For people with managerial, professional or technical skills and work experience, the job market is global, if they so choose. Their skills and work experience are sought after in a number of countries and they have a choice of where they would prefer to work. This article¹ examines globally mobile skilled migrants' reasons for migration and return migration, as indicated in Australian research, and the policy challenges some of these reasons may pose for source and destination countries that want to retain or attract these people. This is because while some reasons or factors motivating the migration or return migration of skilled workers can be influenced by government policy, others such as lifestyle or quality of life factors may pose more difficulties for policy influence.

This article explores the rural-agrarian linkages of human trafficking in the Indian Punjab. The study argues that ongoing agrarian crises, high risk-taking ability of some agrarian castes and low level of education in rural areas are fuelling the illicit business of human trafficking of Punjabis to foreign green pastures. Rural-agrarian communities are the main victims of the traffickers' exploitation.

The study has wider policy implications as it suggests policy-makers should formulate a comprehensive policy framework for rural areas of Punjab to ensure the “3P” paradigm – prevention, protection and prosecution – of human trafficking.

The purpose of this research was to identify the difficulties faced by the Mexican migrant students when incorporated into the Mexican education system after having studied in the United States of America. Thirty migrant middle school students, two principals, two social workers and one teacher participated in the study. The study (conducted in two phases) collected information regarding: school admission, adjustment to the school organization, adaptation to learning situations and the perception of school belonging.

The main problems found during the admission and enrolment procedures in Mexican schools are: language use, diagnostic assessment, didactic processes that take place in the classroom, complementary support activities, grade repetition, very little family involvement and the separation of the students from their migrant parents.

Increasingly, research seeks to understand how environmental distress motivates migration, often focusing on the importance of singular events such as flood, drought or crop loss. This article explores the case of a Cambodian community where environmental shocks have been frequent over the past decade and international migration has increased. It shows that as a result of recurring and varied environmental shocks, households increasingly perceive agriculture-based livelihood strategies as unwise and risky. This perception is widespread even among households not directly experiencing income loss. As a result, households use migration as a replacement for local livelihood strategies. These findings support two arguments relevant for future research and policy. First, that environmental shocks have importance beyond their immediate, direct impact. Second, that recurring shocks can influence preferences for and risk perceptions of local investments. Thus for policies to effectively address environmental vulnerability and/or rural development in precarious environments, they must incorporate local understandings of risk and possibility.

The “Global Approach to Migration” represents the European Union's most advanced attempt to integrate non-member states' interests into its policy agenda. Despite ambitions to achieve policy coherence, assessments of EU policy show that security measures, such as border control and readmission, dominate over “migration and development” and labour migration measures. The article addresses the questions why different components of migration policy differ in their implementation and how this impacts the effectiveness and coherence of the “Global Approach”. The main findings of EU interventions in Morocco and Ukraine show that implementation partners, logic of action and available resources shape policy components' implementation, with profound impact on coherence. Since preventive measures are more greatly affected by amibiguities than control measures, a more balanced EU policy requires EU practitioners to consider how feasible interventions are under each policy component and scale down migration control projects rather than undermine preventive measures and long-term coherence.

This article assesses the economic role of refugee settlers in Australia. Refugee-humanitarian labour force participation rates are lower than for other migrant groups or the Australia-born. However, their labour market performance converges toward that of the Australia-born over time. Moreover, the second generation performs at a higher level. There are a number of significant impediments to participation including language, education, structural disadvantage and discrimination. Indeed, there is evidence of a significant refugee gap which can only be explained by discrimination. It is shown that refugees represent a significant stock of human capital that is not being fully realized. They suffer more than other groups through non-recognition and there is substantial “brain waste” with negative results for the economy and the migrants themselves. Finally, it is shown that refugee-humanitarian settlers show greater propensity to form their own business than other migrants and that risk-taking, entrepreneurialism and an ability to identify and take advantage of opportunities is a key characteristic of the group.

International migration mirrors contemporary society in all its complexity. What has not changed for centuries is the principal motif: people leave their country of origin hoping for a better life. Poland has a long history of emigration: Poles have been migrating for more than 200 years for political, economic and social reasons. In recent decades, Polish migration patterns have undergone dramatic changes. Using online survey data, this article explores new trends in Polish migration since the country's accession to the European Union in 2004. The survey was focused on Polish migrants who stayed abroad for some time, those who stayed abroad before the accession, those who returned to Poland or those who experienced multiple travels and have an ongoing migration project.

We conclude that new trends have emerged among Polish migrants. Contemporary migrants are aware of the benefits related to migration and are capable of implementing their migration project quite skilfully. Their high susceptibility to the economic setting proves their flexibility. Polish migrants highly value their new lifestyle abroad and consider friends their most important source of support.

North Korean defectors have faced significant challenges in finding and keeping jobs in the South Korean labour market due to their many differences from South Korean workers. As the number of defectors has increased, South Korea has experienced an increased need for employment support to assist defectors in overcoming challenges in their employment and leading them to stable economic status. This study aims to develop a needs-centred educational support model for defectors' career transitions, compare the content of suggested support programmes with the content of currently provided support programmes, and suggest relevant policy implications. Based on this study's findings, the authors argue that defectors' employment needs differ from those of other groups of job seekers in Korea; thus, this population should be served differently with consistent educational support. Each stage of the developed model provides appropriate support programmes that reflect the unique employment needs of defectors.

Various authors have begun to address the social impacts of international migration on families left behind. Family disintegration results from two separate factors: family separation and the loss of traditional values. Findings from this research (based on a random survey of over 400 households in three municipios of the central part of the state of Cochabamba, Bolivia, in the autumn of 2007) indicate that economic well-being made possible by migration increases levels of professed family happiness. However, family disintegration resulting from migration decreases family happiness even more, with the net result that migrant households are considerably less happy than non-migrant households. It is suggested that this result can be traced to the dynamic conflict between the traditional, group-focused image of change prior to migration (engendering feelings of togetherness and security) and the modern, ego-focused image of change that is a major social remittance of migration (generating competition and role insecurity).

This article offers the first examination of its kind of the content and nature of anti-trafficking policy as it is pursued in Benin. The article draws on data gathered from policy and project documents and from interviews and participant observation with actors integral to the constitution of policy in (and with influence over) the Beninese anti-trafficking community. It attempts to bridge the oft-lamented gap between page and practice by conducting analysis not only of the representation of policy in text, but also of its lived manifestations in processes, interactions and structures. It argues that the various different actors that comprise Benin's anti-trafficking pantheon seek to accomplish one fundamental goal – to protect children from trafficking – through two overarching strategies – the promotion of ‘healthy’ childhoods and the pre-emptive prevention of child movement. The article examines each of the main strands of policy and concludes by offering a Foucauldian analysis of their operation. It thus fills a major gap in the academic understanding of anti-trafficking policy in the Beninese context.

Literature and theory surrounding the informal economy in international contexts suggest that informal work arrangements may entail assuming various levels of risk, and that the higher the level of risk in an employment arrangement, the higher the premium paid to the worker. This study is designed to assess if a wage compensation for risk exists within the United States' day labour job market - the most visible sector of the United States' informal economy. Using data from the 2005 National Day Labour Survey we find a statistically significant wage premium indicating that a risk-wage tradeoff within the day labour informal economy exists. Ultimately, we argue that current policy interventions facilitated through day labour centres into the day labour market appear to be effective in mitigating the risks associated with this type of employment.

• Evidence of a risk-wage premium in the day labour market suggests there is an incentive to assume higher levels of risk in work arrangements which presents significant concerns for worker safety.
• Higher levels of work related risks assumed by day labourers, may be minimized if they receive proper safety training through a formal venue such as a worker centre.
• Worker centres only serve 20 per cent of all day labourers in the United States, suggesting a need for the establishment of additional worker centres in other connected or industry based work sites, to help mitigate potential work related risks and injuries in the day labour market.

On 1 July 2012, Hong Kong (HK) celebrated the 15th Anniversary of its change of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China (PRC). During this period, migration has diversified greatly. Various new visa categories have been created. People from Mainland China and the rest of the world come to HK for work and settlement and HK people have gone to Mainland and overseas to study and work. To appreciate and better plan the growing diversity of migration to, from, and through HK, this article benchmarks the current legal categorizations of migration and calls for the development of a coherent theoretical approach that can better harmonize research and policy. We believe a transdisciplinary view can help generate the range of evidence needed to plan for diversity, and that this is best coordinated through a new HK Migration Observatory.

This article deals with individual and contextual effects on the religiosity of first and second generation migrants in Europe. Noticing that little attention has been directed towards intergenerational transmission of religion in processes of integration, we argue for an intergenerational perspective on immigrant religiosity. Social integration theory is used to derive the hypothesis that second generation immigrants are less religious than the first generation. Perceived discrimination is introduced in the immigrant-religion research to account for the stress buffering capacities of religion. On the contextual level we expect a positive effect of native religiosity and religious diversity. Three aspects of religiosity are examined: (1) religious affiliation, (2) inner religiosity and (3) praying. We use four waves (2002–2008) of the European Social Survey (ESS) in a 3-level random intercept multilevel model with 19,567 individuals, 235 regions and 26 countries. Among others, the most interesting results are that (1) second generation immigrants are less religious than their first generation counterparts, (2) perceived discrimination has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity and the effect is greater for the second generation, (3) native religiosity has a positive effect on immigrant religiosity with a greater effect on the second generation as well and (4) the influence on migrant religiosity is more salient at the regional than at the national level.

We compare how religion is present in Portland, Maine and Danbury, Connecticut and how it influences the ways organizations provide social services to recently arrived immigrants. We find that a range of municipal, civic, and religious organizations shape contexts of reception in each city. In Portland, municipal organizations provide most of the services for the large refugee population. Religious organizations are more central in Danbury, and providers speak more often about religion in their work with the city's economic migrants. Collaboration among organizations is common, although religion sometimes acts as a barrier to collaboration in Portland. We argue that the religious dimensions of cities as contexts of reception are not homogenous and that variation between them is best explained by local factors including history, demographics and organizational ecology.

In this article, I use cross-national comparative and ethnographic methods to explore how religion influences the incorporation of Haitian immigrants into the US, Quebec and France. First, I explore the ideological, legal and institutional forces that shape religion-state differentiation in the US, Quebec and France. Using census and immigration data from each site as well as interviews with Haitian leaders and government officials in Miami, Montreal and Paris, I show that the general pattern of consensual differentiation between religion and state in the US favours the more successful symbolic and socio-economic incorporation of Haitians in Miami, whereas secular nationalism in Quebec and assertive secularism in France weaken the incorporation of Haitian immigrants in Montreal and Paris, respectively.

Using a representative survey on a municipality in Mexico City, the article explores the relevance of both social networks and place attachments for US migration. By comparing households with and without migrants, the logistic regression models show that social networks make emigration more selective with respect “education”, but less selective regarding “sex” and “marital status”. These results shed new light on the mechanism through which social networks operate in urban settings. Even if a municipality that is very homogeneous in terms of poverty and employment opportunities, variations on the socio-demographic profile of the would-be emigrants to the USA are found depending on the household′s social networks. As for territorial variables, the general impression is one of placelessness, apart from attachment to the municipality, but here again social networks act as an intervening variable.

This article adopts a genealogical approach in examining Israeli immigration policy by focusing on the situation confronting African asylum seekers who have been forced back into Egypt, detained and deported but who have not had their asylum claims properly assessed. Based on immigration policies formulated at the time of Israeli independence, whose principle objective was to secure a Jewish majority state, we argue that Israel's treatment of African asylum seekers as ‘infiltrators’/economic migrants stems from an insistence on maintaining immigration as a sovereign issue formally isolated from other policy domains. Such an approach is not only in violation of Israel's commitment to the Refugee Convention, it directly contributes to policies which are ineffective and unduly harsh.

Labour migration affects family economics in at least two ways: one is the outflow of indispensable family resources to meet the expenses incurred in the migration process and the other is the transfer in cash or kind from migrants to their non-migrating families. This study primarily addresses the former flow, that is sources of funds for migration and resulting migrant indebtedness. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi migrants in the GCC countries, this study explores the economic cost of migration, the extent of migrant indebtedness, and the implications of remittances on migrant families. This research exposes the complexity and multiplicity of the economic costs of migration to the GCC countries and reports that Bangladeshi migration to the Gulf states runs on debt, with migrants and their families indebting themselves in the migration process.

This article elaborates on the impact of EU migration policies on African countries, taking Mali as a case study. Building upon fieldwork in the country, it argues that enhanced European involvement (EU and individual member states) has caused Mali to develop a more control-oriented dimension to its migration policy and to strengthen its links with European development actors and the Malian diaspora. While these reverberations of EU policies can be likened to what scholars have established for other African countries, Mali is unusual because of its large exposure to altered regional patterns of migration cooperation. Many of the regional refoulements and deportations end in Mali despite the fact (or, perhaps, because of the fact) that the official Malian state does little to regulate these operations. In the absence of official policy responses, civil society organizations have stepped in to provide returned migrants with basic care and reception.

Immigration to Chile is not large (just under 2% of the total population) but has increased in recent years. This study aimed to analyse the socioeconomic status (SES) of immigrants in Chile and compare it with the Chilean-born, by secondary data analysis of an anonymous nationally representative survey (CASEN, 2006). Immigrants are categorized into Low, Medium and High SES through hierarchical cluster analysis. Around 1 per cent of the total sample are international immigrants; an additional 0.7 per cent did not report their migration status. Self-reported immigrants show great variability in their SES. Immigrants in the Low SES cluster appeared to be significantly younger than those in Medium and High SES, also more likely to be children, women and belong to an ethnic minority. Immigrants in the Low SES cluster appeared similar to the unemployed, poorest Chilean-born but are more than eight years younger on average and more likely to be female. Immigrants to Chile are a unique group, with socio-demographic characteristics that differ significantly from the Chilean-born population, but there is great heterogeneity and complexity within this group. Cluster analysis provided a meaningful interpretation of the multidimensional concept of SES and allowed the identification of a vulnerable group of Low SES immigrants to Chile.

This article analyses the impact of a change in Australia's immigration policy, introduced in the mid-1990s, on migrants' probability of becoming entrepreneurs. The policy change consists of stricter entry requirements and restrictions to welfare entitlements. The results indicate that those who entered under more stringent conditions – the second cohort – have a higher probability of becoming self-employed, than those in the first cohort. We also find significant time and region effects. Contrary to some existing evidence, time spent in Australia positively affects the probability to become self-employed. We discuss the intuitions for the results and their policy implications.

Increasing research has illustrated the positive effects of the diaspora on the country of origin. The majority of this research, however, has focused on the effects of diaspora remittances and investments. This article examines the effects of the diaspora on knowledge transfer and capacity building in a post-conflict environment. The article is based on a case study of the International Organization for Migration the Netherlands, Temporary Return of Qualified Nationals to Afghanistan project, in which 59 highly skilled Dutch-Afghans returned to work with a host institution (public or private) in Afghanistan for three months to transfer knowledge and build capacity. In-depth interviews were conducted with project participants, host institutions, participants' colleagues, and key informants to gather an understanding of how participants contributed. The article finds that diaspora temporary returnees were most effective in forms of tacit knowledge transfer and that the knowledge transfer process effectively led to capacity building in Afghanistan.

