Migration Analysis:Basic Information

Alfred Otieno Population Studies and Research

InstituteUniversity of Nairobi

Migration Issues

■ 1. Types of Migration• What are the major forms of migration?

■ 2. Selective Migration• Why migration can be considered as a selective process?

■ 3. Brain Drain• What is the extent of movements of skilled labor?

Types of Migration

■ Emigration and immigration• Change in residence.• Relative to origin and destination.

■ Requires information• People and conditions.• Two different places.• Two different times.

■ Duration• Permanent.• Seasonal / Temporary.

■ Choice / constraint• Improve one’s life.• Leave inconvenient / threatening

conditions.

A

B

Problems or benefits?

Problems or benefits?

Emigrant

Immigrant

Types of Migration

■ Gross migration• Total number of people coming in

and out of an area.• Level of population turnover.

■ Net Migration• Difference between immigration (in-

migration) and emigration (out-migration).

• Positive value:• More people coming in.• Population growth (44% of North

America and 88% of Europe).• Negative value:

• More people coming out.• Population decline.

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Emigration

Immigration

Net migration

Gross migration

Types of Migration

■ International Migration• Emigration is an indicator of economic and/or social failures of a

society.• Crossing of a national boundary.• Easier to control and monitor.• Laws to control / inhibit these movements.• Between 2 million and 3 million people emigrate each year.• Between 1965 and 2000, 175 million people have migrated:

• 3% of the global population.

Types of Migration

■ Internal Migration• Within one country.• Crossing domestic jurisdictional

boundaries.• Movements between states or

provinces.• Little government control.• Factors:

• Employment-based.• Retirement-based.• Education-based.• Civil conflicts (internally

displaced population).

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Types of Migration

■ Local Migration• No state boundaries are crossed.• Buying a new house in the same

town or city.• Difficult to research since they

are usually missed in census data.

• Based on change of income or lifestyle.

• Often very high levels of local migration.

• Americans change residence every 5 to 7 years.

Central City

Suburb

Types of Migration

■ Voluntary migration• The migrant makes the decision to move.• Most migration is voluntary.

■ Involuntary• Forced migration in which the mover has no role in the decision-

making process.• Slavery:

• About 11 million African slaves were brought to the Americas between 1519 and 1867.

• In 1860, there were close to 4 million slaves in the United States.• Refugees.• Military conscription.• Children of migrants.• Situations of divorce or separation.

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Types of Migration

Type Characteristics

International Crossing a boundary; easier to control; regulated; difference in income; 2-3 million per year.

National Between states or provinces; little control; employment opportunities; education; retirement.

Local Within a city/region; change of income or lifestyle.

Voluntary The outcome of a choice.

Involuntary The outcome of a constraint.

Selective Migration

■ Context• Many migrations are selective.• Do not represent a cross section of the source population.• Differences:

• Age.• Sex.• Level of education.

■ Age-specific migrations• One age group is dominant in a particular migration.• International migration tends to involve younger people.• The dominant group is between 25 and 45:

• Peak age of immigrants is 26.• Studies and retirement are also age-specific migrations:

• Emergence of international retirement migration.

Population Pyramid of Native and Foreign Born Population, United States, 2000 (in %)

8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8

Percent

Male Female FemaleMale

Foreign Born Native

8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8

0-4

5-9

10-14

15-19

20-24

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

55-59

60-64

65-69

70-74

75-79

80-84

85+

Percent

Age

Selective Migration

■ Sex-specific migrations• Males:

• Often dominant international migrations.• Once established, try to bring in a wife.

• Females:• Often dominate rural to urban migrations.• Find jobs as domestic help or in new factories.• Send remittances back home.• Filipino females 17-30 to Hong Kong and Japan.

• “Mail-order bride”:• 100,000 – 150,000 women a year advertise themselves for marriage.• About 10,000 available on the Internet at any time.• Mainly from Southeast Asia and Russia.• Come from places in which jobs and educational opportunities for women

are scarce and wages are low.

