Migration

Migration

DEFINING MIGRATION

THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS

IMPLICATIONS OF MIGRATION FOR SENDING AND RECEIVING AREAS

FUTURE TRENDS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Migration is a demographic process that has played an increasingly important role in the changing populations of many countries around the world. Much of the geographic shift in populations occurs from rural areas to urban areas, as well as from less developed countries to more developed countries. Since the mid-twentieth century, an expanding literature has been developed to understand migration. In particular, many scholars have focused not only on the forces encouraging people to migrate, but also on the impact that this migration has had on the migrants themselves and on their places of origin and destination. This interest in the topic of migration emerges not only from the increasing prevalence of people migrating, but also the relevance of migration in shaping demographic, social, economic, and political spheres worldwide.

DEFINING MIGRATION

Migration has been defined generally as a “permanent or semi permanent change of residence” (Lee 1966, p. 49). This definition places no restriction “upon the distance of the move or upon the voluntary or involuntary nature of the act, and no distinction is made between external and internal migration” (Lee 1966, p. 49). However, such a broad definition obscures the heterogeneous types of movements that exist based on geographical distance, as well as the factors involved in the different types of movements. For example, some people move within a community, others move across counties within the same state, others move across states, and others move across international boundaries. The U.S. Census Bureau collects information on the migration activities of people using the five-year migration question (location of present residence and location of residence five years earlier). Furthermore, the U.S. Census Bureau defines movers as those who lived in a different house but within the same county in the five-year period, migrants as those that moved at least across counties within the country during the period, and international migrants as those that were living outside of the United States five years earlier. The five-year migration question has numerous shortcomings, most notably that it is based on only two points in time. For instance, persons living in the same county in 1995 and 2000 but who lived in another county in the interim are classified as nonmigrants.

The process of accounting for the continuous movement of people has become complicated by technological advances in the areas of transportation and communications. For example, immigrants increasingly engage in transnational migration, which involves the continuous movement between the community of origin in the home country and the community of destination in the host country (Levitt 1998). This type of movement has important implications beyond the migrant’s experience because it produces a variety of changes for both the sending and the receiving community.

THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The theorizing of explanations for the movement of people extends back to the late nineteenth century with geographer E. G. Ravenstein’s (1834–1913) article “The Laws of Migration” (1885). Interest in the development of theoretical perspectives to explain migration resurfaced between the 1950s and 1970s with important works by William Petersen (1958), Everett Lee (1966), and P. N. Ritchey (1976). However, the changing nature of migration—especially the increasing prevalence of international migration—has seen the development of theoretical perspectives that place greater attention on immigration since the 1960s (see Massey et al. 1993). This entry describes some of the most prominent perspectives.

World-Systems Perspective The world-system perspective is a structural-macrolevel perspective developed by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. This perspective views international migration as the result of the expansion of the market economy throughout the world, as capitalists from core countries make inroads into peripheral and semiperipheral countries (Brettell 2000; Massey and Espinosa 1997; Portes 1998; Sassen 2001; Wallerstein 1974). Accordingly, the flow of capital into peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, such as Mexico, results in a counter-movement of labor from such countries to core countries, such as the United States (Massey and Espinosa 1997). This perspective highlights the links between the movement of capital and the countermovement of labor. To a large extent, emigrants from periphery countries migrate to “global cities” (Sassen 2001), which are urban centers in which “banking, finance, administration, professional services, and high-tech production tend to be concentrated” (Massey et al. 1993, p. 447). However, by focusing exclusively on the macrolevel, the world-systems perspective ignores the microlevel factors that encourage people to migrate, while also neglecting the role of politics and the state in social and economic change (Brettell 2000).

Dual Labor-Market Perspective The dual labor-market perspective emphasizes the demands of advanced industrial countries for low-skilled and low-wage labor (Massey et al. 1993). This perspective suggests that immigrants fill jobs that natives shun due to low wages, lack of mobility ladders, lack of benefits, and the arduous and dangerous nature of such jobs. The dual labor-market perspective asserts that the movement of immigrants from less developed to more developed countries is driven by the constant demand for cheap labor in developed countries.

