Global migration trends and determinants

The paper is devoted to timely questions concerning to contemporary situation on new trends, threats and perspectives of Migrations in the Central Asian region, their problems and ways of solution. As a part of the Global Migration system, Migrations from through and in Region are significant for the development of the World, because have influences on all spheres of life, stability, national and regional security, as well as, to growing integration of Central Asia to the World society.
During the last 20 years the Central Asian states were faced to different external and internal, voluntary and forced migratory waves, which have both objective and negative moments there.
Contemporary Kazakhstan, as well Central Asia is actively involved in the World economic, political, labor relations and this likely enhance the problem of migration on its territory. The economic integration on the post-Soviet space, geopolitical factors of great powers neighbors – China and Russia, closeness to the conflict zones (Afghanistan and Pakistan) – all this could be a challenge to Kazakhstan, as well as to whole Region’s status-quo. It is very important to understand the problems concerning migrations in occurring from East to West.

The last three decades have seen a consistent rise in the relative percentage of non-nationals residing in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including Kuwait. This increase has resulted from two main factors, the continued demand for skilled as well as unskilled workers, and an exacerbation of the stock of workers and their families residing in the Gulf for lengthening periods of time. Migration policies do not allow non-nationals to become Kuwaiti citizens, except in very rare circumstances. Yet, a sizeable percentage among non-nationals, 18 %, consist of 2nd generation residents, born and raised in the country.

A survey of the achievements, aspirations and plans of 2nd generation non-nationals was conducted by the author in May-December, 2012, focusing on high school students in 11th and 12th grades, and on working men and women. 1000 students and 250 working persons born in Kuwait and who lived at least half their life in the country were included.

This paper analyses the contradictions between government policies to reduce the percentage of non-nationals in the population and labor force and the aspirations and plans of the 2nd generation non-nationals to live and work in the country for the next several years.

While recent two decades have paid increased attention to return migration of Russian compatriots to Russia and to implementation of Russian governmental scheme of aiding voluntary return of compatriots living abroad to the Russian Federation. On the 1st of July 2012 more than 80000 compatriots have migrated to 36 regions of Russia from CIS, Baltic States, Israel, USA, Germany etc. with the help of governmental scheme and about 180000 are being on different stages of resettlement.
Compatriots are considered the most favourable migrants, because they know language, culture, traditions and they accommodate better than other migrants do. Now more than 25 million of Russian and Russian-speaking people live abroad. The part of this population forms the migratory potential, which Russia can receive for medium-term outlook
According to the governmental scheme the federal government provide compatriots with: citizenship, public assistance, payment for passage and baggage delivery, extraordinary grant. The local authorities must help compatriots with placing in a job.
The aim of this study is twofold. First, we want to estimate the volume, directions and potential of this migration flow. Second, with the use of statistical indexes we determine the effects of coming back on regional socio-demographic characteristics.

In this paper, we explore the potential of secondary data from non-profit and community-based organizations for research on temporary residents. Agencies routinely collect client information for record keeping purposes and these data have the potential to offer broader insights on a marginalized population for which large-scale data collection initiatives may not be feasible. For this paper, the data are drawn from the Agency Data on Migration (ADMIG) Project, a survey of non-profit and community organizations on their information systems. In the survey, we also ask for blank registration and intake forms, and annual reports. From these data, the analysis will provide a profile of agencies and a description of the type of data that are collected, the gaps in data, and the degree to which we can distinguish between migrant permit types using secondary data from non-profit agencies. The results of the study will be useful for future studies on both temporary and permanent residents in other places particularly when temporary worker programs are increasing globally and in places not traditionally known to receive large flows of migrants.

International migration has become commercialized in both control and facilitation functions. This significantly shapes current migration flows and should prompt governments to reassess migration policies. From the rapid growth of specialized transportation and labour migration companies, to multinational companies managing detention centres or establishing border security, to the organized criminal networks profiting from human smuggling and trafficking, we are currently witnessing a growing commercialization of international migration. The paper addresses the questions prompted by these developments and offers new concepts and theory for their further study.