There is a general belief that Sub-Saharan Africa has the poorest record of international remittances because, due to deficiencies in the region's financial systems, a greater proportion of remittances passes through informal channels. This article examines the interactive impact of financial development on remittances to the region. Using a panel data covering 32 countries in the region from 1995 to 2009, it finds evidence of weak financial infrastructure constraining the flow of remittances. It also shows that the higher the level of a country's infrastructural development, the greater the impact on remittances. The article establishes that the impact of financial development and institutional quality is greater in emerging markets than in developing economies, implying that improving the financial system and institutional structures in Africa should be at the centre of the current policy efforts to optimize the benefits of remittances.

Human trafficking is often associated with exploitation in prostitution. However, the UN Trafficking Protocol lists several other forms of exploitation as forms of human trafficking, including domestic and sexual servitude. These are forms of exploitation that can take place within the context of a marriage.

In this article I discuss issues of vulnerability, power and exploitation in the context of transnational marriage. It is based on a study of Thai and Russian women married to Norwegian men conducted in 2006–2008. Based on an analysis of the experiences, priorities and challenges these women face, I argue that systematic exploitation of the dependence created in transnational marriage in some instances can and should be conceptualized and prosecuted as cases of human trafficking.

The continuing violence in Iraq has led to further damage to the health sector in a country already affected by sanctions, war and harsh rule. As a consequence some doctors have been killed and others have migrated, both within Iraq and from Iraq to neighbouring countries. In this article we report patterns of migration of Iraqi physicians, identify perceived future plans, and assess factors behind physicians' decisions. Respondent driven sampling in 2007 was used to interview 401 Iraqi medical doctors who migrated to Jordan after the 2003 invasion of Iraq The main outcome measure for this study was the future plans of physicians, which included permanently residing outside Iraq or returning to Iraq. Physicians who planned to return to Iraq differed from those who planned to reside permanently outside Iraq in the following factors: age categories (relative odds comparing age 50 plus to those under 30 = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.21–0.97), years spent outside of Iraq (RO = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.28–3.21), no difficulties in Jordan (RO = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.31–0.93), and household members residing in Iraq (RO = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.05 – 1.31). Many doctors who fled Iraq after the 2003 invasion do not plan to return, which must be considered in future training strategies for the Iraqi health sector.

The impact of international labour migration on human wellbeing and socioeconomic development in communities of origin is an important yet understudied issue in contemporary migration research. This study examines whether men's labour migration from rural Armenia to Russia and other international destinations enhances the economic and social connections of the left-behind households to their communities or, on the contrary, undermines those connections and encourages household members' own migration. Using survey data, it compares families of migrants and non-migrants with respect to ownership of productive and major non-productive assets in the community and women's non-farm labour force participation, their social engagement in the village, and their desires to migrate abroad. The results of statistical tests indicate that men's migration is negatively associated with households' asset ownership and with women's non-farm employment. The results for women's social engagement in their villages are less consistent. Finally, regardless of economic attachment, social engagement, and a host of other factors, wives of migrants were significantly more likely to wish to move abroad than women married to non-migrants, and the difference in propensity to emigrate between migrants' and non-migrants' wives increases with duration of husband's migration. We situate these findings in the context of Central Eurasia's international labour migration system and discuss their implications for future migration trends and for socioeconomic development of Armenia and similar settings.

Over the last two decades, Spain has evolved rapidly from a classic labour exporter to a labour importer. Until the 1930s Spain's migration history was predominantly marked by emigration to the Americas, and from the end of World War II until the early 1970s by emigration to some industrialized countries in Western Europe. For the first time in modern times, Spain is now the second country in the world with large-scale immigration. Its strategic location, a relatively permissive immigration policy and economic opportunities derived from Spain's entry into the European Community have positioned this country as a major destination for immigrants. Additionally, since the mid-1990s international migration in Spain has dramatically changed in origin composition. Despite the common perception of Africa as the most important source of immigration, some Latin American countries, in a very short time, have become some of the major sources of immigration to Spain; indeed, the term “Latin-Americanization” has been coined to describe this process. This being so, the aim of this article is twofold. First, we examine the main reasons behind the extremely rapid increase of Latin American migration to Spain during the last decade. Then we briefly discuss some future perspectives.

Ethnic return migrations tend to become a controversial issue and create public debates within the receiving homeland states because of two major factors. The first concerns the economic and social problems brought on by the migrants′ integration process as well as the socio-economic burden that such migrations place on homeland institutions. The second involves the inherently discriminatory and exclusionary character of such migrations because they privilege the state-bearing ethnic group over others. As we will see, this dynamic has important implications for domestic nation-building. To better understand these influences within Kazakhstan, this article will attempt to analyse the public debate surrounding the government's ethnic return migration policy. It traces the discourse concerning the return of Kazakh oralmans (return migrants) by examining both Kazakh and Russian language publications. Interviews with experts, informal discussions with return migrants and the testimonies of long-term residents in the country are also used to this end.

As more Latin American migrants make their way to the United States, the issue of transnationalism has received increased scholarly attention. Transnationalism refers to the delinking of the individual from his or her government and an increase in international ties as a result of the economic globalization that promotes the movement of people, goods, money, and ideas. Prevailing consensus is that the state, particularly in Latin America, is weakened by transnationalism because individuals are freer than ever from state control. This article argues that examining Latin American emigrant policies yields a different conclusion, namely that the state's response to transnational pressures has made governments more active and relevant in certain ways than in the past. Studies of transnationalism must therefore incorporate state strategies for a better understanding of its impact on Latin American governments.

Current research on the impacts of the 2007 global economic crisis on international migration takes two different positions. Some studies emphasize the negative impacts while others are more positive. This article argues that these two positions offer simplistic interpretations which fail to take account of the complex micro-level realities that determine migrant experiences. The article discusses how a small group of migrants from Guayaquil, Ecuador, accumulate and consolidate a complex portfolio of assets both before and during the economic crisis in Spain. Conceptualized in terms of an asset accumulation framework, and based on micro-level longitudinal trend data, rather than the more generally used macro-level snapshots or anecdotal evidence, the study highlights the fact that the formalization of legal status or citizenship is a crucial pre-condition, which sets in motion a ‘virtuous’ cycle of consolidation of an interrelated portfolio of assets, regardless of the wider macro-economic environment. Even if this turns into a ‘vicious’ cycle, for those losing jobs, to date Spanish welfare benefits have acted as a social protection mechanism.

The article compares men's biographies and fatherhood across two generations among the Irish and the Polish, who represent different waves of migration to Britain, focusing on two chains of fathers and sons. It examines different aspects of transmission between fathers and sons and, in the context of migration, the part that generational experience played in how men identify (or not) with their own fathers and repeated or changed their fatherhood practices. A comparative approach suggests the importance of taking account of the life course, the historical moment of migration, and the ways in which migration complicates intergenerational family relations by creating structural and relational ambivalences as the younger generation seeks to make its own mark. However ambivalences are managed and often coexist with solidaristic relations in terms of providing reciprocal support across the generations and in the fathers' identification with their fathers' strong work ethic and provider role. As fathers they are more involved in their children's lives than their fathers were but their employment conditions typically continue to constrain this.

Militarization by refugees can have problematic outcomes. It can undermine the sovereignty and stability of the host state, perpetuate a transnational conflict and obstruct international efforts to resolve it, and present difficulties in the provision of humanitarian assistance to needy populations. Existing literature privileges structural explanations for militarization while neglecting the agency, interests and internal politics of refugee groups. In this paper, I offer a comprehensive theory of refugee militarization that emphasizes the importance of endogenous factors, including political and economic motivations, in the context of broader structural factors, including political opportunities and resource mobilization, mediated by the presence of militancy entrepreneurs. This theory helps integrate the motivation of refugees, and the discursive framing used by militancy entrepreneurs to mobilize them, with capacity for militant activity. The need for case studies and specific policy recommendations for host states, non-governmental organizations and international stakeholders are discussed.

Roma migration from Romania is often precarious and takes place in circumstances that increase pre-existent levels of vulnerability. For many, migration is a last resort solution for navigating an insecure economic environment. For others, it has become a source of profit they draw upon, sometimes at the expense of the most vulnerable members of Roma communities.

The major challenge this article addresses is how to create the enabling circumstances at home in order to provide alternatives to precarious migration for Roma. Informed by interviews with Roma migrants and with local authorities, this article examines the policy options at local level, addressing Roma precarious migration. It examines the limitations of the current employment policies in relation to Roma in order to identify what seem to work, what sounds promising and what does not work.

It advises that job fairs and counselling campaigns are likely to fail, as they do not tackle the structural constraints keeping Roma outside the labour market. Unless linked with realistic employment opportunities, training courses also remain precarious strategies for labour market integration. The article also argues that individualized interventions (including repatriation schemes) are likely to increase community divides.

The article supports structural, community-level measures for tackling unemployment and argues that future policies need to have Roma communities as the ‘unit of intervention’, because the social preconditions for migration are likely to be generated at this level. This policy proposal is grounded in the research finding that an apparently consistent group of Roma migrants, prone to deceitful recruitment and precarious migration, would endorse reasonable and stable economic solutions at home. Yet accepting that circular migration may be inevitable for a number of Roma is an important ingredient when designing policy interventions.

Advocates of the “borderless world” thesis suggest that migrant workers can benefit from employment opportunities available everywhere, with workers simply migrating towards these opportunities. However, as global inequalities widen and potential global mobilities develop, states are “managing” migration. Individual migrant “agency”, its structuration, and the subsequent experiences of migrants and employers, can restrict such mobility. Consequently, there is a need to describe and problematize the new strategies. This article considers these issues with reference to the emerging impact of the migrant cap on non-European Economic Area (EEA) migrants to the United Kingdom (UK). It explores the links between immigration and employment rights and the implications for migrant mobility. Policies of “managed migration” frequently do not take into account issues of geography and intra and inter regional competition for migrants by employers operating in sectors with skill shortages, or differential migrant “agency” in the form of their skills and attributes. This may impinge on the effectiveness of such approaches and on economic prosperity at a national, regional and local scale.

European Union Member States have so far tackled the problem of irregular migration in Europe by adopting common policies which aim to prevent irregular arrivals on the EU borders. In their EU-level policies, they have neglected regularization as an alternative EU-level policy addressing irregular migration. This represents a contrast to regularizations which are performed by many EU Member States. However, the EU Commission has gradually adopted a more positive stance about regularization. This article will discuss the principles of an EU-level regularization scheme through the analysis of the Commission's ideas on the issue. It will be argued that, rather than adopting a common policy, the flexible set of measures, which guide Member States in formulating regularization mechanism for protection/humanitarian reasons, can be formulated at the EU level.

Mobile, migrant and displaced people require specific attention with regard to HIV vulnerability, including information and services tailored to their social, cultural and economic backgrounds and to the phase of mobility. Too few studies have systematically documented the needs of people on the move in this regard or evaluated the existing responses to meeting these needs. Most studies and programme descriptions focus on specific populations at country or community levels. Few compare and contrast different population groups, and few are regional or cross-continental in scope. Most are purely descriptive, and lack a theoretical framework. The aim of this article is to precipitate more structured international comparisons – and questions – that will fill some of the evidence and programming gaps defined.

In Africa, 5.8 per cent of enrolled tertiary students go outside their homelands for tertiary study. No other world region has this high a share of outbound student mobility. In this study, I examined why African countries have larger student outflows than other regions and, in particular, I considered the importance of tertiary education capacity in the region for student mobility. I evaluated the determinants of student outflows from African countries for three different measures: the total number of tertiary students abroad, the percentage of the tertiary age cohort studying abroad and the percentage of total enrolled students abroad. In addition to showing that country rankings differ on these mobility measures, the findings indicate that their determinants also differ. The study premise was that student outflows should be lower from countries that have a greater supply of tertiary training capacity and that thesis received strong support in models that estimated the percentage of total enrolled students abroad. In models for that outcome, student outflows were also larger if countries had high tertiary demand and populations under 2 million. The findings for models that estimated total numbers abroad and share of the tertiary cohort abroad were similar after controlling for interactions between tertiary education supply and GDP per capita. In addition, population size and per capita GDP were stronger correlates of student mobility in those models, which suggests that it is more difficult for education supply and demand measures to account for student outflows when crude outflow measures are used. I concluded that strengthening tertiary education supply at home would be a cost-effective way for African governments to increase their human capital and reduce brain drain losses.

The return of refugees and migrants back to their country of origin is an important topic on the agenda of Western European governments, as return is considered as the most “durable solution” for the “refugee problem”, and as an instrument with which to tackle “illegal” migration. However, these migration policies generally lack a clear evidence base, as little studies have focused on returnees' current living situations and on their perspectives on the re-migration process. In this paper we therefore try to listen to returnees' voices, through in-depth interviews with four Nepalese migrants both before (in Belgium) and after (in Nepal) their return, and with 16 returnees after their return to Nepal. The interviews show how most returnees start with a disadvantageous “point of departure” to realize a “successful” return: mostly, they do not really depart “voluntarily”, and they only have limited possibilities for preparing their return and setting realistic expectations. But also, back in the “home country”, most returnees judge their current economic, social and political living situation as bad, meeting little of the expectations that they set before they returned. The participants consider the support they received through the NGOs' return programmes as minimal, because they are mostly limited to a small amount of financial support, and thus of little significance in these returnees' efforts to rebuild their lives in their “home” country. If return programmes want to make a difference in returnees' lives, they should have two extensive components in the “home” and the “host” country, incorporating in both components an integral approach, including economic, political, social and psychological aspects. Viewing these findings, it is not surprising that most interviewees eventually evaluate their return as unsuccessful, and many returnees consider re-emigration, all of which clearly questions the current basis of worldwide migration policies.

In this paper, I demonstrate the identity transformation of North Korean women in interaction with state and non-state actors and domestic and regional structures, which I formulate for the purposes of this paper. From a state-centric social constructivist perspective in politics and international relations, I examine how the identities and interests of North Korean women are constituted and reconstituted in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China and five South-East Asian countries along their migration routes before they reach the Republic of Korea – the so-called “Seoul Train in the Underground Railway”. Back in their country of origin, North Korean women are socially constructed as Confucian communist mothers. In China, the most frequently depicted images of North Korean women are trafficked wives. By paying for smugglers to cross borders to neighbouring South-East Asian countries, North Korean women finally become the agents of their own destiny, refugees in waiting to be transferred to South Korea.