Neoclassical Economics Perspective The neoclassical economics perspective is characterized by attention to both the macrolevel and the microlevel. At the macrolevel, this perspective suggests that migration occurs as a response to a disequilibrium between labor supply and labor demand. Thus, some labor markets have a surplus of labor, which results in high levels of unemployment and low wages. Other labor markets have greater labor demands than the existing labor pool can supply, which results in low levels of unemployment and high wages. This perspective suggests that workers gravitate from labor markets with a greater surplus of labor toward those with a greater demand for labor.

In contrast, the microlevel form of the neoclassical economics perspective focuses on the cost-benefit calculations that individuals undertake when making decisions regarding migration. This perspective treats individuals as utility maximizers who attempt to obtain the highest wages in relation to investments. In considering migration, people weigh the costs of relocation against the benefits that they are likely to receive from moving. People are expected to migrate when the benefits outweigh the costs, whereas they are presumed to remain stable when costs outweigh benefits.

The New Economics-of-Migration Perspective The new economics-of-migration perspective shifts the context to the household and focuses on how such units organize themselves to maximize economic returns while minimizing risks (see Massey et al. 1993). In settings without readily accessible unemployment benefits, bank loans, and insurance to protect against potential failure (e.g., loss of crops due to weather), households are especially vulnerable to a variety of economic and physical calamities. The new economics-of-migration perspective suggests that household members are deployed to undertake a wide variety of employment activities to ensure that the household generates economic resources while minimizing risks. Thus, some household members may remain at home to conduct subsistence agricultural activities, while other household members work locally in the private sector, others migrate to urban areas within the country, and still others move abroad and send remittances to the household. Essentially, the new economics-of-migration perspective proposes that households diversify their investment portfolios to protect themselves against risks and uncertainties.

Social-Network Perspective The social-network perspective emphasizes the interpersonal ties linking potential migrants and former migrants, as well as the migrants’ communities of origin and destination. In particular, the social-network perspective focuses on social relations that exist among family or community members, with special attention to social capital. Alejandro Portes notes that social capital is made up of “those expectations for action within a collectivity that affect economic goals and goalseeking behavior of its members, even if these expectations are not oriented to the economic sphere” (1993, p. 1322). This perspective places primary importance on the social networks that potential migrants have with people who have previously migrated as the most important factor influencing people’s decision to migrate (Massey and Espinosa 1997). Hence, social networks affect the decision of individuals to migrate based on interpersonal ties. Migration is facilitated by sharing information about destination communities, reducing the expected costs and risks of migration, and increasing the expected benefits of migration (Rivero Fuentes 2003). In contrast to the neoclassical economics perspective, the social-network perspective recognizes the nonrational elements involved in people’s migration decision. However, sociologists have also been careful to recognize the shortcomings of this perspective. For example, social capital may prevent the creation of new networks by excluding outsiders, restricting individual freedom, and promoting downward leveling norms (Portes 1998).

Cumulative Migration (or the Migration Syndrome) Perspective Closely connected to the social-network perspective is the cumulative migration (or migration syndrome) perspective. According to this perspective, originating from the social-movements framework, every act of immigration has the potential to facilitate the migration of other people by decreasing the cost of immigration (Massey et al. 1993). Carried to its fullest, migration becomes cumulative and natural when it becomes embedded in the culture of sending communities. In such instances, it is completely expected that certain segments of the population (e.g., the young in many parts of Mexico, especially males) will emigrate. In the case of Mexico, for example, many communities have relatively few working-age men because they have followed the trek of friends and relatives to the United States.

IMPLICATIONS OF MIGRATION FOR SENDING AND RECEIVING AREAS

While migration represents an important life-changing event for migrants, it also poses important demographic, social, economic, and political implications for sending and receiving communities. In demographic terms, international migration is responsible for changing the racial and ethnic composition of the communities of destination. For example, the American Latino and Asian populations have expanded tremendously through immigration into the United States since the 1960s (Alba 1999). In addition, with respect to the social implications of immigration, much discussion has focused on issues such as language and racial and ethnic boundaries as examined through the assimilation and multiculturalism models (Alba 1999).

