Migration in Demographic Perspective

Overview provided by

Sally E. Findley

Rapporteur

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– Urb’n 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

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

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• <50% of immigrants from same region

– Concentrated, localized network flows• Persian Gulf, Asia-Pacific, Southern Cone• >80% of immigrants from own region• South Africa is included in this group as a hub in

international migration for Africa

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

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

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

Theoretical Premise #5: Migration tends toward permanence

• Most migrants don’t intend to stay permanently, but many factors lead migrants to prolong their stay

• Even if migrants don’t stay put, they may stay out.

• However, in the aggregate a specific migration system may be of limited duration.

Theoretical Premise #6:State 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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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?

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?

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

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 <14

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

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?

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”

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

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?

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

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?

Conclusions• Doug Massey’s 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.