The Human Population:The Human Population:Patterns, Processes, and ProblematicsPatterns, Processes, and Problematics

Lecture #12: Lecture #12: Ch 7 Migration continued…Ch 7 Migration continued…

Paul SuttonPaul Sutton

psutton@du.edupsutton@du.edu

Department of GeographyDepartment of Geography

University of DenverUniversity of Denver

Why Do People Migrate?• Wilbur Zelinsky’s ‘Mobility Transition’ or

Migration Transition as part of the demographic transition.

• At the 2nd phase of demographic transition population grows dramatically which strains resources and causes out-migration (example: exodus from Europe in 18th century)

• Theory of Demographic Change & Response: People move to where the resources are.

• Urban Transition: Migration from rural to urban

Ravenstein’s “Laws” of Migration• 1) Most migrants only go short distance

• 2) Migration proceeds step by step

• 3) Migrants going long distance prefer big cities

• 4) Each migration stream produces a compensating counter stream

• 5) Rural people more migratory than urban

• 6) Women more migratory within country; Men more migratory between countries

• 7) Most migrants are adults – families rarely migrate out of their country of birth.

• 8) Large cities grow more by migration than natural increase

• 9) Migration increases in volume as industries and commerce develop and transportation improves

• 10) The major stream of migration is rural to urban

• 11) The major cause of migration is economic

The “Push-Pull” theory of Migration• Some people migrate because they are “pushed” or

driven out of their home location.• Other people migrate because they are “pulled’ or drawn

to the location they migrate to.• “Pull” more important than “Push”

• “Bad and oppressive laws, heavy taxation, an unattractive climate, uncongenial social surrounding, and even compulsion (slave trade, transportation), all have produced and are still producing currents of migration, but none of these currents can compare in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in most men to ‘better’ themselves in material respects.”

Ravenstein

Migration as a Cost-Benefit Analysis

• In Push – Pull context; No matter how bad it is people are not motivated to move unless they see a better opportunity someplace else (a Pull)

• “Costs” of moving: Intervening Obstacles (distance to expected destination, cost of travel, personal health situation, etc.)

• Economic variables dominate most explanations of why people migrate.

• #1 Reason U.S. citizens migrate is to travel to a new job.

Migration Potential• 1) Migration is selective (not everyone migrates

with equal propensity)

• 2) The heightened propensity to migrate at certain stages of the life cycle is important in the selection of migrants.

• Key life-cycle events: Going to College, Taking a Job, Getting Married.

Migration Selectivity

• Selectivity by Age

• Selectivity by Life-Cycle• Selectivity by Sex (gender)

Migrationselectivity

by age

Selectivity by Life Cycle• Not surprisingly we are very likely to move once

we reach maturity (usually around 18)• Get a job, get married, have kids. Migrate• Un married people (single, divorced, seperated &

widowed) have much higher migration rates.• Migration propensity higher for people with

smaller and younger families. Once kids in school migration propensity drops.

• Fertility is lower just before migration & higher just after migration.

Selectivity by Sex• The lower the status of women in a country or region

the greater the differential in migration propensity between men and women with men’s propensity being higher.

• Countries where wife joins a husband from “out of county” may have higher migration rates for women.

• When families move the women usually have reduced employment prospects relative to where they came from.

• Globally women are migrating more but have yet to catch up with men.

Conceptualizing The Migration ProcessNote: There is not

comprehensive ‘theory’ of migration behavior

Two important Migration Strategies

• Step Migration: Migrants reduce the risk of the migration decision by ‘inching’ their way from home. If it works out badly cost of return is lower.

• Chain Migration: Migrants follow the path of ‘pioneers’ who have scoped out a particular place, sent information back, and make it easier to stay once they get there.

Theories of International Migration

• The Neo-classical economic approach

• The New Household Economics

• Dual Labor Market Theory

• World Systems Theory

• Network Theory

• Institutional Theory

• Cumulative Causation

The Neo-Classical Economic Approach• Migration is the ‘free’ market adjustment of labor

supply to difference in the supply and demand for labor.

• Countries with booming economies and labor shortages have higher wages. Thus people move from low wage to high wage areas.

• Migration will continue until the gap in wages is reduced to the sum of the monetary and psychosocial costs of migrating.

The New Household Economics of Migration

• Similar to Neo-classical approach but with a significant difference. Neo-classical claims individuals make the decision to migrate whereas New Home Economics sees the ‘Household’ as a whole as the decision making entity.

• Households can send individuals based on both risk minimizing and opportunity maximizing perceptions.