Furthermore, migration has tremendous economic implications for communities, states, and countries around the globe. For example, Peggy Levitt and Rafael de la Dehesa (2003) have pointed out that much public policy on immigration is due to the recognition of migrants and their remittances as crucial elements in the state’s economy. Because of this, many states are reinventing themselves by expanding the boundaries of citizenship and nationality, granting migrants the right to vote, establishing bureaucratic reforms, and making investments that allow states to become more efficient in aiding migrants within and across their own borders.

FUTURE TRENDS

As noted earlier, and as predicted by contemporary theoretical perspectives on migration, people generally move from less developed to more developed countries. The future points increasingly to this scenario. Of the 2.8 billion people that are projected to be added to the world’s population between 2005 and 2050, nearly all (98.6%) are expected to be added to the populations of developing countries (Population Reference Bureau 2005). Developed countries, with increasingly aging populations and low fertility rates, are projected to account for only 1.4 percent of the world’s population growth between 2005 and 2050. Given continued economic disparities across the developed and developing worlds, increasing global population shifts are likely.

SEE ALSO Immigrants to North America; Migrant Labor

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alba, Richard. 1999. Immigration and the American Realities of Assimilation and Multiculturalism. Sociological Forum 14 (1): 3–25.

Brettell, Caroline B., and James F. Hollifield. 2000. Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines. In Migration Theory: Talking across Disciplines, eds. Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield, 1–26. New York: Routledge.

Brown, David L. 2002. Migration and Community: Social Networks in a Multilevel World. Rural Sociology 67 (1): 1–23.

Conway, Karen Smith, and Andrew J. Houtenville. 1998. Do the Elderly “Vote with Their Feet?” Public Choice 97: 663–685.

De Jong, Gordon F., Rex H. Warland, and Brenda Davis Root. 1998. Family Interaction and Migration Decision Making. Research in Rural Sociology and Development 7: 155–167.

Lee, Everett S. 1966. A Theory of Migration. Demography 3: 47–57.

Levitt, Peggy. 1998. Social Remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion. International Migration Review 32 (4): 926–948.

Levitt, Peggy, and Rafael de la Dehesa. 2003. Transnational Migration and the Redefinition of the State: Variations and Explanations. Ethnic and Racial Studies 26 (4): 587–611.

Massey, Douglas S., and Kristin Espinosa. 1997. What’s Driving Mexico-U.S. Migration? A Theoretical, Empirical, and Policy Analysis. American Journal of Sociology 4 (102): 939–999.

Massey, Douglas S., et al. 1993. Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal. Population and Development Review 19 (3): 431–466.

Petersen, William. 1958. A General Typology of Migration. American Sociological Review 23 (3): 256–266.

Plane, David A., and Peter A. Rogerson. 1994. The Geographical Analysis of Population with Applications to Planning and Business. New York: Wiley.

Population Reference Bureau. 2005. 2005 World Population Data Sheet. Washington, DC: Author. http://www.prb.org/pdf05/05WorldDataSheet_Eng.pdf.

Portes, Alejandro. 1998. Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 1–24.

Portes, Alejandro, and Julia Sensenbrenner. 1993. Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action. American Journal of Sociology 98(6): 1320–1350.

Portes, Alejandro, and Min Zhou. 1993. The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 530: 74–96.

Ravenstein, E. G. 1885. The Laws of Migration. Journal of the Statistical Society 48 (2): 167–235. Ritchey, P. N. 1976. Explanations of Migration. Annual Review of Sociology 2: 363–404.

Rivero Fuentes, Estela. 2003. Engendering Migrant Networks: The Case of Mexican Migration. Demography 40 (2): 289–307.

Sassen, Saskia. 2001. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.

Rogelio Saenz

Maria Isabel Ayala