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Selective Migration

■ Education-specific migrations• May characterize some migrations (having or lacking of).• Educational differences:

• 21% of all legal immigrants have at least 17 years of education.• 8% for native-born Americans.• 20% of all immigrants do not have 9 years of schooling.

• Foreign students:• Often do not return to their home countries after their education.• Often cannot utilize what they have learned.• Since 1978 some 130,000 Chinese overseas students have returned

while some 250,000 have remained abroad.• Most research-oriented graduate institutions have around 40% foreign

students.

Selective Migration

■ Immigration and jobs• Related to the economic sector.• High level:

• Filling high skilled position in science, technology and education.• Not enough highly trained personnel in the US.• Result in recruiting abroad (see brain drain).

• Low level:• Filling low paid jobs (minimum wage) that most people do not want

(agriculture and low level services).• Maintain low wages in low skilled jobs.• Possibility of an informal economy.

Brain Drain

■ Definition• Relates to educationally specific selective migrations.• Some countries are losing the most educated segment of their

population.• Can be both a benefit for the receiving country and a problem to

the country of origin.■ Receiving country

• Getting highly qualified labor contributing to the economy right away.

• Promotes economic growth in strategic sectors: science and technology.

• Not having to pay education and health costs.• It costs about $300,000 to educate an average American.• 30% of Mexicans with a PhD are in the US.

Brain Drain

■ Country of origin• Education and health costs not paid back.• Losing potential leaders and talent:

• Developing countries lose 15% of their graduates.• Between 15 and 40% of a graduating class in Canada will move to the

US.• 50% of Caribbean graduates leave.

• Long term impact on economic growth.• Possibility of remittances.• Many brain drain migrants have skills which they can’t use at

home:• The resources and technology may not be available there.• The specific labor market is not big enough.

Brain Drain

■ A reverse migration trend• High costs in developed countries.• New opportunities in developing countries.• Part of the offshoring process of many manufacturing and service

activities.• Qualified personnel coming back with skills and connections:

Migration Explanations

■ 1. Push - Pull Theory• What are the major “push” and “pull” factors behind migration?

■ 2. Economic Approaches• How can migration be explained from an economic perspective?

■ 3. Behavioral Explanations to Migration• How can migration be explained from a human behavior

perspective?

Push - Pull

■ Context• Migrations as the response of individual decision-makers.• Negative or push factors in his current area of residence:

• High unemployment and little opportunity.• Great poverty.• High crime.• Repression or a recent disaster (e.g., drought or earthquake).

• Positive or pull factors in the potential destination:• High job availability and higher wages.• More exciting lifestyle.• Political freedom, greater safety and security, etc.

Push - Pull

■ Intervening obstacles• Migration costs / transportation.• Immigration laws and policies of the destination country.

■ The problem of perception• Assumes rational behavior on the part of the migrant:

• Not necessarily true since a migrant cannot be truly informed.• The key word is perception of the pull factors.• Information is never complete.• Decisions are made based upon perceptions of reality at the destination

relative to the known reality at the source.• When the migrant’s information is highly inaccurate, a return

migration may be one possible outcome.

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Economic Approaches

■ Labor mobility• The primary issue behind migration.• Notably the case at the national level.• Equilibrate the geographical differences in

labor supply and demand.• Accelerated with the globalization of the

economy.■ Remittances

• Capital sent by workers working abroad to their family / relatives at home.

• $126 billion in 2004:• $16 billion each year goes out of Saudi Arabia

as remittances.• 2nd most important most important source of

income for Mexico (after oil and before tourism); $22 billion in 2005.

Labor shortagesHigh wages

Surplus laborLow wages

Migration

Economic Approaches

■ (Illegal) Immigration and the welfare state• Welfare policies appear to be promoting illegal immigration.• Welfare:

• Creates a disincentive to work among the national population.• Attracts immigrants seeking benefits (e.g. health and education).• Some analysis indicate that low skilled immigrant (illegal or not) cost more

than they bring to an economy.• Employment laws (minimum wage, benefits):

• Make employing nationals artificially high. • Attracts immigrants that can offer lower wages and no benefits.