As a result of the growing presence of foreign immigrants settling in Italy, recent years have seen a significant increase in the number of mixed unions. However, little research has been carried out on the subject in this country, in part due to insufficient availability of suitable data. The aim of this study is to investigate the “market” of formal and informal mixed unions and to understand whether ethnic origin contributes a new element to the marriage/union market, and to verify the applicability of the “exchange theory” to the Italian context. We analyzed a particular segment of the marriage market - mixed parental couples included in the 2005 Sample Surveys of Births. The results showed a clear gender divide in the ethnic preferences of Italian spouses, a high rate of previous marital experience for both Italian and foreign people in mixed pairings, and a high frequency of unmarried and casual mixed relationships. Compared with endogamous couples, the foreign male or female spouse/partner in mixed couples is young and more educated relative to the Italian partner, but is less present in the work market and, when employed, often occupies a less well-qualified position. The “informal union market” works in very similar ways to the “marriage market”; the slight attenuation of relationships observed in the former being attributable to the lesser degree of security guaranteed by an unofficial union. Therefore, the mechanism of mate selection implies that foreigners' appreciated qualities such as youth and high education may be offered in exchange for economic security, upward socio-economic mobility and access to the social network of the native partner: this is a variant of the exchange theory that was found to apply well to transnational marriages/unions in Italy.

This paper explores the attitudes to work and experiences seeking employment of professionally qualified refugees enrolled on a course to enhance their employability skills in Leeds, United Kingdom (UK). We analyse the results within the framework of conceptual models describing the transition of refugees into employment (which are essentially linear) and those that categorize refugees according to their resettlement styles based on their social features and the host society's response. Our data reinforce that these people are (initially at least) highly motivated to work, strongly identify with their profession and suffer considerable loss of self-esteem as they are unable to secure appropriate employment. Attitudes to securing employment were often related to their length of time in the UK. Recent arrivals were more positive about returning to their profession, even if this meant retraining, developing skills and time spent in alternative employment. Many of those here for longer were resigned to retraining, and the worst cases felt despair and feelings of betrayal. Our work showed that many had poor job search strategies and a lack of knowledge of the culture and norms of their chosen profession. We argue that the generic support of statutory employment services or the voluntary sector is inappropriate and that there is a role for professional bodies to be more active in their engagement with these groups of people. The results suggest that conceptual models need to be more nuanced to capture the experiences of these refugees: attitudes to work can cycle from optimism to disillusionment, so a linear model will not capture the full complexity, and we also found evidence of shifting among categories of resettlement styles.

Many anti-sex trafficking analyses use the term institution in a narrow meaning, comprising mainly formal-legal political structures (public laws and governmental organizations). However, by bringing in the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that an anti-sex trafficking institution should refer to a relatively enduring collection of rules – including also informal rules such as norms and routines – and organized practices that prescribe appropriate behaviour for any actor, public or private, combating sex trafficking. Based on a review of current research it is concluded that anti-sex trafficking institutions in the early 21st century tend to focus on behaviour that aims at detection, prevention, protection, crisis management, consequence management, and response. Finally, reflecting different strands of the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that the design of anti-sex trafficking institutions depends on path-dependencies, social constructions, international institutions, and domestic politics.

The United States has been a top destination country for science and engineering (S&E) graduate education for foreign talent for many years. Despite the clear existence of foreign students in the USA, relatively little is known about the factors influencing the flow of foreign students. In this study, we examine foreign doctoral students in science and engineering, and test whether “ethnic affinity” plays a role in the ethnic composition of research laboratories (in what follows, “labs”) in US universities. In order to test this hypothesis, we conduct a web search, and select 164 science and engineering laboratory web pages for analysis. Among these 164 labs, 82 are directed by foreign-born faculty (Korean, Chinese, Indian or Turkish). These 82 are matched with labs that are in the same department of the same university, but directed by a native (US origin) faculty member. We find strong evidence that labs directed by foreign-born faculty are more likely to be populated by students from the same country of origin than are labs directed by native faculty. The percentage of students working in a lab from a nationality (foreign or native) is higher when they share nativity with the director. We seek to draw attention to the effect of affinity on the ethnic composition of research labs at the micro level that translates into the ethnic composition of the scientific community at the macro level. Further, these results emphasize the role of lab directors in future enrolments, creating scientific human capital, and contributing to the “brain circulation” phenomenon in the global context.

The impact of orthodox, free market reforms on emigration was contested by two schools of thought. Following the standard comparative advantage argument, the dominant school maintained that trade, capital, and labour market liberalization would serve as substitutes for emigration, especially as capital flows complemented abundant and ‘flexible’ labour endowments. Another school argued that liberalization would generate short-run frictions, causing a temporary emigration increase or ‘hump’ until it assumed greater efficiency and growth diminished migrant flows. Using Mexico and Ecuador as case studies, it is argued that both schools were incorrect. Instead, the productive modes and stabilization policies that accompanied market reforms assured labour market failures and persistent emigration from both countries.

A salutogenic approach explored themes of strength and well-being in life stories of Burmese refugees (N = 18) in Australia. Previous refugee studies have tended to focus on negative responses to traumatic events (e.g. posttraumatic stress disorder, depression). To widen the scope of refugee related research the focus of the current study was informed by a salutogenic perspective, exploring sources of strength that may facilitate well-being. Semi-structured narrative interviews explored: the participant's life before fleeing Burma, the journey of exile, and post-migration in Australia. Eight women and 10 men (M_age = 39 years) were interviewed and transcriptions analysis of narratives was conducted using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), with major themes being explicated. Super-ordinate themes pertaining to strength during times of hardship were identified and explicated as: support from interpersonal relationships, the pivotal role of values, a sense of future and agency, and reliance on spiritual or religious beliefs. Results indicate the existence of sources of strength that may contribute to human responses in times of hardship. Recognition and reflection of strengths may be incorporated into therapeutic and resettlement approaches for people from refugee backgrounds.

This article juxtaposes theoretical notions concerning the relationship between migrant remittances and socio-economic inequality with an anthropological case study of remittances in Cape Verde. Contemporary theorizing involves, firstly, the idea that remittances do not benefit the poorest; secondly, the conclusion that the impact of remittances changes over time; thirdly, the notion that family structure influences the distribution of remittances; and fourthly the proposition that remittances have a stronger impact on social stratification when linked to the return of a migrant. The primary aim of the article is to use these theoretical notions as entry-points for analysing how remittances interplay with patterns of inequality in Cape Verde. A second aim is to examine the explanatory power of the theories through applying them to this specific case.

The article demonstrates that remittances in some cases benefit the poorest in Cape Verde and that this has to do with the long history of migration, which means that nearly everyone, irrespective of class, has a close relative abroad. It also shows that Cape Verdeans generally receive quite small amounts of money, which implies that they are seldom able to improve their economic situation in a more substantial way.

In conclusion, the article contends that in order to fully appreciate the complex relationship between remittances and socio-economic inequality it is necessary to take into account the importance of other sources of income. Moreover, it argues that the contemporary restrictive immigration regimes in receiving countries have a fundamental impact on the socio-economic distribution of remittances. In studies of the relationship between remittances and inequality, this is an aspect that has been left out. Instead, theorizing tends to focus on factors that are internal to the countries of origin, and on the migrants' links to these countries.

In this article, we analyse the process of migration by applying a social network methodology. Using the personal network approach, we focus on a case study of the Brazil-US migration system to analyse the formation of the so-called “industry of illegal migration”. We suggest that in migration systems, brokerage evolves not only because of historical and cultural changes, but also because the changes emerge within a structured environment in which brokerage can thrive, and this, in turn, causes the social networks to support and produce specialized actors (individuals and organizations) embedded in the “right positions” of the social structure in the migration process. In this particular case study, we suggest that brokerage seems to take place through gender-oriented networks and the personal experience and structural power of returned migrants. These returned migrants usually have more varied social contacts and types of relationships from which they can obtain richer information about the migration system.

This study examines Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs in Greece in order to identify patterns of ethnic entrepreneurship and socio-economic challenges faced by ethnic entrepreneurs. The research aims to enhance understanding of the characteristics and business profiles of Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs in Greece's capital, Athens, and make recommendations for the development of a follow-up three-year longitudinal study of Pakistani immigrant businesses in Athens. A survey administered to 13 Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs recorded a wide range of data from which frequency distributions were processed as well as cross-tabulations and Chi-square tests, to reveal strong associations. Findings of note reveal that Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs set up enterprises with their own capital rather than turning to the private financial sector, are mostly well-educated despite earlier research noting the opposite, Greece is the terminal migration destination of choice for Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs, their market-share of work permits is proportionately larger than their residence permit share, they differ from other ethnic groups by substantial preference for operation of call centers, and they are very much bound to their ethnic enclaves. This body of research offers a unique contribution to an area which has until now been largely ignored.

After the fall of communism, many Eastern Europeans sought work abroad, leaving their children with relatives. Eastern European migrants represent a target group with unstudied immigration patterns. The goal of this study was to examine how parental migration and economic pressure impact children outcomes in the Republic of Moldova. I examined a model of the impact of parental migration on children (13–15 years old), using a survey with 388 children who have migrant and non-migrant parents. The conceptual model of migration, economic pressure, family relations and child outcomes integrated within the family stress perspective allows these pathways to be incorporated within a broader Moldovan context. I conducted quantitative data analysis using structural equation modelling. The results indicated that higher economic pressure was associated with children's lower psychological functioning, academic achievement and satisfaction with life. Parenting behaviours, especially parental support and monitoring, mediated the impact of satisfaction with migration and economic pressure on children's outcomes. I underline the importance of using a family perspective in the migration policymaking process, and provide specific recommendations for migration policies and programmes.

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the motives affecting the migration decisions of young people, particularly university students. Two scales were developed for measuring the perception of the importance of these motives. The data used in the research were collected via a survey of the opinions and attitudes of university students in Osijek, in June 2010. The paper also analyses psychometric properties of the scales – their dimensionality and reliability.

The results of a confirmatory factor analysis undoubtedly indicate that both scales are multidimensional constructs. A combination of the results of t-tests for an independent sample, factor analysis (exploratory and confirmatory) and reliability analysis suggest that emigration and stay motives are two sides of the same migration decision, and that they can be classified into several factors: the economic situation, social networks, insider advantages (that can be divided into inherited amenities and public-safety conditions) and the wealth of opportunities. Depending on the power of the initial and target destination, the factors can function as ‘push’ or ‘pull’ factors. The results of the study show social networks as being the only ‘pull’ factor for the city of Osijek, whereas the other factors, especially the economic ones, proved to demonstrate the ‘push’ effect. However, the effects of all factors were very mild.

In this paper, I analyse the changes that mothers and children experience in their relationship due to the physical separations and reunions entailed by the international migration process. I argue that the different geographical configurations that migrant families take over time are the outcome of a negotiation of care responsibility and desired geographies of family life, and are accompanied by changing meanings and practices in intimate relationships: the location of care relationships is influenced by the relatives' capacity both to take part in family negotiations as well as to overcome the constraints imposed by policies. Time is relevant because it leads to shifting meanings and practices of transnational family life, as well as to the changing role of children in the family.

A remittance is part of an employee's wages or salary that is sent back home. Remittances not only help the workers' family members, but also help the home countries to strengthen their balance of payments. Remittances are remuneration to employees from the economy in which they work, and thus they contribute to both the gross domestic product (GDP) and the gross national income (GNI) of that economy. Because of their stability and dependability, remittances have become a permanent fixture of governments' financial revenues. The primary objective of this research is to determine whether foreign nationals make a significant contribution to the level of remittances and what some of the determinants are. We utilize three models to test whether the categories of foreign nationals – immigrants admitted; persons naturalized; and non-immigrants admitted as temporary workers, exchange visitors and intra-company transferees – send significant amounts of remittances. In this work, we look at the flow of remittances during the 1982–2001 period from the United States to the Caribbean region, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The results indicate that the number of “immigrants admitted”, “persons naturalized” and “non-immigrants admitted as temporary workers, exchange visitors and intra-company transferees”, together with the “exchange rate”, the “Hispanic unemployment rate” and the “median income of Hispanic families”, are significant determinants in the size of remittances. When the results are extrapolated, the number of “immigrants admitted” produces the maximum remittance flow to Jamaica. The number of persons naturalized is important to the total remittances for the overall Caribbean region. The non-immigrant temporary worker group is the largest single source of remittances. This group may potentially send US$15 billion to Trinidad and Tobago.

The growing number of immigrants in the Madrid region raises several questions concerning the welfare of future native generations. The debates shift from increasing concern about the congestion of public services like education or healthcare, to how immigration helps to ease tension in relation to financing those services and other benefits to the region's general welfare. In order to evaluate the global effect, our analysis uses a generational accounting method which is applied to different productivity, interest rate and growth scenarios. The results show that the impact of immigrants is positive, with intergenerational distribution towards the currently most active taxpayers.

This paper describes an instrument developed in Italy by the ISMU Foundation to measure the level of integration of immigrants present in the country. The instrument consists of an index based on data collected by means of a structured questionnaire. The paper first describes the technical characteristics of this instrument and the main results obtained from its first, experimental use with the administration of over 12,000 interviews in Italy. There follow some critical notes on the limits and potential of the application of synthetic indexes in the analysis of migratory processes, and particularly in study of the integration of immigrants.

This paper examines the determinants of return migration as foreign-born men approach old age in Germany. Return migration in later life engages a different set of conditions from return migration earlier on, including the framing of return as a possible retirement strategy. Using 23 years of longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel, this paper investigates how social and economic resources of immigrant men influence decisions to return “home.” Results suggest that immigrants from former guest worker recruitment countries within the European Union are more likely to return than non-EU immigrants. In addition, return migrants are “negatively selected” so that those with the least education and weakest attachments to the labor force are more likely to emigrate. However, findings vary greatly depending on the immigrant's age and country of origin. Results from this paper highlight the heterogeneity of older immigrants and the factors that motivate their return “home”.

A recent body of thought has arisen contending that skilled migration can have a net positive benefit for sending countries. The main underlying argument concerns the remittances that skilled migrants send back home. Using skilled Ghanaian migrants abroad, in this study we examine the factors that impact remittances. We drew our sample from Ghanaian professional groups on social networking sites (SNSs) – Facebook and LinkedIn – supplemented by an offline sample. Our results indicate that remittances by skilled Ghanaian migrants increase as the migrant's household income increases and decrease as the time spent abroad by the skilled migrant increases. Additionally, as the level of educational attainment of the skilled migrant increases, the level of remittances decreases. Finally, the reason for remitting impacts the level of remittances. Specifically, remittances to support family in need and to finance building and investment projects positively impact the level of remittances. In conclusion, we observe that when skilled migrants have a greater attachment to their host countries, they tend to remit less. Likewise, when skilled migrants have a greater attachment to their home countries, they tend to remit more.

Using an index measuring the relative probability of names in different populations, our results indicate that immigrants and especially those from the Maghreb/Middle-East give first names to their children that are different from those given by the French majority population. Though we find a correlation between religiosity and our name index for European immigrants, the differences in naming practices cannot generally be attributed to religiosity as we find no correlation between our name index and the religious practices of immigrants from the Maghreb/Middle-East. These differences in the naming patterns are, as one would expect, related to general cultural references, language, citizenship and educational attainment.