• The reality of ‘remittances’ strongly supports New Home Economics vs. Neo-Classical theory

Dual Labor Market Theory• Developed countries have a Primary and a Secondary

sector of the economy. Primary sector characterized by good wages, benefits, job security etc. Secondary characterized by low wages, minimal benefits, instability, and low chances for advancement.

• Historically women, minorities, and teenagers filled these jobs ‘in country’.

• Lower birth rates reduced supply of teenagers, and greater social equity produced better opportunities for women and minorities.

• Result: Immigrants from developing countries sought for filling these secondary labor positions

World Systems Theory(the big conspiracy)

• Global economy since the 16th century has developed into “Core” and “Periphery” nations.

• “Core” nations are the developed world of Europe, U.S., Japan, etc.

• “Periphery” is just about everyone else.• Migration is a natural outgrowth of “Core” nations

exploiting “Periphery” nations in the process of capitalist development.

• As land, labor, and raw material come under influence and control of global markets migration flows are inevitable generated.

Network Theory(more an explanation of sustained migration)

• Migrants establish interpersonal ties that: “connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through ties of kinship, friendship, and shared community origin. They increase the likelihood of international movement because they lower the costs and risks of movement and increase the expected net returns to migration.”

• In many respects this is a generalization of the ideas of “Chain Migration”

Institutional Theory• Once migration streams are established that either

donor or reciever or both find beneficial, insititutions will develop that will sustain migration.

• These organizations may provide a range of services from humanitarian protection, smuggling people across borders, providing counterfeit documents, and arranging for lodging and or credit in the receiving country.

• These institutions perpetuate migration in the face of government attempts to limit the flow of migrants.

Anyone remember the Tyson Chicken underground railroad?

Tyson Foods Indicted for Knowingly

Importing Illegal Workers On December 19, Tyson Foods was accused in a 36-count indictment of helping smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S.

and employing them at various chicken-processing plants across the Southeast. The indictment capped a 2-½ year undercover investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) into the company. The indictment says that Tyson managers would contact local smugglers and contract out for shipments of workers. The managers would get fake documents for the illegal aliens; as part of getting fake Social Security cards they would submit stolen Social Security numbers to the INS’s Basic Pilot Program for verification of employability to see which ones were rejected. The managers would also arrange payment via corporate checks given to the illegal aliens who would turn the money over to the smuggler.

As part of the investigation, undercover federal agents pretending to be smugglers contracted for a load of over 200 illegal aliens, negotiating with Tyson executives in several different states.

The investigation marked a strategy shift for INS interior enforcement, the latest move to refine the agency’s efforts to stop illegal alien smuggling. The investigation involved wiretaps, paid informers and undercover agents in an effort to uncover evidence of systematic illegal activity by Tyson. The INS has largely abandoned so-called “worksite enforcement” operations involving arresting and deporting illegal workers; INS statistics indicate worksite raids and arrests plummeted over 90 percent from the early 1990s.

Experts estimate that a high percentage of the roughly 400,000 meatpacking workers in the United States are here illegally. Despite its own estimation that one quarter of those workers are illegal, the INS has engaged in limited efforts to stop illegal hiring prior to the December indictment. The agency has fined Tyson five times previously during the 1990s for illegal hiring, and other meatpackers have had to fire some workers under the now-abandoned Operation Vanguard. The chief reason for INS reticence appears political; each prior enforcement effort would bring attacks from immigrant advocates, unions, and meatpacking industry representatives.

Residents of towns where Tyson has chicken plants say they were not surprised by the indictments. “It was kind of an open secret that Tyson was helping ship these guys in. How else would they get from the middle of Mexico to the middle of nowhere?” asked one city employee in Ashland, Alabama. In Noel, Missouri, the city marshal said he

had been reporting illegal aliens involved in crimes to the INS and expected some action.

Cumulative Causation• Each act of migration influences the potential of

subsequent acts of migration.

• If receiving country ‘welcomes’ immigrants that increases likelihood of even more immigration.

• If immigrants send money back home (remittances), that tells people back home that migrating to U.S. might not be so bad.

• Cumulative Causation is sort of the self-perpetuation theory of migration.

What’s the “Best” explanation?

• None of these theories are entirely refuted from empirical observations.

• None of these theories really explain everything associated with migration either.

• Migration is a complex phenomenon with dramatic social and individual impacts.

Consequences of Migration

• For the individual migrant migrating is usually pretty stressful.

• Often they deal with xenophobia, racism, etc.

• One coping strategy is seeking an enclave. (a place within a larger community in which people of a particular sub-group tend to concentrate)

• Enclaves have plusses & minuses: They can be access to working capital, protected markets, and pools of labor; however, they, can enable retardation of assimilation.

