity and culture. Even after almost fifty years of their stay in Arunachal Pradesh the process of their assimilation into host society is very slow.

Šantić Danica, research assistent, Geographic Faculty, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Spasovski Milena, professor, Geographic Faculty, University of Belgrade, Serbia

''Serbia in the international migration syistem''

Serbia is a country with a long migration tradition, but recently the share of person in international economic and political migration rapidly increases. In the last decades of the 20th and the beginning of the 21th century is evident strengthening оf overall migrations on different levels (local, regional and international), with dominantly emigration character and strong diasporas, with the largest number of refugees and displaced persons in Europe and increasing of illegal migration. Relevant international institutions send recommendations to states and governments to implement proactive politics towards migrations by formulating and implementing migration policy within the population policy and other development policies. It is necessary to improve the socio-economic policies and programs in the country for the purpose of expressing favorable trends in the distribution of population, internal and international migration is necessary to stop and redirect the trend of migration due to the crisis in the 90's of young, educated professionals and scientists.

The market share of Thai workers in Taiwan decreased from over 90% in 1992 to 49% in 1998, and 17% in 2012. This paper examines the declining significance, as well as the factors and implications of the trend. The factors explored include: (1) demand factors; (2) supply factors; (3) intermediate factors. For both (1) and (2), changes in economic structure and demographic structure are considered. In Taiwan, the completion of major infrastructure projects and the rapid population aging are crucial elements. In Thailand, significant changes might have influenced outflows of workers in general, and outflow to Taiwan in particular. They include (a) remarkable economic growth, (b) significant inflows of population, and (c) emergence of new destinations. This paper utilizes Taiwanese statistics on stock of foreign workers and Thai data on deployment of workers. The Taiwan data suggests a market segmentation, with Thai workers always dominant in construction sector. In other words, Thai workers did not become less competitive. The paper will explore reasons for: (1) why Thai males did not go into manufacturing sector when construction industry shrank, and (2) why females did not get the aged care jobs when demand increased. Thai data reveals an expansion of destinations, but little changes in occupational structure.

Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and migration on household welfare in Ethiopia. A subjective (a household’s subjective economic well-being) and objective measures (asset holdings and asset accumulation) to define household welfare. A matching approach is applied to address self-selection, and by exploiting information before and after the households began receiving remittances, the study sheds light on the changes in welfare associated with international migration and remittances. The results reveal that remittances have a significant impact on a welfare variable that has previously not received much attention in the migration literature, namely household subjective economic well-being. In addition, we find that remittances have positive effects on consumer asset accumulation, especially in rural areas, but no effect on productive assets.
Keywords: remittances, migration, Ethiopia, propensity score matching

Literature on international migration tends to focus on the impact of immigration to the host societies or the countries of origin. Rarely have studies focused on the migration process and contrast the effects of different destinations, because of the difficulty obtaining comparable data and controlling the effects of origin. This study uses mixed-methods to contrast the experiences of VMMs who migrated to Taiwan and Korea for similar reasons and share similar sociodemographic backgrounds. Fifty-four interviews, 4 focus groups, and small-small survey (N=403) were collected during 10-month field research in Taiwan and Korea in both rural and urban settings. Wellbeing measures include quality of life, stress, and discrimination. First, I demonstrate how globalization, regional economic development, and demographic shifts have generated feminized migration flows into East Asia. Further, I argue that 4 crucial factors determine VMMs’ process of social exclusion/inclusion in Taiwan and Korea: ideologies of national belonging, ethnic hierarchies, labor market structure, and national integration policies. By untangling the effects of origin and destinations, this study suggests that policy adjustments can result in sustainable co-development for both the sending and receiving societies and improve immigrant integration and wellbeing.