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between internal migration and Spanish regional convergence between 1972 and 1998, a period between the mass emigration prior to the 1970s and the mass immigration of the end of the twentieth century. The main results indicate that internal migration led to a fall in Spanish regional development gaps. However, internal migration did not lead to the disappearance of these gaps in the long term. Some regions will always receive workers, others will send them out and a third group will experience a sequence of migration reversals. The econometric methodology used allows us to identify structural breaks and to differentiate between long- and short-term effects. This approach enables predictions to be made for internal migration flows in the long term in the absence of shocks.

Migration plays an important role in shaping contemporary society in the European Union (EU), with constituent countries being affected differently. As a result of the most recent expansion of the EU in 2004, the United Kingdom (UK) has experienced an influx of economic migrants from former “Eastern Bloc” countries, including many young people from Poland. In this study, we explore the experiences of a group of nine young Polish adults living, studying and working in the UK. Three of the nine participants were co-researchers in this participatory action research, equipping them with the tools to undertake a narrative enquiry. The resultant narratives outline emergent themes and subthemes: including reasons for coming to and staying in the UK; first impressions of and changing opinions about life in the UK; the impact of visits to Poland; and plans for the future. The data add to the literature by providing a unique developmental perspective of the changing experiences of living in the UK; and give some insight into the life impacts of migration in contemporary Europe, amongst young people in their twenties.

Language brokering is a common phenomenon, whereby children of immigrant parents mediate both verbally and with written documents between their parents and other different language speakers or writers, converting meanings in one language into meanings in another. This paper explores some of the moral identities – the interplay between moral ideals and individuals' personal identities – adults construct from their memories of their activities as child language brokers. Qualitative research on adults who were, and to a large extent still are, language brokers for their parents, found that in the context of parent-teacher meetings, some individuals recast their behaviours in a manner that rendered themselves as good, honest, ethical and well-behaved students. This paper argues that the moral identities individuals construct from memories of their childhood experiences have social and cultural dimensions, and are contingent upon the context and the situation. The paper also has policy implications with regards to the status of the child, and the relationship of that status to cultural context and expectation, given that the circumstances of their lives cannot be removed. Regarding policy, this research could inform practitioners, schools, and the general public about the impact of language brokering experiences on children, and may help in some way to alleviate the stress/burdens associated with language brokering. Additionally, it could bring about increasing understanding of how people establish identities based on their lived experiences.

EMIG 1.2 is a new, open-source emigration database, based on over 6,500 observations covering 155 countries between 1850 and 2008, which can be used in both aggregate and TSCS analyses. Using comparisons, I show that EMIG 1.2 complements and extends alternative databases. Still, I need to solicit help from area specialists to broaden and deepen its coverage. In its aggregate form, I observe two important trends: (1) the level of emigration today is lower than it was prior to the First World War (when weighted by the number of countries or people); and (2) global emigration rates have been falling since 1994.

In this paper, I focus on the transnational care practices of Salvadoran refugees living in Perth (Western Australia) and who care for their ageing parents who have remained in their home country. The analysis is based on a conceptualization of transnational care as a set of capabilities that include, but are not limited to, mobility, social relations, time allocation, education and knowledge, paid work and communication (Merla and Baldassar, 2011). I focus in particular on the impact of Salvadoran refugees’ difficult access to, and use of, these capabilities on their capacity to fulfil their culturally defined sense of obligation to care for their ageing parents. Results show that extended transnational kinship networks play a major role in helping migrants overcome obstacles to transnational caregiving.

In this paper, we offer an initial assessment of the impact of the economic crisis on Spain's migration flows. After a period of intensive economic growth and the ensuing immigratory appeal (1995–2007), Spain has been hit hard by the recession. This has modified the trends that had so far characterized foreign immigration in Spain. The impact of the economic recession has been particularly severe in the case of immigrant workers and, consequently, from an institutional point of view, the Spanish government has adopted various measures to restrict the arrival of new immigrants: it has reduced work permit quotas and it has modified the Foreign Residents Law, toughening residence permit requirements. It has also tried to encourage voluntary returns with a programme devised to provide assistance to immigrants originating from countries with which Spain has social security agreements. The response to this programme has, however, been very limited. Immigration flows have continued and rates of return have stayed low, although new trends are also detectable, such as a decrease in the number of irregular arrivals and a rise in informal employment, as well as differences in the impact of unemployment according to nationality and gender. This reveals the complexity of migration processes beyond the supply and demand of labour and the political will to regulate human mobility. Consequently, immigration patterns in Spain reveal the degree of complexity reached by human mobility, which has increased beyond the logic of the labour market and the government's attempts at regulating migration flows by means of institutional measures. The immigrants' hope of raising their standard of living and the socio-economic differences between source and receiving countries, even at a time of severe economic crisis, do still serve as explanations for current migration networks, one of the key points in the current debate on international migration.

In this study, we assess how the composition of migrant workers varies with migration prevalence within Filipino communities. Specifically, we test the hypothesis of past cumulative causation scholars that increased migration prevalence results in a decline in migrant selectivity. The Philippines has a social, political and geographical context that differs from that of many other countries characterized by high migration. In this study, we consider whether these different contexts and contingencies might alter the process by which the social phenomenon of cumulative causation occurs. Multiple fixed-effects models were estimated at the municipality level, with the dependent variable in each model being a demographic characteristic related to the propensity to migrate: marital status, age, sex and years of education. We find, consistent with cumulative causation theory as posited by Douglas S. Massey, that increased migration prevalence did yield a decline in selectivity for education and marital status. However, migration prevalence had no effect on the gender composition of migrants, while time did impact the gender composition, suggesting sustained selectivity by gender attributable to global demand for specifically gendered, migrant labour.

This paper derives from our joint interest in understanding how scientific mobility affects developing countries. Many authors have addressed the topic previously, both from an economic and from a sociological perspective. However, recent literature evinces dissatisfaction with both analytical frameworks and the framing of public policies addressing the brain drain problematic. This paper is a contribution to understanding the historical and theoretical foundations of the “brain drain” debate. We aim to improve conceptual clarity regarding the itinerancy of human beings and the mobilization of human capital. We develop a critical review of the economics of the brain drain, highlighting the work of some key early thinkers and pointing out the way in which subsequent work has taken up selected aspects of their approaches leaving other challenges aside. We then consider the diaspora networks literature, which is characterized as taking a “connectionist” approach to the brain drain. We identify two fundamental problems: the sidelining of complementarity and context dependency as basic properties of human capital; and a failure to adequately disentangle the concepts of human resources for science and technology (HRST) and human capital in academic and policy discourse about the brain drain.

This paper examines how Peruvian migrants fare economically in two historically and culturally distinct host countries, Japan and the US, drawing upon a survey and interviews conducted in both countries. Peruvian migrants surveyed share similar socio-economic backgrounds and migrated to both countries for similar reasons roughly around the same time. Yet, over time, they achieved more occupational upward mobility in the US than in Japan. Japan has not done quite as well as the US in providing immigrants with occupational opportunities due to its less diversified immigrant labor market, limited entrepreneurship opportunities, and restricted modes of immigrant incorporation. Does it mean, however, that Peruvian migrants are less successful in Japan than the US? Although occupational mobility is a commonly used measure of social mobility, the definitions and meanings of “success” are context-dependent. Peruvians in the US do experience more occupational mobility, but diverge more greatly in economic achievement amongst themselves. In Japan, on the other hand, while they experience little occupational mobility, they have had more economic equality with relatively stable and high wages. The paper examines Peruvian migrants' distinct economic trajectories over time, focusing on their occupational mobility. We conclude that occupational mobility matters, not necessarily because it accompanies higher income, but because it shapes migrants' aspirations. In the context where immigrants' destinations have become more diverse in the world, the paper provides insights into how immigrants “make it” and what it means to “make it” in recent destinations, such as Japan, in comparison to more traditional immigrant countries, such as the US.

Our paper examines how group specific metropolitan level factors affect the earnings of six major Asian immigrant groups in the United States: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Drawing upon the theoretical perspectives of structural assimilation and ethnic economies, we develop several testable research hypotheses which are examined for the six Asian groups utilizing group specific multilevel regressions models. What is novel in this analysis is the comparison of the six Asian groups in different metropolitan areas in order to examine how variation in metropolitan context interacts with individual characteristics to influence individual earnings in wage or salaried occupations. The results show that the impact of metropolitan context is not uniform, but varied across and within the groups according to their different group and individual characteristics. We argue that future research strategy to establish the relationship between assimilation factors and immigrant earnings should put high priority on considering the distinctiveness of each immigrant group and the recent geographic diversification of immigrant destinations.

Recent scholarship emphasizes differences among ethnic groups’ internal migration patterns. Yet, with few exceptions, research has focused on the Anglo-American world, neglecting experiences from other regions. This paper is part of a larger research project that studies mobility among the Arab minority in Israel and its driving forces. In this paper we examine patterns of internal migration by analysing the propensity to migrate as well as migrants’ individual and social characteristics. First, we survey the theoretical backdrop that is suggested by recent geographic literature on internal migration among ethnic and racial minorities, including native groups. Second, we contextualize the group studied, providing necessary background information on the political, socio-economic and demographic conditions of Arabs in Israel. We briefly discuss attributes that are – or have been – potential hindering factors to Arab mobility in the Jewish state. Finally, we analyse 1995 national census data at the micro scale and provide a basis for future explanations of the phenomenon. We conclude by outlying some future directions in the study of internal migration of minorities in Israel.

The study estimates an empirical model of return intentions using a dataset compiled from an internet survey of Turkish professionals residing abroad. In the migration literature, wage differentials are often cited as an important factor explaining skilled migration. The findings of our study suggest, however, that non-pecuniary factors, such as the importance of family and social considerations, are also influential in the return or non-return decision of the highly educated. In addition, economic instability in Turkey, prior intentions to stay abroad, and work experience in Turkey also increase non-return. Female respondents also appear less likely to return indicating a more selective migration process for females.

Language operates as a form of differentially valued cultural capital that is an influential factor in educational and employment outcomes. English in particular represents a valuable form of linguistic capital in both the broader world market and many regional and local contexts. This article, focusing on one group of professionals, draws on an exploratory study carried out with overseas-born bilingual social workers residing in Australia, who reflect on how their language identities intersect with their professional identities in the human services workplace. Although most informants identified tangible benefits associated with being bilingual, especially in terms of working with a diverse clientele, they were equally aware of how being categorized as a ‘non-native’ speaker of English could diminish their professional credibility and thwart their chances of upward mobility in the workplace. In this regard, this article highlights inconsistencies in how difference is valued in the human services workplace, implicating a more covert process of linguistic othering.

In this paper we compare estimates of immigrants' labour supply assimilation profiles using the Current Population Survey Annual Demographic Files (March ADS) and the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (ORGs). We use a measure that is seemingly consistent across both surveys: usual weekly hours of work in the main job. This measure is not only important as it measures the intensive margin of labour supply, but it is also used to estimate hourly earnings in both surveys. Our results indicate that the two surveys produce dramatically different estimates of the change in average hours of work as immigrants' years in the United States increase: estimates from the March ADS predict much steeper hour's assimilation profiles than do estimates obtained from the ORGs. These differences persist if we include controls for demographic characteristics, and only disappear once we control for occupation heterogeneity. We argue that these differences stem from two separate factors that differentiate the data. First, the ADS and ORG frame the usual “hours worked” question differently. Also, differences in the timing of the surveys may produce seasonality effects that differentially affect the composition of recent and earlier migrants, thereby changing assimilation profiles.

In this paper, an exploratory content analysis was developed for a case study. It dealt with the topic of immigration reported in the regional newspapers of Castilla y León in Spain, the largest Spanish autonomous community. This study based its research conceptualization on Framing Theory in Mass Communication. In addition to the usual issue frames and issue images, two framing devices were established as analytic variables: the index of importance and the index of affective attribution. Together, they formed a frame package capable of making latent frames evident by their linkage to manifest frames. Against the general assumption on relevant-bad-news production, results obtained in this study proved that, occasionally, negative news stories could be reported as less relevant than the positive ones. This study aimed to show how concept mapping of frames was applicable to immigration issues and immigrants' visual aspects that have been systematically articulated and disseminated by the press in this regional society of Spain in recent years. The results of this study constitute a significant inquiry to develop research on the effects of immigration news on social cognition processing as well as on immigrants' social integration.

Accommodation centres are much more than means of securing asylum seekers’ housing needs. They are an embodiment of asylum and immigration policies. To understand these policies and their effects on asylum seekers, we need to ask what interests different institutional actors have in keeping asylum seekers in the centres. Based on the study of accommodation centres in the Czech Republic, in this paper I argue that the centres serve as tools of migration control. The prolonged confinement of a highly diverse group of people produced by the interconnectedness between asylum and immigration policies leads to asylum seekers’ disillusionment about the asylum procedure and nourishes various illicit activities. The centres enable state institutions to determine the nature of assistance available to asylum seekers, including legal aid provided by non-governmental organizations. By actively promoting the image of accommodation centres as benign places, the state also controls the dominant representation of refugee reception. In everyday practices in the centres, control and assistance are closely intertwined and produce an oppressive environment that engenders asylum seekers’ dependency.

In this paper, we analyse wage differences between foreign and Spanish nationals in Spain. This analysis is relevant because Spain has witnessed a sharp increase in the proportion of foreign workers over the past decade. In our analysis, we explicitly account for unobserved heterogeneity at firm level, a situation which occurs when relevant covariates (for example, those connected to a specific firm's production process) are not included in the model because they are unmeasurable, unobservable or unavailable for the researcher. When accounting for such heterogeneity, our results show that wage gaps between foreign nationals from developing countries and Spanish nationals range between −6.35 per cent and −11.30 per cent. We also find that wage differences, between Spanish nationals and others in the same firm and job, are substantially greater for almost every group of low-tenured foreign workers and also for those holding open-ended contracts.

In this paper, I explore the possibilities of linking and expanding existing sending and receiving countries' initiatives that mobilize immigrants to participate in the development process of their countries of origin in such a way as to advance two main goals of such initiatives: (1) to multiply their developmental impact in sending regions; and (2) to help increase the social and political capital of immigrants and immigrant associations, so as to facilitate both their role in the development of their countries of origin and also their integration in their host societies. In the paper, I will study the Mexican 3×1 programme and Spain's co-development model and explore the ways in which programmes such as these could be ideally linked and implemented, in diverse contexts, in a way that is advantageous to both sending and receiving societies. The paper is based on research conducted over the past 9 years with Mexican immigrant associations in the United States; on interviews with Mexican government officials in Mexico and the United States; and on interviews conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Spain.

Resources such as education and social networks are likely to contribute to migrants' upward mobility in the class hierarchy. Moreover, according to structural fit theory, the contribution tends to be contingent on age and social network size. The contingency is the major concern of the present study of mainland Chinese migrants in Hong Kong, which is somewhat different from the Chinese mainland economically, politically and even culturally. In this study, we show that the conditions for upward mobility are some human and social resources and their various combinations. Notably, schooling after arrival in Hong Kong contributed more to the upward mobility of the migrant who was younger or had a larger social network at the time of arrival in Hong Kong. Purportedly, promoting the migrant's integration with the school and local social network would prepare the migrant for upward mobility.

