Migration in Demographic Perspective

1
Migration in Demographic Perspective

• Overview provided by
• Sally E. Findley
• Rapporteur

2
My Objectives

• Summarize critical theoretical premises in
  Patterns and Processes of International
  Migration in the 21st Century (Massey)
• Show how the Regional papers address or
  illuminate these premises
• Have Migration Patterns Changed in post-Apartheid
  South Africa-Posel
• Urbn and Internal Migration Patterns in Latin
  America- Cerrutti Bertoncello
• Bridging the Gap Internal Migration in
  Asia-Guest
• Identify queries that will help us collectively
  develop African perspectives on migration and
  urbanization that adapt these premises and
  lessons

3
Theoretical Premise 1(Massey)

• International migration is structured by economic
  globalization
• 4 historical periods of international migration
  mercantile, industrial, limited migration,
  post-industrial
• Migration flows originally dominated by European
  economic expansion
• Current international migration patterns is
  structured around the extensive cross-national
  flows of capital, materials, and information

4
The Emergence of Dominant Migration Poles in the
21st Century

• Two basic immigration systems (cf. Figure 2)
• Diversified, globally networked flows
• North America and Western Europe
• lt50 of immigrants from same region
• Concentrated, localized network flows
• Persian Gulf, Asia-Pacific, Southern Cone
• gt80 of immigrants from own region
• South Africa is included in this group as a hub
  in international migration for Africa

5
Theoretical Premise 2 Development causes
migration

• International migration is stimulated by the
  development of markets, specifically when
  traditional and command economies are
  incorporated into global trade information
  networks
• Caveat Initiation of migration does not equal
  perpetuation of migration ongoing
  transformations in the economy of sending and
  receiving nation-states will condition future
  migration patterns

6
Theoretical Premise 3 Market failure is more
important than market success

• Failures in capital, credit, and insurance
  markets are more important than wage
  differentials
• Segmentation of the labor market underpins
  long-term demand for immigrant labor in core/pole
  regions

7
Theoretical Premise 4 Network expansion
perpetuates migration

• Globalization involves social, political,
  information and communications integration across
  borders
• Migration networks provide social capital to
  subsequent migrants

8
Theoretical Premise 5 Migration tends toward
permanence

• Most migrants dont intend to stay permanently,
  but many factors lead migrants to prolong their
  stay
• Even if migrants dont stay put, they may stay
  out.
• However, in the aggregate a specific migration
  system may be of limited duration.

9
Theoretical Premise 6State policies influence
migration systems

• States have political and ideological reasons to
  articulate restrictive policies
• Explicit immigration policies often at odds with
  macro-economic policies
• Dual labor market w/in pole is mirrored by dual
  immigration policy
• Widening gap between immigration policy goals and
  the actual outcomes

10
Caveat to Theoretical Premise 6 States can only
go so far in regulating international migration

• Global economy is not controlled by the State
• Repression of migrants is politically difficult
• Tendency to symbolic policies with only the
  appearance of control

11
Implications for international migration policies
in the 21st century

• Unilateral State efforts to restrict and control
  immigration are doomed to fail.
• Need to work multilaterally to manage
  international migration flows more effectively
  as a vital and positive dimension of economic
  globalization

12
Where do African nations fit into this
international migration system?

• Africans participate in migrations to the four
  major poles (and South Africa)
• Half a million net emigrants from region in 2000
• 20 of all emigrants from resource poor regions
• African nations also are linked together in
  intra-continental migration flows
• 16 million immigrants in Africa in 2000
• Higher immigration rate than Asia or Latin
  America
• Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Tanzania are in the top
  20 nations receiving migrants 1990-2000
• Mali, Somalia, Congo, Burundi and Sierra Leone
  among the top 20 sending nations
• 23 of all immigrants in resource-poor regions

13
Perspectives from Latin America and Asia

• Most African nations are far less urbanized than
  most nations in Latin America or Asia, but share
  with them important patterns of international and
  internal migration
• Most international migrants move w/in the region
• International migration is encompassed w/in a
  larger migration system with much more important
  rural-urban and urban-urban migration flows
• How do Latin American and Asian
  international/internal migration systems differ
  from African patterns? Which subregions in each
  continent share similar patterns?

14
Queries about African International Migration
Patterns

• What is the African international migration
  system? Which countries serve as poles for this
  system, e.g., South Africa and others?
• How can this model of African migrations be
  adapted to allow for varying stages of economic
  integration into the global economy? What lessons
  from the Latin American or Asian experiences?
• How can the international migration system
  outlined by Massey be expanded to incorporate
  internal migration flows?

15
SAP The heavy toll of globalization

• Debt is the corollary of global economic growth.
  
