Theories of International Migration

1
Theories of International Migration

• What are social theories?
• Social theories conceptualize causal processes of
  social phenomenon.
• Theories of International Migration conceptualize
  causal processes of how international migration
  is initiated and maintained or perpetuated.

2
The Purpose of a Thorough Review on Theories of
International Migration

• To take a theoretical position that is open to
• Analysis on every level, individual, household,
  networks, and international
• Different disciplinary assumptions and hypothesis
• Different perspectives within the same discipline.

3

• Reason Current patterns and trends in
  immigration suggest that a full understanding of
  contemporary migratory processes will not be
  achieved by relying on the tools of one
  discipline alone, or by focusing on a single
  level of analysis. (Massey et al, p.258)
• Theoretical position of this course Since
  different theories focus on different levels of
  analysis, they can not be assumed to be
  inherently incompatible with each other.

4
The Initiation of International Migration

• Why does international migration begin?

5
Neoclassical Economics Combining Macro and Micro

• Propositions
• International migration stems from international
  differentials in wages and opportunities.(macro-le
  vel)
• To maximize their human capital return,
  individuals who can have higher return to human
  capital in receiving countries are more likely to
  move internationally than others.
• When the cost of migration is lower, the
  possibility for potential migrants to move is
  higher.
• 23 explains the differential migration decisions
  between individuals within the same sending
  country.

6
The New Economics of Migration

• Proposition
• Migration decisions are not made by
  isolated individual actors, but by larger units
  of related people typically families or
  households not only to maximize their income but
  also to minimize risks and constraints.

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Dual Labor Market Theory (I) Point of Departure

• Point of departure from neoclassical and new
  economics neoclassical and new economics analyze
  micro-level decisions, dual labor market theory
  argues that international migration stems from
  intrinsic labor demands of modern industrial
  societies.
• Main difference Neoclassical and new economics
  focus on the supply of migrants and the dual
  labor market theory stresses the demand of
  receiving countries.

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Dual Labor Market Theory (II)

• Propositions
• People at developed societies faced motivational
  problems to enter the bottom of job hierarchy
  because there is no status in society and few
  channels for upward mobility. Such job vacancy
  creates demand for foreign workers who do not
  have the motivational problems because they do
  not expect bottom level jobs anything beyond
  means to earn money.
• Migration is usually initiated or pulled by
  recruitment on the part of employers in developed
  countries, or by governments acting as agents of
  employers.

9
World Systems Theory (I)

• Proposition
• The penetration of capitalist economic relations
  into peripheral, non-capitalist societies creates
  a mobile population that is ready to migrate
  abroad.
• Migration is a natural outgrowth of disruptions
  and dislocations that occur in the process of
  capitalist development in developing countries.
  World system theory argues that international
  migration follows the expanding global markets.

10
World Systems Theory (II)

• Capitalist investment fosters changes that create
  an uprooted, mobile population in peripheral
  countries while at the same time forging strong
  material and cultural links with core countries,
  leading to international migration.
• International migration is especially likely
  between past colonial powers and the former
  colonies, because cultural, linguistic,
  investment, transportation, and communication
  links were established early.
• International migration has little to do with
  wage differences between countries it is a
  result of the dynamics of the global economy.

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The Perpetuation of International Movement

• Main focus
• Once international migration begun,
  other new conditions come in to perpetuate
  migration across time and space. Although wage
  differentials, household strategies, demands in
  receiving countries, and global market
  penetration may continue to cause people to
  migrate, new conditions arise to function as
  independent causes. Different theories stress
  different conditions that make the migration
  decisions or situations independent of structural
  or individual factors that originally caused
  migration.

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Theories of perpetuation