It is well documented that newly arrived immigrants face a significant earnings gap relative to native-born workers. One way for new immigrants to improve their relative labour market position upon arrival in a host country is to improve their educational credentials. According to signalling theory, a host-country credential should provide employers with a proxy for true productivity on the job, leading to higher earnings. Using data from a Canadian longitudinal survey, we employ longitudinal growth-curve techniques to estimate the effect of receiving a Canadian educational credential on the income growth of racial-minority recent immigrants compared to native-born Canadians. The results indicate that the earnings gap between recent immigrants and native-born Canadians is significantly reduced with the attainment of a Canadian educational credential.

In this paper, I review recent literature on the relationship between human mobility and knowledge transfer processes, and apply some of the more theoretical ideas to an evaluation of the kinds of mobility in which UK participants engage in the context of North–South healthcare partnerships (HCPs). Much of the contemporary research on highly skilled mobility highlights the role that short stays and circular mobility play in knowledge transfer processes. I consider the value of short stays in the travel–mobility–migration continuum and the contribution they make to the transfer, translation and effectiveness of knowledge. Healthcare partnerships are best conceptualized as knowledge networks, with various forms of mobility (both physical and virtual) playing a critical role in network-generation, evolution and impact. I outline the findings of two studies. The first is an evaluation of HCPs (Ackers and Porter, 2011) and the second an in-depth ongoing evaluation of one HCP known as the Liverpool–Mulago Partnership or LMP¹ (Porter et al., 2011). The results raise questions about the relationship between the different types of mobility that participants in HCPs (predominantly professional volunteers) engage in, particularly the duration and repeated quality of stays, and knowledge transfer processes. Williams argues that “there are still major gaps in our understanding of the specific contribution of international migration to knowledge transfer, of the processes involved, and of the conditions that facilitate this” (2006 588). In this paper, I begin to close some of these gaps and advance our understanding of the relationship between different forms of mobility and knowledge transfer processes, in the hopes that this will build the evidence base supporting the contribution of North–South HCPs to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals ² .

In this paper, I explore an important aspect of Irish youth migration, in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, namely the mobility intentions of tertiary-educated youth during the recent economic crisis. Building on prior work that I completed in 2007, I conducted quantitative and qualitative research with a total of 400 university students in Dublin, Belfast and Cork during 2010. Analysis of the data reveals that the majority of these young people (62%) intend to leave Ireland in the future, moving predominantly to other English-language speaking countries, with such plans being more prevalent in the Republic of Ireland (72%) compared to Northern Ireland (52%). Further quantitative analysis and a series of qualitative interviews help explain what has influenced the mobility decision-making of these young people. The results emphasize the importance of factors such as parental occupational background and locality, as well as the role of family relationships in encouraging and discouraging mobility. The impact of the economic crisis is, however, less clear, with the mobility intentions of young people planning to migrate tending to be influenced more by personal than economic considerations.

Among different groups of Poles in Brussels there are an estimated twenty thousand Polish migrants performing undocumented work. The presence of homeless Poles in Brussels indicates the vulnerability of some of the European labour migrants. The article is based on fieldwork conducted amongst Polish people sleeping rough in Brussels in 2008 and 2009. Most of the homeless informants were construction workers, who lost their living quarters due to seasonal unemployment, alcohol problems, illness or other incidents. In the article I analyse their narratives using Julian Wolpert's concept of “place utility” to confront the way they talk about their adaptation to the environment with the risks and opportunities they attach to staying in Brussels and their possible return migration to Poland. I present four types of homeless migrants and their different situations and survival strategies. The analysis includes their perception of life in Brussels and Poland. The narratives of most of them seem to share the perception of Poland's lower “anticipated place utility” in comparison with Brussels. The decision not to return to Poland minimizes the perceived risks and uncertainty. It avoids psychological strains, such as feelings of shame, frustration and confronting their families and friends. Living on the streets of Brussels seems “optimal” to them, under the circumstances. This example shows that economically unsuccessful migrations cannot be easily terminated; that the risks and profits are not equally distributed across family members; and that the different rationalities of all the actors and their self-limitations should also be taken into account. Further studies of homelessness among working immigrants may contribute to a better understanding of some of the migration phenomena.

In this paper, I focus on the experiences of female labour migrants, looking particularly at the emigration of married women from a region with a long-established culture of emigration, in the context of the accession of Poland to the European Union. The paper is empirical in its content and is based mainly on emigration stories and narratives recorded in the form of biography or autobiography. I discuss different stages of the migration process – the decision to migrate; the experience of migration (in particular, with reference to its impact on families, both abroad and at home), and also the consequences of migration for Polish society, particularly with reference to family cohesion and changing gender roles.

Although international migration is playing an increasingly important role in Nepal, at both the macro and household levels, and in particular for the poverty reduction of rural families, empirical work focusing on this phenomenon has been largely absent. With a special view on the rural poor, in this paper we investigate the impact of international labour migration on subsistence agricultural production in the Western Mid Hills of Nepal, based on a survey conducted among smallholders with migrating family members. The results demonstrate that international migration leads to negligence of cereals – paddy, wheat, maize and millet, in particular, being the major subsistence crops. While bearing a negative impact on family labour input, its impact on hired farm labour is positive. Yet it does not affect material inputs such as fertilizer, and although it helps to ease households’ liquidity and capital constraints, it does not contribute to moving subsistence farming towards more profitable commercial farming. Therefore, although migration reduces poverty in the short run and also allows for higher daily consumption, its negative impact on cereal production requires attention by policymakers.

High-skilled migration has increasingly been the subject of migration research over the past decade, but the focus has tended to be on health and IT professionals. In this paper, we address the mobility of schoolteachers in a region that has so far received little attention, the Pacific Islands. It is timely to examine trends in teacher mobility in the Pacific, given the shortages that are occurring elsewhere. In particular, the tailoring of immigration policies to attract highly skilled workers in areas of shortage could impact on the Pacific. The focus of the paper is on emigration and we argue that of three countries studied, only Fiji is negatively affected by teacher mobility. The Cook Islands and Vanuatu are currently experiencing low levels of international teacher emigration. Levels of internal mobility are also investigated in an attempt to see if remote areas and outer islands are experiencing teacher shortages. The preference for working near one’s land or on one’s home island is a strong drawcard in bringing people back home to teach. A problem arises, however, when not enough people are trained from a region/island and the incentives to encourage others to go and work there are less than effective.

Current debates around US immigration policy are playing out against a backdrop that has changed significantly in the past 20 years: immigrants have increasingly gravitated towards “new destinations”; a large and growing portion of immigrants are undocumented; and the federal vacuum in responding to the promise and problems of these new immigration trends has devolved policy to the states. As a result, we have seen innovation on the state level as policymakers seek to accommodate, welcome or resist immigration, with varying degrees of success. In this paper, we explore the case of Utah as a new immigration destination, seeking to understand its transformation from a state with very inclusive immigrant policies as late as 1999 to one currently adopting highly restrictive immigrant policies. To explain this trajectory, we test three prominent materialist theories of public policy: instrumentalism, structuralism and strategic-relational approaches. We draw on a decade’s worth of primary data – including data on state-level legislation, key economic indicators, public statements concerning immigration from the private business sector and the LDS Church, and the editorial content of the state’s two major newspapers regarding immigration – to examine the policy explanations that grow out of interest-based theories of the state. Whereas these theories provide robust explanations for a large and diverse array of public policies, we find that they fall short in explaining immigration policy. While conventional wisdom – and extensive scholarly research – suggests that economic interests drive policy, we find that the policies around immigrants challenge this economic reductionism, suggesting the need for more complex and ideational accounts of this important phenomenon.

In this paper, we examine individuals’ career migration across international borders. It is widely recognized that globalization has fundamental implications for the careers of people across geographical and cultural boundaries. However, our understanding of the interplay of migration, career development and national/cultural identities remains undeveloped within the extant literature. In this paper, we seek to offer insights into this relationship. Focusing on Indian scientists, an occupational group whose careers have long been associated with movement around the world, in this paper we examine these issues. Empirically, we examine three themes: why Indian scientists see international mobility as important in the development of their careers; continued links with India; and the interplay of national/cultural affiliation and respondents’ career experiences. In light of our findings, in the discussion section we argue that considering Indian scientists as a career diaspora highlights three important features that in the main have received only limited attention in the extant literature: career as a social form and process; the notion of the scientific career as a cultural product; and the interrelationship of career and national/cultural affiliation as ongoing facets of individuals’ identities as they develop diasporic careers.

In this study, I explore gender dimensions of remittances under conditions of temporary migration in Asia. This research argues that migrant remittances are influenced by not only gender but also the context of the remittances, and that both should be integrated and elaborated to capture the complexity of remittances and their development dynamics. On the basis of surveys of 150 migrants in the United Arab Emirates and 100 migrant households in Bangladesh, in this study I examine gender dimensions of remittances by linking both sending and receiving points and elaborating on four sites of remittances, where gender matters significantly: (i) the sending process, (ii) the receipt process, (iii) the use and control of remittances and, finally, (iv) the implications for the migrant households. The study reveals several gender-differentiated patterns in remittance behaviour. Female migrants remit a greater share of their earnings than their male counterparts; they prefer sisters to brothers and other family members to husbands, while men prefer brothers to sisters and fathers to wives – and, interestingly, it was males, rather than females, who remitted more to females. Women have more control over remittances than men: in the migrant–spouse remittance route, more regular contact, and consultation and negotiation about management of remittances, are reported. Women show more interest in savings than men: women’s remittances tend to be invested in human capital and those of male recipients in physical capital; more females play the role of principal economic providers for the families than their male counterparts.

In the last couple of decades, Turkey has become an important country of immigration. In parallel, a new scholarly field has developed to study this largely unrecognized phenomenon. In this paper, I take stock of this new literature. I first show how students of immigration into Turkey had to define the field in relation to the powerful existing fields studying emigration from Turkey and internal migration in Turkey, as well as how they distinguished between “old” and “new” immigration. I then study the emergence of this field under the lead of Ahmet İçduygu and Kemal Kirişci. Later, with the establishment of two central research centres (CARIM and MiReKoç), the field gained important institutional anchors and attracted many new scholars. Today, the field is characterized by a strong dynamism, a plurality of talented scholars and a diversity of concerns and approaches. Even though the field is still at an early stage, it is bound to grow rapidly, as the phenomenon of migration into Turkey remains a highly strategic and lasting phenomenon. It is therefore crucial for the field to become self-aware of its strength and weaknesses. Consequently, in the final section, I identify important future directions for the field, especially the need for scholars to better understand the diverse political ramifications (foreign and domestic politics) associated with immigration into Turkey.

Using data from a customized household survey in Fiji, we assess the extent to which remittances are motivated by the migrants’ commitment to provide social protection to their families back home. We test this hypothesis by estimating econometrically the responsiveness of migrants’ remittances to the perceived financial need of recipients. We extend a mixed-motives model of private transfers, incorporating household-specific, subjectively assessed welfare in place of the more generally used poverty-line measure of welfare. We find stronger evidence that remittances provide important social protection for the poorest when using our extended model. We also find a positive, but relatively much weaker, relationship for those above the poverty threshold, implying support for switching of motives once the household’s welfare has reached a level that is deemed adequate. We consider the possibility that welfare improvements in migrant-sending countries could increase or decrease remittance flows depending on pre-transfer welfare levels and other intervening factors. In relation to policy, we caution against policy interventions that could undermine the functioning of the informal social protection role of migration and remittances. We also caution against unwarranted concern over the use of remittances for consumption spending and the associated, misplaced policy measures to address this.

Internal and international migration increasingly continues to be of global importance for development policies and programmes, but the dearth of data on migration for African countries and the limited focus on the structural conditions that motivate migration from specific localities within the region remain glaring. In this study, we examine the patterns and drivers of migration in Cameroon, focusing on the dynamics of rural–urban migration, migrant circulation, regional economic migrants and refugees, international migration, brain drain and returns from emigration. Consequent upon regional conflicts and instability, we highlight the refugee problem in Cameroon and significant challenges in addressing it. Finally, we underscore the policy and research challenges necessary to harness the potentials of internal and international migration for national development.

The growing flow of migrants’ remittances has generated much interest in understanding the socio-economic consequences of household migration for individuals and families in migrant-sending areas. In this paper, I examine the effect of household migration on health status, as measured by nutritional status, of adults who have remained behind in rural Indonesia, a setting with a high rate of out-migration and poor nutritional profiles. Assuming that remittances may improve household economic resources and thus change dietary intake and health-related investment, household migration may be associated with the risks of both undernutrition and overnutrition. The analyses use longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey and fixed-effect regressions. The results show that adults in emigrant households were significantly less susceptible to being underweight than those in non-migrant households, but that they did not have an increased risk of being overweight. The improved nutritional status was restricted to people in households with labour migrants, highlighting the role of remittances in improving nutritional intake. The health gain was also concentrated among women, increased with the number of out-migrants and was revealed over time as remittances arrived. Overall, this study demonstrates the beneficial role of household migration, and especially the resulting remittances, in the health status of household members in resource-constrained settings. Improving transfers of remittances would be helpful in reducing the problem of undernutrition in poor migrant-sending areas.

Natural disasters related to hydro-meteorological events have increased during the last few decades, both in frequency and severity. Mexico is heavily exposed to climate change, but has also suffered in the past from climate variability (Blümel, 2009). The new risks oblige the government to develop mitigation processes, while the affected people are implementing strategies of adaptation and resilience-building, mostly at the family and community level. This includes forced migration due to climate change into the slums of megacities or illegal immigration to the United States. The arid, semi-arid and subhumid condition of 49.2 per cent of the territory of Mexico is seriously affected by climate change. In addition, poverty and the lack of jobs have created complex livelihood situations, in which young people leave rural areas, partly due to socio-economic pull factors. In this paper, we address the functional relationships between climate patterns and migration processes in Mexico, highlighting the linkages between the origin of migrants, their economic activity and their vulnerability to extreme events and we discuss long-term climate patterns. Agriculture still uses 78 per cent of the available water in Mexico. In the drylands the competition for water use requires an integrated policy to deal with the new threats from climate change, including mitigation from the top down and adaptation processes from the bottom up to reduce the social vulnerability of the rural population in the highly affected drylands of the central and northern parts of Mexico. The new policy for administering water resources, which promotes the efficient use of an increasingly scarce and polluted resource, still suffers from a lack of participation by the affected rural population. In this paper, we propose an integrated management system from the watershed onwards, involving socio-economic, political, cultural and hydrological variables, to deal with the rising scarcity of water, and the uncertainty and complexity of climate change.