Increasing emigration and 'feminisation' of migration flows have raised concerns about the potential effects of migration on family life and children in particular. Previous research has investigated the links between migration and child emotional health ( Asis, 2006; Jones et al, 2004; Suárez-Orozco et al, 2011), but the limited number and cross-cultural applicability of available studies highlights the need to use a holistic, mixed-methods approach (Mazzucato & Schans 2011). This paper compares psychosocial well-being outcomes of children in two-parent homes to those in single- or no-parent homes due to parental migration. Data from 1,983 Moldovan households with children aged 0-18 will be analysed using probit regression analysis. Psychosocial health, the dependent variable, will be compared among children in two-, one-, and no-parent households by household migration type (current-, return-, or non-migrant). Further comparisons will be made by reason for parental absence (migration, divorce, death, etc.) in order to isolate the effects of parental migration. Covariates will include child/caregiver age and gender, household socio-economic status, and duration of parental absence. Results will be interpreted using information collected from 36 in-depth interviews conducted among children and their caregivers.

Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian are major migrant workers in Thailand, more than half did not legally registered. Health and health care provision is a major problem but there is no specific policy direction. This review aimed to describe health status of these workers.
An electronic search of studies in Thai and English in 15 years had been conducted to identify reports/publications related to health of these migrant workers. More than 30 studies had been reviewed.
These workers firstly suffered with infectious diseases related to housing and sanitation. Secondly, they had problems of severe infectious diseases i.e. malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS. Compliance to treatment was low due to their illegal status, language problems and difficulties in traveling. Recently, accident and workplace injuries were increased for men while illness and death related to pregnancies were suffered by women. Self treatment was their first choice either with or without Thai health insurance cards. Registration for Thai health insurance scheme was compulsory but less than half followed. When there is a need for hospital visit, nearby health facilities were chosen.

In times of economic downturns, the migrants’ workers in the developed countries bear a disproportionate risk of losing their job. Migrants’ labour market prospects are more sensitive to the depression than natives, because of an over-representation in economics sectors or regions directly touched by economic crisis. In general, the employment situation of migrant workers, especially of non-EU countries, deteriorated more rapidly than that of natives during the economic crisis. The education level of immigrant workers in European countries is also an important criterion to consider in analyzing the interactions between economic cycles, migrant workers and the labor market.

This paper analyse the impact of the global economic crisis on migrant workers in Europe. The aim is to investigate whether the impact of the current economic crisis affects non-EU migrant workers, differentiated by skill levels (three levels) and location in the economy, in traditional (France, Germany and United Kingdom) and new immigration countries (Italy, Ireland and Spain), using panel econometric methods.

Intermarriage is an important indicator of assimilation and identification and may be considered a force of integration. We use data from the 2007-2011 American Community Survey to examine intermarriage among Arab Americans and provide limited comparisons with our earlier findings based on 1990 census data. The topic is of special interest given the impact of the events of 9/11 for this population. The strong socioeconomic position of U.S.-born and foreign-born Arabs would lead us to hypothesize that, in accordance with the basic assimilation hypothesis, Arab Americans are likely to out-marry at high rates. We examine in- and out-marriage rates for Arab men and women by socio-economic characteristics, and employ logistic regression to analyze the influences of acculturation (including place of birth, partial Arab ancestry, and English language proficiency), structural assimilation (education, income and occupational skill level) and cultural assimilation (ethnicity/major ancestry group) on the likelihood of out-marriage. Provisional findings show that Arab Americans continue to have high intermarriage rates and that men and the native-born are more likely to outmarry. The implications of Arab intermarriage are discussed, especially for the ethnic identity of children of such couples.

The present study examines the effects of Korean husband’s socioeconomic status (SES) on international migrant wife’s self-reported health (SRH) and life satisfaction in South Korea. Earlier studies show that spouse’s SES is an important factor for the respondent’s health-related outcomes. Due to their low SES and the commercialized international marriage process, migrant female spouses are presumed to have a high dependence on their Korean husbands and therefore suffer a resultantly unequal relationship within the marriage. Thus, we expect that the SES of the husband plays a significant role in determining marriage migrant’s health and life satisfaction. The data to be used is drawn from the National Survey on Multicultural Families 2009, conducted in Korea. This study analyzes Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Japanese and Korean Chinese female marriage migrants aged 14 and over, living in Korea in 2009 (n=49,087). To address the independent effects of Korean husband’s SES, we include three dimensions of covariates: foreign wife’s characteristics, Korean husband’s characteristics and couple’s characteristics. The results from logistic regression models suggest that there are significant disparities of SRH among female migrant partners in relation to the Korean husband’s educational attainment .