• Emergence of a significant black labor market used even by large corporations (through subcontracting).

• The government, in an attempt to protect U.S. workers, has priced them out of the market.

Behavioral Explanations of Migration

■ Life-cycle factors• Migration linked to events in one’s life.• People in their 30s are the most mobile.

• Education, career, and family are being established.

• Later in life, flexibility decreases and inertia increases.

• Retirement often brings a major change.• Large migrations of retired people have been

occurring in the direction of amenities-oriented areas.

25

50

75

Stay with parents

Move to college

First job

PromotionMarriage

Retirement

Children leave home

Loss of mobility

Behavioral Explanations of Migration

■ Migrants as risk-takers• Why, among a population in the same environment (the same

push factors), some leave and some stay?• Migrants tend to be greater risk-takers, more motivated, more

innovative and more adaptable.• Non-migrants tend to be more cautious and conservative.• Can be used to explain the relative dynamism in some societies,

like the USA since the 1800s.■ Summary

• No one theory of migration can adequately explain this huge worldwide phenomenon.

• Each brings a contribution to the understanding of why people move.

Refugees

■ 1. Definition• What is a refugee and how one qualifies for this status?

■ 2. Contemporary Evolution• How the refugee situation has evolved in time?

Definition

■ The United Nations definition• The 1951 Convention Regarding the Status of Refugees and the

1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees:• “..... any person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for

any reasons of race, religion, nationality, member of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.…” .

• The problem lies in the definition of who is a refugee.• There are no international agreements to protect people who

cross boundaries for their economic survival.

Definition

■ Conditions to qualify for refugee status• Political persecution must be demonstrated.• An international boundary must be crossed:

• Domestically displaced persons do not qualify.• Protection by one’s government is not seen an alternative:

• The government may be the persecutor.• Could be incapable of protecting its citizens from persecution.

Definition

■ Environmental and economic refugees• People who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their

homelands because of what are primarily environmental or economic factors of unusual scope.

• Sources:• Natural disaster.• Human alterations to the environment; climate change.• Contamination (pollution) of the environment.• Lack of development and opportunities.

• Render continued residence in that particular location unsustainable.

• Mozambique, February 2000:• Floods made 1 million people homeless.• Destroyed agricultural land and cattle.

Contemporary Evolution

■ Origins• The first recorded refugees were the Protestant Huguenots who

left France to avoid religious persecution.• About 200,000 at the end of the 17th century.• Went to England, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and

the English colonies in North America.■ Pre-WW II and during WW II

• Primarily political elites:• Fleeing repression from the new government, which overthrew them.• Usually small in number and often had substantial resources available to

them.• War-driven refugees:

• About 12% of the European population displaced.• Usually could be expected to repatriate after the war ended.

Contemporary Evolution

■ Post WW II• Change in the patterns of refugee flows:

• The majority of refugees are now coming from the developing world.• De-colonization in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean:

• Political unrest in many newly independent states.• Multi-ethnic nature of those states.• The result of the drawing of colonial boundary lines by Europeans.

• The Cold War also increased political instability in a number of countries.

• Political instability in Latin America increased due to the vast social inequalities existing in that region.

• New kind of refugee flow:• Large and of long (or permanent) duration.

Contemporary Evolution

■ Current issues• Refugees are a controversial issue:

• Especially in the developed world.• Only a small share of the asylum seekers are granted the refugee status.• Less than 20% for the European Union.• Increasingly, refugees are no longer accepted.• Economic refugees resorting to asylum as the only way to get a legal

status.• 1996 amendment to US immigration law:

• Enforcing detention for all refugees entering the United States.• INS can summarily deport those who arrive without valid travel

documents.• 4,000 detained on any given day.

Origins and Destinations of Refugees, 2003

10,000

100,000

1,000,000

Red = OriginGreen = Destination