Migratory contacts may have a positive or a negative influence on local processes of reconciliation and reconstruction. However, their impact on individual attitudinal and behavioural attributes remains a largely underexposed topic. Migrants from post-conflict Rwanda maintain substantive contacts with their relatives through social networks and the resources that they send. Reconstruction and reconciliation programmes in post-conflict Rwanda heavily rely on these migratory contacts. We explore the relationship between migration, reconstruction and reconciliation processes in post-conflict Rwanda. We analyse the importance of migratory contacts as a major constituent of social capital, and discuss whether and how remittances can be used for mobilizing this social capital. Adopting a micro-level perspective, we examine the effects of migratory contacts and remittances on cooperative behaviour and willingness for reconciliation amongst 558 households in Huye District, southern Rwanda. We find that migratory contacts enhance reconstructive behaviour and reconciliatory attitudes, whereas financial remittances result in reduced participation in these processes, indicating that there is a crowding-out effect due to remittance-dependency. Furthermore, we scrutinize the relationship between reconciliation and reconstruction, showing that inter-group contact is a key mediating variable.

In this paper, I examine the state of access to financial services by migrants in South Africa and the intermediation of remittances using a case study of Zimbabwean migrants. I observe that migrants generally use informal channels to intermediate remittances. While this phenomenon can technically be attributed to immigration laws and the financial regulatory environment, there are other factors at play, such as cultural inertia. I observe financial access for migrants to be positively related to migrant legal status, income level, savings level and education level. Furthermore, I note that financial access is not correlated with the choice of the mode of remittance transfer. The majority of migrants with financial access still prefer to utilize informal transfer mechanisms. Policy interventions that have the effect of improving financial access include the “formalization” of the legal status of migrants, improving their wage levels and access to education, and expanding savings programmes to migrants.

Since 2000, South Africa has experienced unprecedented migration from Zimbabwe. Surveys have estimated that by the end of 2007, between 1 million and 2 million Zimbabweans had migrated to South Africa as a result of a political and economic crisis that has been bedevilling their country. These migrants are supporting the livelihoods of relatives left at home through remittances. The nature of the remittance flows is not well documented, and the characteristics of the remittance senders and recipients are even less well understood. In this paper, I attempt to fill this research gap by focusing on the remittance behaviour of the senders. Using data from a survey of Zimbabwean migrants living in Johannesburg in South Africa, in this paper I examine the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the remittance senders. Pertinent findings are that remittance behaviour is seen to be positively correlated with age, the number of dependents supported in the home country, income level and the return migration decision. Furthermore, males and married persons make up a larger proportion of the remitters than females and single persons. There are more remitters among migrants with basic education than among those with tertiary education. I have found remittance behaviour to be independent of legal status and length of stay in the host country. The independence with regard to length of stay raises questions about the validity of the remittance decay hypothesis.

In recent years, the reception of remittances by migrant-sending countries has been quantified and well advertised. Many have predicted economic development based on the magnitude of these aggregate figures, leaving aside the fact that new family arrangements, emigration expectations, consumption patterns and demographic changes impact the prospects for development. This paper shows how remittances link distant locations economically, socially and culturally creating unique transnational dynamics that shape development at both ends. I use multi-sited ethnographic work conducted over seven years in different places of migrant origin and destination. The paper challenges common assumptions regarding the developmental effect of remittances, by contrasting the hyper-rational, atomistic and perfectly informed theoretical actors of the neoclassical account with the complex actors who make their decisions on the basis of imperfect information, and the values and meanings constructed within a transnational web of family and community ties.

When annual migration data lack reliability, scholars apply alternative methods for estimating international migration. Yet, researchers note that alternative approaches have primarily been tested on developed countries, rather than developing countries that usually have dramatic migration shifts. I close this research gap. I use the example of 15 former Soviet republics to demonstrate several conclusions. First, I show that such alternative approaches as immigration-by-origin data of receiving countries do not result in reliable and valid estimates of post-Soviet migration, given the large variation that exists in how former Soviet republics define “migrant”. Second, I demonstrate that population censuses, while a more superior alternative, fail to capture temporary migrants. In developing countries, the international emigration is mainly due to temporary (undocumented labour) migration. Third, I suggest that scholars and policy-makers should apply household surveys as a possible alternative. However, while this method seems promising, given the limited use of household surveys in migration measurement in the post-Soviet republics, future research by both scholars and applied researchers should explore the advantages and limitations of household surveys as an alternative source for estimation of migration. Finally, I outline methodological guidelines that researchers and scholars can advance on migration issues in the post-Soviet region.

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008, but substantial proportions of its population are expressing their lack of confidence by preparing to emigrate. In this paper, we present evidence from a customized post-independence survey (1,367 face-to face interviews) on emigration intentions in Kosovo, carried out in June 2008. Thirty per cent of the respondents from the Albanian-speaking majority have taken concrete steps to move abroad, and emigration intentions have again risen to their pre-independence peak. Strikingly, it is the better educated and those with higher incomes that are more likely to exit. Ethnic Serbs (the largest minority group) are less likely to emigrate than Kosovo’s ethnic majority.

Immigrants’ motives are central to understanding immigration, yet they remain an under-researched subject in immigration studies. To fill this gap, this article examines Taiwanese immigrants’ motives for relocating to the United States. Following Mills’ concept of vocabularies of motive, this article treats immigration as situated actions and explores how cumulative causation and structural positions shape immigrants’ interpretations of their immigration decisions. Based on 75 in-depth interviews, this study discovers important differences in motive during two migration phases, initial migration and permanent settlement, as well as differences according to gender, ethnicity, and social class. Migration through education comprises the major pattern of Taiwanese immigration, as most Taiwanese move to the United States to study and then settle there for job opportunities. While men settle for careers, women stay for family wellbeing. One ethnic group, benshengren, tends to settle for job opportunities, while the other, waishengren, migrates to unite their families. Moreover, professionals always consider return as an option, while labourers are determined to stay permanently. Findings of the study suggest the importance of examining the influences of immigration contexts and individual structural positions in shaping personal motives.

Catalonia’s economy is characterized by linguistic diversity and provides a unique opportunity to measure the incidence of language proficiency on over-education, that is, whether individuals with deficient language skills, as non-natives, tend to accept jobs for which they have excessive formal skills. Descriptive evidence suggests the contrary, that individuals with better language knowledge are more likely to be over-educated. However, estimating a model that controls for individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics reveals the opposite: better language knowledge decreases over-education. This effect, although robust to accounting for endogeneity of language knowledge and significant at the individual level, is mostly non-significant on average.

Over 60 years ago, the Jewish nationalist movement known as Zionism culminated in the creation of the State of Israel. Millions of Jews immigrated to Israel over the twentieth century, a process known as aliya (literally, “going up”). Yet over the years, thousands of Israelis have also chosen to leave Israel in a movement termed yerida (“going down”). As the term suggests, this reverse migration has been highly stigmatized. During the 1960s and 1970s, emigrants were publicly disparaged in the Israeli media for having abandoned a struggling state. Consequently, Israeli migrants suffered strong feelings of guilt that often, hampered their integration process abroad, a phenomenon observed as late as the 1990s. This paper, however, reveals that feelings of stigmatization have greatly decreased among Israeli migrants in recent years. The study is based on research that I conducted in 2008–2009, involving nine months of participant observation in Vancouver’s Israeli community and 34 in-depth interviews. Unlike in previous studies, most of my informants expressed no feelings of guilt over having left Israel. Of those who did, most framed their guilt as a longing for family and friends rather than the patriotic longing for the land as expressed by previous generations. Previous studies have also found that Israelis harbour a “myth of return”– a continuously expressed desire to return to Israel and a reluctance to accept their stay abroad as permanent. However, I have not found that the myth of return is still strong today, despite the continued prevalence of a strong sense of Israeli identity among Israelis abroad. I suggest that these changing attitudes are the product of shifting ideals in Israeli society that have developed as the state of Israel has matured. This paper thus serves to update the outdated image of Israeli migrants as it exists in the prevailing literature.

Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Kazakhstan are all major destinations for labour migrants from rural areas of southern Kyrgyzstan. Along with searching for better income, younger men and women also migrate for educational purposes; children and elderly people stay behind. While older migrants often regard this separation from their families as temporary, younger people start to put down roots in places other than their homes and this has long-term consequences for development in rural areas. The paper therefore looks into families’ multi-local settings and why young migrants fail to return home. It also considers the potential impact on rural development including remittance dependency, an increasing shortage of qualified labour and new conditions of social care. The paper concludes with an assessment of the policy implications.

While the global number of resettled refugees rises annually, the summaries of research on refugee health needs in countries of asylum remain sparse. We conducted a systematic review of published research on refugee health in Canada in order to: (i) identify studies addressing health outcomes among refugees recently resettled in Canada; (ii) identify general trends in health research conducted in Canada among refugee populations; (iii) identify significant gaps in current knowledge of health-related issues among refugees recently resettled in Canada; (iv) evaluate the quality and consistency of available information; (v) develop a summary of available research results; and (vi) identify priorities for future research. A search of several major citation indices resulted in the analysis of 196 research reports after reviewing more than 5,000 articles. This review is timely, systematic and inclusive; furthermore, potential biases in methodology are clearly assessed. The results indicate an immediate need to address specific gaps in health knowledge for refugee populations and lead us to draw five primary conclusions. First, mental health outcomes dominate the research landscape. Second, cross-sectional studies are most commonly the study design of choice. Third, studies examining some aspect of health among refugees from Asia dominate the literature. Fourth, there is a notable lack of information on cardiovascular diseases and its antecedents. Fifth, indications show that screenings for pre-existing conditions are biased towards communicable diseases. These findings have implications for health monitoring, evaluation and policy affecting the health of refugees resettled in Canada and elsewhere.

Conceptually, this paper relies on the asset accumulation framework and identifies its relevance to work on Argentine migrants to Spain and returnees. The asset accumulation framework represents an innovative approach to understanding the complexities of migratory flows in a transnational context. In order to comprehend and tackle migration, this framework pays particular attention to investment and savings in various domains, including the financial, social, human, civic and political fields. Responding to gaps in current studies, the objective of this paper is twofold. First, it expands the asset accumulation framework by differentiating between civic and political assets. Second, using data drawn from interviews conducted among Argentine migrants and returnees in the cities of Barcelona and Buenos Aires, this paper fleshes out the definition of civic assets. The findings indicate that, for interviewees, moving to Spain implied the accumulation of civic assets that enhanced the development of a more equitable and democratic society. Respondents incorporated new civic capabilities in several areas, including increased environmental awareness and tolerance for minority groups, as well as the acquisition of knowledge about equity and labour rights. In addition, results suggest that, as a result of the migratory experience, many interviewees went through reflective processes that made them question their old presumptions about both the receiving and sending societies.

The debate over immigration continues to be one of the most politically charged policy issues in the United States (US). Given the charged nature of this topic, it is vitally important to have reliable data on not only the number of US foreign nationals but also the characteristics of this extremely heterogeneous group – a population comprised not only of immigrants but also of refugees. There exist a small number of data sources for informing policy and practice at the national level. However, such data are often lacking for smaller geographical areas. This paper describes a recent effort to generate serviceable data on the immigrant and refugee population for a medium-sized metropolitan area in the US.

The objectives of this research were twofold. Our first goal was to provide local stakeholders with information to assist them with resettling and obtaining funding for immigrants and refugees. The second aim was to develop better techniques for tabulating diverse refugees and immigrants in a medium-sized community. By comparing and contrasting three data sources – that is, refugee services, public schools and a local health plan – we are able to generate estimates of the local refugee and immigrant population.

During the period from 2005 to 2007, we estimate the total number of immigrants and refugees in the community to be somewhere between 10,938 and 13,282. Although perhaps a bit on the high end due to methodological assumptions, these estimates seem plausible, based on previously cited figures for the region. While such estimates are valuable, a number of shortcomings related to the data prevent us from painting a more complete picture of these populations. We conclude this paper with a number of recommendations that will assist others in planning research designed to inform migration policy and practice in medium-sized metropolitan areas.

The proportion of immigrants from countries in the Middle East living in Sweden has increased since the 1970s, and it is a well-known fact that immigrants from the Middle East suffer from low earnings and high rates of unemployment on the Swedish labour market. There are often great hopes that self-employment will enable immigrants to improve their labour market situation. Further, in Sweden as in many other countries, the question of whether the existence of ethnic enclaves are good or bad for immigrants’ earnings and employment opportunities has also been widely debated. This paper presents a study of the extent to which Middle Eastern ethnic enclaves and networks in Sweden enhance or hinder immigrants’ self-employment. The results show that the presence of ethnic enclaves increases the propensity for self-employment. Thus, immigrants in ethnic enclaves provide their co-ethnics with goods and services that Swedish natives are not able to provide. The results also show that ethnic networks seem to be an obstacle to immigrant self-employment. One explanation is that an increase in network size implies increased competition for customers among self-employed immigrants. The question of whether ethnic enclaves are good or bad for the integration of immigrants into the labour market has been widely debated. The results of this paper provide us with information about the integration puzzle. Ethnic enclaves seem to enhance self-employment propensities among Middle Eastern immigrants in Sweden.

This paper explores how a liberal democratic state keeps migrant workers in temporary status by preventing their permanent settlement. Using Taiwan’s guestworker policy as an example, we argue that through expertise discourses and strategies of “governance at a distance” involving private sector, the Taiwan government has formulated policies and implemented measures that effectively kept guestworkers in temporary status. Analyzing Taiwan’s guestworker policy helps us to understand how the state and its collaborators work together to enhance the control capacity over migrants, while at the same time, enabling the state to keep its liberal pretense.

Contractual temporary international migration has become a major avenue for employment for Sri Lankans. To the extent that this migration is fuelled by demand for relatively low-skilled labour, expansion of this segment of the global labour market can be expected to benefit poor Sri Lankans disproportionately and provide them an unusually swift exit out of poverty. But is this really so? This study employs an innovative sampling design to draw a representative sample of migrant and non-migrant households in the western province of Sri Lanka. Using household survey data, the study examines key demographic correlates of migrants and their families, and computes various types of transactions costs associated with the migration process. Using the Propensity Score Matching method, it assesses the net impact of migration on several measures of household well-being. The study indicates that relatively poor households do in general gain from international contract based migration, but there are also several strong caveats. First, the upfront costs of securing an overseas employment contract and financing migration-related expenses is high, and poor households that are liquidity- or credit-constrained are less likely to take advantage of migration opportunities. Second, many poor households are also less likely have the needed social connections to facilitate effective job search. Consequently, public policy that corrects these market failures would be significantly pro-poor. On the effect of migration, the study finds the cumulative impact of migration and remittance to be significantly positive on key areas such as food consumption, health expenditures, and expenditure on basic non-food goods. Even so, there is substantial scope for integrating remittance transfer with banking services (both savings and loans), not only to reduce the cost of transfers but also to provide remittance recipients wider options to manage this important resource.

The potential role of transnational organisations in fostering effective governance goes unexplored despite the increasing positive role that these organisations are playing today. In Senegal, a whole range of non-state actors have always played a substantial socio-economic role, even before the rise of the post-colonial state. The Murid brotherhood can be regarded as part of this category of customary non-state actors. In the 1980s, young Murids started to organize themselves in what can be viewed as self-help community-based organisations whose functions included the provision of social safety nets to their adherents. By the late 1980s, the scope of these youth organisations, or dahiras, expanded beyond the national boundaries. Mention of these dahiras in the vast development literature has so far been confined to the socio-economic importance of the money they remit.

