Life course perspectives on international migration

There are theoretical reasons to assume that “development” in the form of access to media and education have a positive effect on migration aspirations through increasing people’s awareness of social, cultural and economic opportunities and different lifestyles elsewhere. We can also hypothesize that increased (migration) capabilities through improved wealth, education and access to networks increase people’s life aspirations, and, potentially, migration aspirations. However, the effect of wealth and, more generally, capabilities on migration aspirations is likely to be curvilinear since, beyond a certain level, people will start feeling less deprived vis-à-vis destinations and within their own communities. This renders the relation between ‘development’ and migration aspirations fundamentally ambiguous. Importantly this is not a static relationship as international migration aspirations shift shift over life courses. However, these hypothesized relationship between development, capabilities and the formation of migration aspirations over life courses, has never been studied empirically. Based on unique survey data from 16 regions in 4 countries (Morocco, Senegal, Turkey, Ukraine) collected by the EUMAGINE project, this paper explores these relationships.

This paper examines the impact of migrant networks on the labour market trajectories of Senegalese men in Europe. The general assumption in the literature is that membership in co-ethnic networks enhances immigrants’ employment opportunities at destination. This assumption has increasingly been challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Using longitudinal data recently collected within the framework of the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project, this paper is able to avoid usual biases, such as reverse causality. Moreover, the transnational nature of the sample - Senegalese current and return migrants were interviewed in France, Italy, Spain and Senegal - allows for investigating the influence of the context of reception in the functioning of networks. Findings reveal a heterogenous picture, as effects depend on the context of destination, the time since arrival and the legal status of the migrant. Having close kin at destination enables legal migrants to engage in a longer job search. Both kin and friends increase chances of gaining access to semi or skilled employment and protect from the more precarious status of self-employment in France, but do not have the same effects in Italy or Spain, where the Senegalese community is more recent and less diverse in terms of socio-economic status.

This paper analyzes how the interaction of an event-transition as international migration interferes in the process of transition to adulthood. Addresses the relationship between events-stages of life-migration and mediation exercised by the context in decision making and in the course of the action. The goal is to contribute to the understanding of the complexity of the itineraries that currently carry into adulthood, a process that is mediated by other events.
Migration is seen as a process that involves different times, where the life course (LC) of people, among other factors, involved in modeling each. Like any event, has a differential impact on individuals depending on the stage of the life course in which it occurs. The succession of previous events determines the international migration, while that the timing when it occurs, affects the structuring of the subsequent LC.
I analyze recent Argentine emigrants in two contexts of reception: Mexico City and Madrid. I compare 2 groups: those who migrated at an early stage of life (they did not begin the transition to adulthood before departure) and who began the process in advance before migrating, located in a middle stage of life. I study the way in which the situation of each stage promotes migration and after their occurrence, how to reconfigure the subsequent LC.

In immigrant integration studies, many objective measures have been
examined and subjective measures have received less attention. Using Family Life Survey Data collected in Hong Kong in 2009, this paper examines the impact of immigrant status on married adults’ life satisfaction in Hong Kong. The regression models show that immigrants are less satisfied with their life in Hong Kong overall.
However, wealth attainment has a mediating impact on the negative influences of immigrant status on life satisfaction. Hours-of-workings seem also plays a very important mediating role. Longer duration or earlier arrival in Hong Kong could help narrow the gap of life satisfaction of immigrants and non-immigrants. The results
indicate that economic achievement is the most important factor for immigrant to gain similar level of life satisfaction in the host society.

The Brazilian emigration started, so massive, in the 1990s. Considered as a decade of economic crisis after market opening, with high inflation and lack of prospects, many Brazilians decided to try living abroad, mainly in the USA, UK and Portugal. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the flow Brazil-Portugal. Portugal has established itself as one of the preferred destinations of Brazilians since seems to offer socio-cultural affinities, linguistic and part of the Eurozone . What else prompted this study was the emergence of the International Crisis at the end of 2008, which, as a first hypothesis, it would upset the plans of Brazilian immigrants, once extinguished jobs and reduced the productive capacity of countries, approaching the possibility of a return to Brazil. Therefore, as a first hypothesis, that there is a heavy flow of return to Brazil was a fact and should be analyzed so that public policies could be proposed. Exploratory research was conducted in Portugal, from December 2010 to July 2011. The results indicate a slowdown in inflow in Portugal and a tendency to strengthen the output stream, not explicit in official data, but clear evidence recorded by the statements.