• By 1995, African nations had over 300 billion in
  debt. Over a dozen African nations are severely
  indebted low-income countries.
• Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP)are in place
  throughout Africa to structure debt repayment.
• SAP undercuts agricultural sector earnings,
  wages, and health and social services
• Migration Catch-22 of SAP Disinvestments
  demanded by SAP are precisely in things migrants
  seek.
• SAP has been associated with escalating
  emigrations

16
Latin American SAP Perspectives (Cerrutti and
Bertoncello)

• Latin American nations also heavily indebted and
  also suffer from SAP
• Increased dependence on agro-industry drives
  youth out of rural areas but tighter regional
  labor markets and cutback in metropolitan public
  services spreads migrants to secondary cities
• Latin America is the only region with a reduction
  in migrant stock 1990-2000
• How has SAP undercut State capacity, and in turn
  affected international migration systems as it
  appears to have in Africa?

17
Asian SAP Perspectives (Guest)

• Economic crises of the late 1990s has increased
  urban unemployment, leading to migration
  turnaround with men returning home to rural
  areas in Thailand and Indonesia
• Bridging the Gap Female migrants key in helping
  Thai rural families cope with their increased
  poverty
• Is Bridging the Gap also Bridges over SAP?
• How has SAP changed urban growth patterns? In the
  more urbanized States, is there reduced primacy
  and increased growth of secondary cities?

18
South African Perspectives (Posel)

• No explicit discussion of SAP
• Notes rise of intra-African migrations with
  lifting of apartheid reflects the pattern
  identified by Massey re. South African migration
  pole
• Increased undocumented migration may also be
  evidence of the response of other Africans to SAP
  in their countries
• In what ways does South Africa conform to the
  post-industrial pole and how does continued
  circular migration related to mining industry
  suggest a different model?

19
Global economics Realities for African nations

• African nations are enormously different in their
  degree of insertion into the global economy
• Dual economies are present in African nations but
  spatial and demographic mix is reversed
• Only the minority of the society and economy is
  directly linked to global capital or trade
• The majority are in primary agricultural and
  secondary/informal sectors, with low
  capitalization and serving in an exploited
  capacity relative to the first/formal sector
  economies
• Spatial concentration of global economic linkages
  in the cities in most African nations

20
Perspectives from Latin America and Asia

• Failure of import substitution industrialization
  policies in Latin America, with shift to primary
  production for export
• Mechanization of agriculture in Argentina was
  accomplished by urban, not rural, labor force
• No reduction in rural outmigration
• East and SE Asian countries have promoted
  export-led development w. free trade zones
• Increased female rural-urban migration
• Female migrants are more likely than males to
  settle in urban areas
• Males are making temporary urban-rural migrations
  until they can re-establish in an urban area

21
African Queries re. Globalization

• Which elements of the linkage between the global
  economy and national economic structures shift
  migrants into the international circuits and
  which into the internal circuits?
• To what extent will international migrants
  continue the circular patterns of previous
  decades, even if with different destinations?
  What features of integration into the global
  economy most facilitate the rise of female
  migration?

22
African migrants do not all go by choice

• Many of the major sending countries also have
  large involuntary/forced migration flows.
• Half of all African countries harbored African
  refugees in 1996
• 4 million African refugees residing in other
  African nations in 1996
• 22 of all immigrants to African nations are
  forced migrants
• For every refugee there are 4 more internally
  displaced migrants
• Many non-economic forces underpin these
  involuntary migrations weak States, ethnic
  conflicts, environmental degradation and drought

23
Latin American Perspectives on Ethnic/Political
Conflict

• Political control continues to influence
  migration
• Violence in Colombia and Guatemala continue to
  push people to relative safety of cities
• Consolidation of economic and political command
  functions in metropolises has strengthened their
  migration attraction
• Revitalization of metropolises as smaller cities
  near megacities benefit from communications and
  transportation improvements
• Primacy declined 1990-2000 in 6 nations

24
Asian Perspectives on Ethnic Factors

• No explicit discussion of forced migration.
  Focus is on gendered migration expectations
• Rising expectations by and for women
• More education and higher status but also
  continued cultural expectation that daughters
  will support parents
• Agricultural economic restructuring has reduced
  female labor force opportunities for women in
  rural areas
• Result More female migrants remitting from urban
  jobs in Thailand

25
South African Perspectives on Ethnic Influences

• Apartheid built into South Africa a
  racially-based labor circulation
• Men could not bring families
• Non-South Africans required to return every two
  years to homelands
• Social and familial controls against female
  migration
• Post-apartheid removed the racial constraints on
  migration, but did not reduce circulation
• More households have temporary labor migrants
• Female migration has increased
• More rural households are receiving remittances
• Insecure labor market dictates that more
  individuals migrate and retain return to rural
  home as fall-back option

26
Queries re. Ethnic conflict and African migrations

• How does ethnicity and ethnic conflict further
  constrain and mold the influence of global
  economic forces on international migration?
  Which ethnic conflicts result in internally
  displaced rather than international refugees?
• In what ways does post-industrial globalization
  perpetuate ethnic inequalities established during
  the colonial and industrialization period of
  migration?
• How does ethnic conflict mold beliefs about
  immigration and immigration policies?