This paper offers to transcend this focus on financial remittances, to explore the potential political role of international dahiras in their home country. By playing the role of alternative providers of social services, dahiras have propelled themselves to a position of legitimate non-state actors with political clout. Today, some of them are starting to hold government to account for their actions. Their political power is not only derived from their affiliation with customary centres of authority, but it is also the resultant of their increased financial autonomy.

Because transnational dahira interventions in Senegal are mostly associated with the role of remittances, their relations with the state are analysed through the lens of revenue generation and other processes of state formation such as internal bargaining between the state and societal forces. The paper is an examination of the potential role of transnational dahiras in demands for responsive governance. Its analytical orientation is placed within the theoretical premises of the “drivers of change” approach, fiscal sociology of state making and governance.

Using a unique dataset (N=2,014), we examine the pre- and post-migration determinants of socio-cultural integration among first-generation immigrant groups in southern Europe: Moroccan and Senegalese migrants in Spain, and Egyptian and Ghanaian migrants in Italy. The results of the pooled and immigrant-group specific regression analyses partly highlight the dominance of pre-migration factors. Immigrants who were well-educated and well-informed prior to migrating and who migrate at a young age, achieve higher levels of socio-cultural integration. Going against some hypotheses found in the literature, female gender and North African origin have a positive effect on socio-cultural integration as opposed to male gender and sub-Saharan origin. With regard to post-migration factors, occupational status is the main economic determinant of socio-cultural integration. Interestingly, being employed as such has no significant effect on socio-cultural integration. This suggests that labour market segmentation and discrimination negatively impact upon socio-cultural integration. The results also suggest that policies allowing immigrants to benefit from the human capital they carry across borders and achieve upward socio-economic mobility are likely to enhance their socio-cultural integration.

This study analyses the migration pattern of the Tarok people to their contemporary homeland, Langtang, in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. The framework is that the Tarok people are part of the Benue-Congo ethno-linguistic phylum. This conclusion is based on the assertion that the contemporary language that the Tarok people speak is of the Benue-Congo phylum. However, others of the Chadic ethno-linguistic phyla such as the Ngas, Boghom, Tel (Montol) and Yiwom joined the Benue-Congo Phylum and are given the full status of Tarokness. Also, Jukun, which are of the Benue Congo group, joined the Tarok and are given the same status as that of the Chadic. The study concludes that what is called the Tarok people are actually a consortium of many ethno-linguistic groups that mongrelized and gave birth to the Tarok people. This is because even though the cognate of the Tarok language is of the Benue-Congo phylum, their morphemes are a combination of the Benue Congo and Chadic ethno linguistic phylum.

Development aid is commonly advocated as one of the most effective instruments to reduce international migration. Nevertheless, empirical evidence shows that push factors do not automatically result in massive migrations and that aid policies systematically fail to meet their stated objectives. Recently, several contributions have argued that an increase in sending countries’ wealth may lead to a rise in migration, rather than to a reduction, because it enables people to assume the costs and risks of migrating. However, despite the growing number of studies on this phenomenon, the role played by Official Development Assistance (ODA) has not received attention yet. This paper aims at providing empirical evidence on this specific issue. In particular, we investigate the relation between ODA and international migration rates of sub-Saharan countries. We argue that ODA may have a positive effect on migration decisions for two reasons. First, ODA improves workers’ ability to cover the costs of migration, by providing new job opportunities and in turn increasing incomes in the recipient country. Second, ODA, which is often associated with development programs in education, communication services, and business opportunities, may also stimulate mobility aspirations of potential migrants. We develop an econometric analysis in order to investigate this hypothesis. Specifically, we perform a three-stage least square estimation on a sample of 48 sub-Saharan countries. We build a two-equation model, so as to allow for endogeneity of ODA, and find that ODA has a positive and statistically significant effect on migration outflows. Thus, as our main contribution, we argue that development aids are not substitute for migration and that the traditional aid policies (such as those of the European Union), aimed at curbing migration by providing international financial aids, might need to be reconsidered.

The emergence of migrant businesses has been a part of the urban landscape in some metropolitan cities of relatively developed countries of East Asia and South-East Asia in recent decades. These businesses are owned and operated by migrant entrepreneurs who were mostly temporary migrant workers in their early phase of migration. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi migrant entrepreneurs in the Republic of Korea (referred to as South Korea throughout), this paper investigates how the migrants reposition themselves from the rank of workers to that of entrepreneurs under circumstances of temporary migration. We argue that opportunity structure and market conditions are central to understanding the development of entrepreneurship in Bangladeshi migrants. The study highlights the ingenuity of migrants in entrepreneurship. We suggest that Bangladeshi entrepreneurs will continue to maintain a dual orientation in cultivating both the ethnic and local markets, and even develop transnational operations to grow their businesses.

Close to 20 percent of the Swedish population are of immigrant origin; one in eight is foreign-born. About 45 percent of all immigrants originate from outside Europe and most of these have entered the country as refugees or relatives of refugees. Issues connected to immigration, including the number of immigrants, settlement patterns and level of social integration of ethnic minorities, have been much discussed in Sweden in recent decades.

This paper focuses on the integration of Latin American immigrants in Sweden. It compares the level of integration – measured as educational achievement, labour market participation, income and housing – experienced by first and second generation migrants. I use register information allowing me to include all 1^st and 2^nd generation Latin Americans that have lived in Sweden between 1990 and 2006 (in total 127,000 individuals). Data are longitudinal, which means that individuals can be followed over time. I make use of the longitudinal material in order to study changes in residential patterns and in attempts to explain educational and employment outcomes for second generation Latin Americans.

The general conclusion of the paper is that in terms of integration, LAC immigrants have an intermediate position compared to other immigrant categories; they are often better off than people from Africa and the Middle East but clearly below the level experienced by some other migrants, especially those from Western Europe. This cannot be explained by level of education. The average level of education is high for first generation immigrants from LA countries. For many people, the level of labour market participation and income increase over time but one important result of this analysis is that second generation Latin Americans seem to do less well in Sweden compared to many other second generation migrants.

This article is devoted to the exploration of Polish and Lithuanian migrants’ work experiences in the United Kingdom. It argues that it is hard to categorize these individuals as highly skilled or low-skilled because, in spite of their relatively high qualifications, they often occupy low-skilled positions in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the article suggests that these migrants are “middling transnationals” (Conradson and Latham, 2005a). Although they are classified as economic migrants, many of them have migrated to the United Kingdom not only in order to earn money but also to try life abroad, see the world, or learn English. Following Bourdieu’s terminology, the article suggests ways in which migrants use different cultural capital (skills, qualifications, social environment) to enhance their economic capital in the United Kingdom, but also ways in which these different forms of migrants’ capital are interrelated. The findings suggest that Eastern Europeans are highly mobile in the British labour market. Provided they possess necessary linguistic skills, migrants progress from “any job” to a “better job” in search of a “dream job”. The article emphasises that this transition in the British labour market became easier after Poles and Lithuanians became EU citizens, whereby they were granted the right to work and improved access to education services in the United Kingdom. The article also argues that viewing migrants’ work experiences in the context of their future plans helps to understand better why working below qualifications is acceptable to many East Europeans in the United Kingdom. This is either because it helps them maximise their income and return to their home country as soon as possible, or because a low-skilled position helps them to improve other skills (e.g., English) and serves as a stepping stone to better career opportunities in the future.

The Hmong, who began migration to the United States of America in the latter half of the 1970s, represent a largely unstudied segment of the Asian-American population. Traditional practices such as teenage marriage were widely reported in the early years after migration began, but have been left relatively unexamined more recently. Explicit focus on Hmong women has been largely absent in recent research. This paper examines the relationships between marriage patterns, education and earnings among Hmong women in the United States. Using results from a survey of 186 Hmong women, the results of this study indicate high rates of teenage marriage, as well as associations between early marriage, marital abuse, and both low earnings and lower levels of educational attainment among women married as teenagers compared to Hmong women who waited until adult age to marry. There were signs of encouragement, including higher than anticipated rates of educational attainment among the sample overall. Marital stressors such as spousal abuse remain prevalent, especially among Hmong women who married in their teenage years. Implications of this research are discussed for both practitioners and for future directions in research within the Hmong-American community.

Migration is experienced not only by individuals who migrate, but also by their family members that remain at home. While previous research on origin communities has focused primarily on the economic impacts of remittances, this study emphasizes the emotional repercussions of family member migration. I use the Mexican Family Life Survey, a nationally representative data set, to empirically assess the effects of migration on the emotional well-being of migrants’ family members in Mexican communities of origin. Results indicate that migration of close family members to the United States, especially spouses and children, significantly increases depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness reported by family members remaining in Mexico. Women, particularly mothers and wives, are more adversely affected by family member migration than men. On a practical level, findings from this study illustrate a need for support programmes in origin communities to help families cope with the migration of their family members. The results of the study also highlight the adverse and unintended consequences of border restriction policy that severely restrains migrants from visiting their families and origin communities. From a research perspective, the results indicate the importance of non-economic measures in analyses of migration. There are significant psychological and emotional repercussions of family member migration and these should not be downplayed or overlooked in migration research.

This article explores the migrant networks that develop between migrants, non-migrants and the larger Indian diaspora. Specifically, it examines the decision to migrate to Toronto, Canada and how this decision is shaped by, and in turn shapes the migrant network. Based on 35 interviews with migrants from Karnataka, South India, two main findings are presented. First, migrants are deliberately choosing settlement countries in which their families are not yet located, thereby becoming “migrant pioneers” in their country of settlement, which is an attempt to expand their migrant networks globally. Second, the narratives these migrants receive and subsequently impart to others are often inaccurate, which can lead to miscommunication flows among these migrant networks. These findings are considered in light of the large body of research on migrant networks and the ways they develop and transmit information. This paper argues that existing understanding of migrant networks is somewhat static. Findings indicate that these “migrant pioneers” may be engaging in global risk-diversification strategies for subsequent generations, but may themselves suffer from the more immediate consequences of misinformed networks.

This research focuses on the absorbing society, and examines a process by which immigrants entered and changed the cultural core of the absorbing society. It analyzes the development of an ethnic holiday, the traditional ethnic Mimouna holiday of North African immigrants in Israel, into a national holiday and into part of the dominant culture. The research concludes that this process evolved mainly as a result of the political activism of immigrants from North Africa and a weakening of the hegemony. It may also illuminate the sometimes crucial role of immigrants in moving the boundaries between the center and the periphery.

One of the main issues in migration research concerns the reasons migrants have for crossing borders. It is assumed in the research that migration is primarily economically driven. In recent studies, however, the importance of social and cultural reasons for migration has become apparent. In this context, the present contribution discusses the reasons for the migration of Europeans from Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Poland who moved to Germany (Berlin) between 1980 and 2002. In this case, it can be shown empirically that purely economic reasons play a lesser role in migration than is generally assumed, whereas social and cultural motives actually have a much greater influence. Primary data gathered in Berlin early in 2002 form the empirical foundation of the study. Multinomial logistic regressions are used to discuss the function of social-structural differences (e.g., nationality, age, gender, education, social origin) in the formation of individual reasons for migration.

The role of language and linguistic assimilation among Latinos has a direct impact on both education and occupation in terms of social mobility. The relationship can be examined with a generational context as language usage changes from first generation immigrants to third generation immigrants. The specific question being addressed herein is whether language or ethnicity had more impact on Latinos’ mobility in terms of educational achievement and occupational prestige. Results presented in this paper imply the importance and impact of the maximization of the accumulation of linguistic capital in order to accelerate the acquisition of educational attainment.

This article examines the claim that democratic states are justified in restricting access to asylum seekers on the grounds that failing to do so reduces public support for humanitarian refugee policies – referred to here as the humanitarian defence. Drawing on detailed historical, comparative and interpretive analysis of migration policy in Canada and Australia, the author builds on Matthew Gibney’s development of practically guided normative theory to assess cases in which political elites may legitimately enact restrictive policies in response to strong public opposition. Challenging the normative basis of the humanitarian defence, the article engages in a detailed discourse analysis of asylum crises in Canada (1987, 1999) and Australia (1979, 2001). The findings suggest that political elites do not respond to an independently arrived at, and objectively established, public opinion as implied in the humanitarian defence. Rather, political elites play a crucial role in shaping the discourse on asylum seekers and consequently, influence the very “public opinion” to which they claim to be responding. The author concludes that political elites should attempt to foster an environment in which the public accepts international obligations to refugees but accepts that in some cases political elites may be justified in implementing restrictive measures.

In this paper, an exploratory content analysis has been developed for a case study on the topic of immigration reported in the regional newspapers of the largest Spanish autonomous community, Castilla and Leon. This study based its research conceptualization on the framing theory in mass communication. In addition to usual issue frames and issue images, two framing devices were established for analytic variables -- the index of importance and the index of affective attribute. They formed a frame package capable of making latent frames evident by their linkage to manifest frames. Comparing to the general assumption of relevant-bad-news production, results obtained in this study proved that, on occasion, negative news stories could be reported as less relevant than the positive ones. The outcomes also show how concept mapping of frames was applicable to immigration issues and immigrants’ visual aspects of immigrant communities that were systematically articulated and disseminated by the press in this regional society of Spain.

Technology has impacted on all aspects of living across the globe by introducing a “virtual” dimension into “real” lives. As internet sociologist Sherry Turkle asserts, “we will (sic) have both. The more important question is ‘How can we get the best of both?’” (Turkle, 1997: 238).

For Indian women migrants in Melbourne, Australia, the technology at their fingertips includes the worldwide web that provides instant access to information and people. Also available are satellite dishes, cheap phone connections, and convenient travel routes that sustain contact with friends and relatives around the world. Undoubtedly, technology has introduced a contemporary update bringing together the “real” and the “virtual” in these women’s migration experiences.

This paper draws on my study of the migration experiences of three groups of married women migrants from India now living in Melbourne. These are the Sikhs, the Tamils, and the Anglo-Indians, who are Eurasians of primarily British and Indian ancestry born in India. Due to Australia’s immigration selection criteria, these women are typically middle-class, English-language educated, Western-oriented, and comfortable with technology. Focussing on their narratives and using survey data, I will show that they are well-positioned to take advantage of twenty-first century technology, and investigate how they do this.

In this paper and from my subject position as a member of the same cohort group, I will argue that making the best of their virtual connections is dependent on intervening issues of availability, ability and agency that affect users at both source and destination. Through technology, the “virtual” dimension can soothe or stir, cheer or challenge, affirm or agitate. Indeed it has transformed the contemporary migration experience, but only to the extent permitted by the intervening issues.