According to the extant research, labor migration of a parent often has beneficial consequences for children's schooling in the sending context, but there has been less attention to variations in migration experiences across the parent’s own life course and how this timing may alter outcomes for children of migrants. We apply a life course approach to the study of fathers' international migration experiences. The setting for our study is the Chitwan Valley of Nepal, a growing rural area with rapid social change characterized by large in- and out-migration. Using rich life history calendar data of parental migration and children’s schooling, we examine how multiple conceptualizations of parental migration affect children's school leaving before 10 years (an important education credential point in Nepal). We find that pre-marital migration experience appears to have minimal impact on children's schooling, whereas post-marital experience significantly decreases children's school exit, compared to children of fathers who never migrated outside Nepal. Our next step was to consider whether migration and children's schooling decisions are affected by local environmental conditions in origin communities. We find some evidence that measures of environmental perceptions moderate relationships between migration and children's schooling.

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.

This paper examines the impact of male international migration on the labour market behaviour of women left-behind in Senegal. While previous studies rely largely on cross-sectional data collected only in origin countries, this analysis takes advantage of a new longitudinal and multi-sited dataset on international migration. This allows using more appropriate methods for examining causal mechanisms and avoiding selection biases that were inherent in previous analyses. Results from a random effects logistic panel regression do not support previous findings of a positive effect of husbands’ migration on women’s labour market participation. Instead, we find evidence of lower activity rates for spouses of migrants. The finding seems mostly driven by women whose union is transnational from the start (i.e. who marry someone who is already a migrant) and who have significantly less chances to be working than their counterparts whose husbands are in Senegal. Future steps include extending the analysis to the Congolese case where preliminary results reveal different dynamics between men’s migration and women’s economic participation. The comparison, enabled by the multi-country design of the MAFE data, allows examining the role of gender norms in the shaping of these dynamics.

This paper aims to study the post-return mobility of Senegalese and Congolese migrants who returned from Europe to their origin country. New departures are often considered as an indicator to assess the success or failure of the reintegration of returnees in their country. It is often assumed that a failure of the reintegration of return migrants leads to a new migration, while the return is permanent in the case of success. However, measuring new departures for installation abroad after return is not evident given the lack of quantitative data. Thanks to biographic data from the MAFE surveys (Migration between Africa and Europe), we are able (1) to quantify the permanence of Senegalese and Congolese return migrants who spent more than one year in Europe and who have returned to their origin country in a long-term perspective, and (2) to investigate the determinants of new departures for installation to Europe of these return migrants. It is expected that the successful reintegration depends on the willingness to return, on the economic and political context, on the migrants’ life after their return, and on their situation since their return in comparison with the one they had in Europe.

The phenomenon of migration, which is associated with the globalisation process of the world’s economy, is also reflected in Poland. The emigration of Poles indicates a tendency of temporary or seasonal departures, which is in accordance with the migration trends observed in Europe or throughout the world. The current migration processes and the consequences of implementing the Union’s principle of the free flow of workers, are not reflected in the state strategies. Their presence is required in light of the data concerning emigration potential and emigration resources, as well as the newest demographic projections up to the year 2035. The treatment of the migration policy as a permanent element of the state’s development and modernisation strategy requires it to be based on solid knowledge regarding the nature and results of migration.
The migration process from and to Poland is therefore very complicated and, due to this, difficult to capture, and additionally its nature is very dynamic, as can be observed with the changes related to the worsening of the economic situation in the world. This paper contains an analysis of youth migration, with a particular emphasis on features specific to 2009-2011, in relation to their dynamics and changes taking place in the previous years