27
Drought as another migration force

• Asian perspective Drought of 1999 pushes many
  men back to Bangkok, even though employment
  situation has not improved
• South Africa Can dramatic increase in remittance
  income in 1997-98 be related to the drought
  associated with the 1997-98 El Nino?
• Adepoju and Findley have noted drought as a major
  regional destablizer in the Sahel, especially
  multi-year and severe droughts

28
Queries regarding drought, environment and
African migration

• How are drought and environmental shocks
  incorporated into our models of international
  migration?
• Which features of the global economy will
  accentuate international migration during a
  drought/environmental crisis, and which will
  propel internal displacements?
• How are involuntary environmental migrants
  unlike other international migrants e.g.
  periodicity, insertion into local economy,
  remittances, networks?

29
Demographic Structures Confounders in the
effects of ethnicity, drought, and globalization

• Latin American and Asian perspectives Despite
  significant fertility declines in recent decades,
  globalization maintains high pressure on rural
  communities to divest themselves of their young.
• In Latin America, 33 of rural children lt14
  became urban residents by the time they were
  15-29 yrs.
• In SE Asia, 15-24 year old pop grew from 18 to
  21, and these young persons, increasingly
  female, are moving to urban areas

30
Queries re. Demographics of African migrations

• Fertility is high in many African nations.
• 16 African nations out of 17 which had not
  started the fertility transition by 2000
• African countries have the highest proportions of
  children 0-14 in 2000.
• What do Latin American and Asian perspectives
  tell us about pressure for rural out-migration,
  given these demographic realities in Africa?
• How will African demographic realities further
  accentuate the impact of ethnicity and
  environmental vulnerability on migrations?
• How will the HIV/AIDS epidemic further complicate
  the influence of age structure on migrations?

31
Migration Networks All network members may not
be the same

• For many Africans, ethnicity is primary for the
  construction of migrant networks. This will
  produce ethnically segmented networks, thereby
  ethnically subdividing job, housing, information,
  and capital networks, which in turn can further
  polarize communities and labor markets.
• Migration networks may not perpetuate the same
  migration. Indeed, the migration network may be
  more important to support social and cultural
  opportunism. To enable the migrant to be ready to
  Go with the flow

32
Asian and South African Perspectives on Networks

• In Asia networks are described as enabling more
  women to engage in unsupervised migrations
• In South Africa, the remittance income is
  tangible evidence of the importance of
  maintaining migrant-home linkages
• In both settings the concept of retaining a home
  base with family at origin may be just as
  important as the network facilitating migration

33
Queries on networks and international migration

• How do networks alter the effect of globalization
  on African migration patterns?
• How are networks of internal and international
  migrants linked through their origin homes and
  communities? Through the labor market?
• In what way do networks promote onward migrations
  and enable migrants to be opportunists?
• How do networks facilitate the stabilization and
  integration of internally displaced and refugees?

34
State is only one influence on migration
Migration as business

• Adekanye highlights weak national governments as
  part of the reason for high rates of conflict and
  forced migration in Africa
• In the absence of a strong State, the private
  sector has a freer hand for influencing
  migration.
• John Salt has an intriguing theory that
  international migration can be viewed as a
  business, involving both private and public
  sectors, as well as consumers, namely the
  migrants
• Big business manipulates the formal sector of
  the dual/segmented labor market model
• Big business also informally regulates migration
  in the secondary sector of the dual labor market

35
Queries on Immigration Policies in the African
Context

• How can the international migration system build
  in not only the impact of the global economy on
  labor migrations but also on informal regulations
  and operations which may act contrary to the
  official immigration policies of the State?
• How can greater consistency be achieved between
  private and governmental sector influences on
  migrations, particularly international
  migrations?

36
Conclusions

• Doug Masseys overview and the perspectives of
  the regional papers in this session provide a
  very useful starting point for our discussions
  this week.
• I have tried to outline the questions that I
  think will help us all focus on the aspects of
  this meeting that make it unique
• Partnership that cuts across the usual migration
  and urbanization disciplinary boxes
• Partnership based in Africa that reaches out and
  embraces global perspectives
• May we have energetic, passionate, and fruitful
  discussions that advance that partnership on
  behalf of the millions of Africans who move in
  hopes of a better life for themselves and their
  families.