Adaptation, Acculturation, Assimilation

• Immigrants tend to goe through these three processes of increasing integration with the culture of the country they migrate to.

• Acculturation is accelerated if they have children in school

• Assimilation is often accelerated by marrying a native of the receiving country.

Different Models for Immigrants• Assimilation: The Immigrants ‘become’

indistinguishable from natives.

• Integration: Immigrants maintain their own cultural identity but are accepted as equals.

• Exclusion: Immigrants are segregated in enclaves or ghettos and are not treated as equals

Children of Immigrants• Children born in host country have a unique

situation. They have immigrant parents yet were raised in a foreign place.

• The 1-12 year olds who moved with parents are often called the 1.5 generation and have a more mixed cultural upbringing.

• Segmented Assimilation often occurs when children of immigrants either adopt host country language & behavior but are limited because they are still perceived as a minority; or, assimilate economically but retain ethinic identity.

Societal Consequences• Host and Donor nations both impacted

demographically, economically by migration.

• Clear age function of migration causes an increase in the birth rate of host country and a loss of working population and fertility in donor country.

• Actual ‘Costs’ very tough to measure. In U.S. immigration reduces some costs: Groceries, hotel rooms, restaurant food; but increases others, Health care, Car Insurance, Education

Forced Migration• There are at least 50 million people alive today who were

forced to migrate.• Slavery is the most egregious example of forced migration.

(Still going on in Sudan as late as 1990)

• Biggest Migration from Slavery was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (11 million Africans from what is now Senegal, Sierra Leone, Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria, and the Congo)

• Most went to Caribbean and Brazil. Although Hundreds of Thousands went to United States.

• Slave Traders initially Spanish & Portuguese but later French, Dutch, and English got into it.

• British eventually pushed for abolition of slavery. Outlawed it in 1833. Canada never allowed slavery and was a haven for runaway slaves.

• Mexico never big in slavery but explicitly outlawed it in 1827.

Refugees• There are 14 million refugees in the world

today.

• Baby without a country?

When a refugee has a Child outside their countryOf origin the child may

haveNo citizenship in anyCountry whatsoever.

Where do People Migrate?(Global patterns of migration)

• Historically massive migration to “New Worlds” in 18th, 19th, and early 20th century.

• Immigration curtailed worldwide in early 20th century due to global depression and WWI and II

• Post WWII unleashed major migrations in Europe and Asia with boundary realignments and people leaving war torn areas.

• 1947 partition of India into India and Pakistan prompted a mass migration of Hindus & Muslims

• 1948 creation of state of Israel created exodus of Palestinians and influx of Jews from many parts of the world.

Other Global Patterns of Migration• South to North Migration: from developing

“South” countries to developed “North” countries (El Norte)

• From really poor countries to “emerging” economies in south and southeast Asia.

• From Oil-poor to Oil-rich countries in the Middle East.

• 4.5 % of population in developed nations is foreign born whereas only 1.6% of population in developing world is foreign born. (U.S. ~ 10%)

Global Migration

Sending & Receiving Countries

Migration in the United States

“They came thinking the streets were paved with gold, but found that the streets weren’t paved at all and that they were expected to do the paving.”

Numbers for last graph for sense of scale

Demographic Profile of the Foreign Born in the U.S. in 1990

Migration OUT of the United States

• Emigration from the U.S. is not insignificant.

• For every 5 immigrants there is 1 emigrant.

• Most emigrants are foreign born who stayed in the U.S. for a short or long time and returned home.

• The Social Security Administration sends about 5 million social security checks outside the U.S. every month.

Internal Migration in the U.S.

Measuring Aggregate Migration in the United States

California’s economy took a hard hit in the mid 1990’s. What impact may that have had on this graphic if it was made at a finer

temporal resolution?

Capturing the Complexity of Contemporary Population Movement in the U.S.:

Frey’s five trends• 1) Uneven Urban Renewal (see “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida)

• 2) Regional Racial Division (California, Texas, and New York get disproportionate share of immigrants and this makes them unique and distinct)

• 3) The “Hourglass” economy: Regional divisions by skill level / education with widened income gap

• 4) Baby Boom & Elderly geographic realignments

• 5) Suburban Dominance and City isolation

Migration into Canada (Canadia eh? )

• Pattern somewhat similar to U.S.

• 1 in 10 Canadians speak language other than French or English in the home.

• 1 in 6 have mother toungue other than French or English

• Immigrants are increasingly coming from Asia with a strong Chinese contingent

Next Up: Chapter 8

• The Age & Sex Structure of a Population

• More than you ever wanted to know about population pyramids……