This article concerns the social process of mobility control in four West African countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Ghana. Migration has long been an important aspect of West African social, cultural, and political life. This study explores everyday enforcement of international and internal mobility control, and the ways in which Africans respond to and resist the actions of security agents. I accomplish this using ethnographic evidence gathered when travelling over 10,000 miles in Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire over a period of nine months. In addition, data were gathered through participant observation while crossing international borders 23 times in a sub-region of West Africa, and participating in 169 security control checkpoints in total. This evidence is supplemented by 29 interviews with transportation workers across the four countries studied. Augmenting the traditional social science literature on migrant networks with an approach proposed by development economists, this article shows that transportation workers play an essential role in mobility control in West Africa. The theoretical insights derived here contribute to a larger project of bringing borders and transportation into the same frame of reference as migration in academic study. This project sees movement through interaction, rather than simply through the systems approach so commonly applied in the literature and shows that in the countries under study there exist unstated, implicit social norms among transportation workers, their clients, and security agents, which constitute a key mechanism for migration. These actors operate in a series of structured relationships, which can be described as institutionalised, and which create a series of important exchanges governing movement in the sub- region.

This article provides an overview of the main demographic, social, and economic characteristics of Portuguese immigration in Switzerland. Firstly, it outlines the political and economic underpinnings of Portuguese migration flows to Switzerland. Then, it analyzes the demographic and sociological composition of these flows, the composition of the Portuguese population in Switzerland, as well as processes of economic and cultural integration. It is notably argued that the enduring Portuguese “ideology of return migration” has played a central role in the patterns of integration of Portuguese immigrants in Switzerland.

This work examines the influence of mass media on rural out-migration using historical and contemporary data from a setting experiencing massive social and economic development in the last half-century. Data come from the Chitwan Valley Family Study, an ongoing study of an agrarian region in rural Nepal. Media are hypothesized to affect migration by inducing attitudinal and behavioural changes similar to those of other determinants of migration. As their influence differs from other determinants in important ways, media represent a unique form of influence that should be taken into account. I find that movie and television exposure are significant determinants of out-migration in historical contexts, although television exposure was important in more contemporary contexts. Differences in these effects probably indicate the timing of the spread of each type of media and changing preferences among media consumers.

Migration movements to industrialized countries have grown in number and size, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants has raised concerns about their integration and assimilation into host societies. This article is an empirical study of assimilation of foreign nationals in Germany. Their experience may hold lessons for other relatively recent immigration destinations. As expected, language is one of the most critical factors for determining integration and assimilation at the workplace and in society. Our results indicate uneven success in these two areas, and suggest that greater language skills may be required for social assimilation, compared to economic assimilation. Among the most important findings of our study are the strong and statistically significant effects of the attitudes by Germans toward immigrants, the significant influence of the region of residence, and the ambivalence of German-born foreign residents toward naturalization and continued stay. This signals the failure of past integration and assimilation policies. The results show that negative attitudes by ethnic Germans against others at work or in society, in general, reduce interest in integration and assimilation. This is neither new nor surprising and this research does not contribute new theoretical insights, but it demonstrates the magnitude and significance of the effects. The question of why different locations seemed to have different impacts on citizenship aspirations is beyond the scope of this article. The data do not provide information to pursue this question and we suspect that the causes are too complex for a short answer. As expected, non-EU citizens showed greater interest in acquiring German citizenship than EU citizens. Finally, the results also indicate that the immediate post-World War II notion of “guest workers” was not completely false. There has been significant return migration and a significant number of respondents to the survey say that they intend to return.

Immigrants are routinely tied to a range of social problems in the policy making process in the US political system. Little is known however about the extent to which citizens hold attitudes that connect immigrants to particular social problems and whether these attitudes spill over to influence citizens’ preferences toward specific public policy alternatives that might appear to be largely independent of immigrants and immigration. Investigating the nexus between immigration and crime, we ask how Anglo whites’ contextual environments influence their propensity to link immigrants to a salient social pathology like crime. Results show that whites living in states where immigrant populations have increased most dramatically and in states with lower socioeconomic characteristics are more likely to associate immigration with increased criminal activity. Whites’ attitudes toward immigration-induced crime has important spillover implications to the larger public policy making process as whites who view immigrants as a cause of criminal activity are more likely to support tougher criminal sentencing and the death penalty.

This paper examines the determinants of remittance behavior relying on a dataset of migrants living in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States who remit to Ghana and Nigeria. Controlling for endogeneity of several independent variables, the model measures the effects on the amount sent of the following variables: Home Country (Ghana or Nigeria), Host Country (United States, United Kingdom or Germany), Remittance Fees, Relationship to the Receiver, Purpose of Remittance, Financial Obligations in the Host Country, and Demographics. The results indicate that remittances are primarily influenced by the purpose of the remittance and from where the remittance is sent. It appears that different generations chose to migrate to different countries, creating differences in income, education and age. These differences along with financial obligations in the host country contribute to higher remittance levels. In regards to the development affects, the results of this paper hint that altruistic reasons for remitting may be associated with higher levels of remittances, while more self-interested reasons for remitting are associated with lower levels of remittances. These results indicate that it may be difficult to design policies to encourage the use of remittances for development purposes, as remittances are primarily used for basic needs.

In this paper we examine the formation of diverse social ties among international migrants to Vancouver, Canada. We look specifically at the influence of involvement in Neighbourhood Houses -- a type of voluntary association -- on facilitating diverse tie formations. Past research has found that membership in different types of associations can lead to more or less network diversity. We build on this research by considering how different types of involvement can lead to either increases or decreases in cross-ethnic or non-immigrant ties among new immigrants. We find that targeted, instrumental types of involvement in Neighbourhood Houses can lead to more diverse immigrant social ties and that general, expressive types of involvement can lead to more homogeneous social ties.

This article contributes to the study of policies for the integration of immigrants into the labour markets of European immigration countries by focusing on the specific issue of vocational training for immigrant workers in Italy. Vocational training has a central role in the European employment strategy. Moreover, with regard to migrants, it is also relevant to the topical issue of the governance of international labour migration.

The article analyses both the demand and the supply of vocational training in north-east Italy, generally regarded as the rich and industrialised heart of the country. It draws on 30 interviews conducted with key informants and experts from local and regional governmental bodies, trade unions, employment offices, and private educational agencies in the main towns of the Veneto region.

Various types of vocational training for immigrant workers are considered, from traditional full-time courses financed by the European Social Fund to new projects for the selection and pre-training of immigrants in their countries of origin. The extent to which these policy tools are able to meet the actual needs of immigrant workers and of the local business sector is investigated, as well as their problematic interaction with the national regulatory framework for immigration control.

This paper analyses the routes that Bangladeshi migrant workers take to get to Malaysia. This paper also tests the basic tenets and the applicability of networks theory with the empirical reality on the routes. In order to test it, the route negotiated by Bangladeshi migrant workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia is considered. Network theory proposes that migration, in terms of reduction of costs and mitigation of risks, is facilitated by networks.

Data demonstrate that majority of the respondents had incurred exorbitant costs on their migration. To get to their destination, half of the respondents took around a month, a quarter of them took between one and two months, while a person traveling in a normal way could make the same air journey safely in three hours. En route they suffered many other severe adversities: such as starvation, maltreatment, and were forced to pass through deep jungles. Thus, this study directly challenges the theory by illustrating that despite their access to networks, their migration was marked by a lengthy, painful, and hazardous journey.

Despite their impressive patterns of economic mobility and generally successful adaptation into Western host societies, Israeli emigrants frequently view their stay abroad through the perspective of Zionism. As such, they express ambivalence about their presence on foreign soil. They seldom describe themselves as host country nationals, commonly socialize with other Israelis, frequently describe their intentions to return home, and often do so.

However, recent events may challenge this outlook. During the 1990s, Israel’s significant demographic and economic growth, relatively peaceful relations with neighbouring countries and increasingly globalized economy had the effect of lessening the stigma on going abroad. Then, since the fall of 2000, Israel has been rocked by the Al Aksa Intifada, as well as a major recession. These events have made life more difficult for Israelis. Accordingly, conditions of the last several years can be seen as altering Israelis’ motives for emigration and simultaneously shifting the probability of return among those already overseas.

While a topic of interest in its own right, the experience of Israeli emigrants since late 2000 also offers a natural experiment for evaluating how theories about migrant transnationalism consider the consequences of specific events upon relations with citizens abroad.

This paper relies on in-depth interviews and other data sources to explore Israeli emigrants’ views about remaining in host societies versus returning to Israel since late 2000. In so doing, it considers how emigrants evaluate potential benefits, costs and feelings of identification associated with residence overseas versus Israel. The paper also seeks more general insights into how relations between migrants and the country of origin are altered when events affect political and economic conditions in the country of origin.

This paper examines the recent challenges of cultural diversity in the Republic of Korea and predicts possible developments in the future. I explain the current stage of development in the Korean society towards multiculturalism through a three-stage framework: tolerance, legalization of non-discrimination, and multiculturalism. Each stage of development will be analysed through several sub measures. To better understand Korea’s unique situation, I also contrast two different perspectives, namely, state top-down and society bottom-up explanations. I will counter the claim of the state-initiated instrumental multiculturalism thesis that assumes a proactive Korean government’s initiative to control immigration and adopt multicultural policy as a strategy to compensate for a labour shortage. This paper will instead argue from the liberal democracy thesis. Democratization in Korea has confirmed the relevance of liberal democracy thesis, which presupposes two conditions: the increasing demand for cultural rights by minorities and liberal constitutional government’s inevitable acceptance of such demands. Unlike the claim of state-initiated instrumental multiculturalism, strong voices of NGOs in civil society since the mid-1990s have influenced the development of a multiculturalism friendly atmosphere. The Korean government has also been under the pressure of political correctness toward the inevitable acceptance of cultural diversity with the deepening of democratic consolidation as well as globalization.

The number of Japanese-Brazilians working in Japan grew from less than 15,000 in 1989 to more than 300,000 in 2006. This rapid growth in migration was initiated by a law change in Japan allowing third-generation Japanese-Brazilians to work in Japan, the “push” of poor economic conditions in Brazil, and the “pull” of a booming economy in Japan. Cultural links between Japan and the Japanese-Brazilians, together with the development of highly efficient organized labour recruitment networks, have acted to foster this, leading to the creation of what some experts believe to be a self-sustaining migration system. We use a new representative survey of Japanese-Brazilians to examine the sustainability of this migration flow. We find both the economic and cultural reasons for emigration to be weakening. Japanese-Brazilians now occupy the upper tiers of the income and occupational distributions in Brazil, and the majority of the third-generation are not participating in many aspects of the Japanese community in Brazil. Moreover, demographic analysis shows that over the next 20 years, the share of migration-age Japanese-Brazilians who are fourth-generation will rise considerably, with such individuals not eligible to migrate under current Japanese immigration law. As a consequence, we predict the rapid growth in the Japanese-Brazilian population in Japan will soon turn to a gradual decline in migrant numbers, and in the long term, erode the stability of this new migration system.

In the wake of immigration to Western welfare states, certain aspects, such as the financial cost of providing social welfare, have become a subject of debate. The net amount of costs and tax payments, sometimes referred to as net transfers, has been used as a measure for evaluating the sustainability of welfare state systems. The present study analyses determinants of the volume of net transfers in Germany in 2002 with reference to immigrants from Poland, Turkey, former Yugoslavia, Lebanon and Iran. The study focuses on the differences and similarities between their outcomes. In line with previous research, the results below suggest that employment situation and family composition explain a large part of the differences in net transfers. One outcome that has not previously been adequately addressed, however, is that the legal immigration status granted on arrival in Germany is of considerable importance.

The vast majority of migrant workers in Thailand are employed predominantly in low-paying occupations commonly described as “3-D jobs” (dangerous, dirty, and difficult). Currently, there are nearly two million documented and undocumented migrant workers, mostly from neighbouring Burma, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Cambodia, employed in various industries, including domestic service, throughout the country. While over half a million migrants are officially registered to work in the country, both documented and undocumented migrant workers remain unprotected primarily due to the lack of concrete measures to monitor, implement and enforce laws regarding working and living conditions. Regardless of where they are employed, migrant workers face common problems: low wages; harmful working conditions, poor living conditions; discrimination and harassment, the threat of arrest and deportation; and lack of access to basic resources such as medical care and legal assistance. Based on preliminary research conducted in the summer of 2005, this article looks at the situation of migrant factory and domestic workers in Thailand and explores the ways in which local activists, NGOs, community-based organisations, and international bodies have been looking to assist and protect migrant workers. Successful migrant workers’ struggles and ongoing efforts of mobilization have been made possible with the help of these support groups, and raise the possibility that union and NGO activity have the potential to improve the situation of migrants in Thailand. This also raises the question of whether advocacy groups should be acting in lieu of the state rather than alongside the state, especially when it appears that they are fulfilling their civic duty as enforcer and monitor of migrant workers’ problems.

Despite the growing number of Japanese speaking immigrants in the United States and the pronounced linguistic dissimilarity between Japanese and English, few studies have examined English proficiency levels or Japanese language maintenance. We use 2000 data from the 5 per cent IPUMS file to examine English proficiency and language maintenance among first-, second-, and third-or higher- generation Japanese immigrant youth in the United States. Before presenting multivariate results for our dependent variables, descriptive statistics are presented detailing numerous significant differences within and across generations. Furthermore, the second-generation is divided into subgroups based on each parent’s birthplace. This study also contrasts the results of Japanese-Americans with those of Korean-Americans, speakers of another language very distinct from English, in an attempt to ground the significance of our findings. Findings provide support for many of the hypotheses advanced. They also reveal that our regression models generally did a much better job explaining English acquisition among Japanese-Americans than Korean-Americans.

The Alien Transfer Exit Programme (ATEP) is a US deportation strategy created in 2008 whereby migrants are returned to border regions of Mexico distant from their initial place of apprehension. The goal of this strategy is to geographically separate migrants from their coyotes [paid crossing guide], who are often waiting for them in Mexico, in an attempt to discourage people from attempting additional border crossings. The official government stance concerning this programme is that it is both effective at deterring migration and that it protects migrants from abusive coyotes who often “force” them to cross the harsh Sonoran desert. The effectiveness of this new policy or its impact on the experiences of migrants has yet to be examined. Using a combination of ethnography and archaeology, I describe ATEP and its impacts on the social process of border crossing with an emphasis on the experiences of migrants who have been deported from California to the Mexican border town of Nogales. I argue that recent formalized deportation strategies such as ATEP build on previous lateral relocation programmes that have long been ineffective at slowing migration. In addition, ATEP contributes to sustaining previous migration control policies of exclusion (based on age, gender, and health) that now produce new dangers for both those included and excluded from this programme. ATEP should be viewed as an enforcement strategy aimed at systematically placing migrants in harm's way by relocating them geographically and by undermining the resources (i.e., human and social capital) that people have come to rely on for successful (and safer) border crossings. These findings contribute to the growing literature on the anthropology of deportation and the critical phenomenology of illegality.

Columbus, Ohio has witnessed rapid growth in its Latino population as immigrants settle in the city to access jobs and a generally low cost of living. Immigrants also face discrimination as they settle in Columbus and interact with the city's citizens. In this paper, we note how discrimination plays out in social and economic isolation; a lack of programmes to support the incorporation of Latinos in the city; and state laws that target immigrants. We present results of ongoing ethnographic work with the Latino community in Columbus.

Temporary migration programmes have re-emerged as a preferred mechanism for regulating labour migration in many migrant-receiving countries in the past decade. In this paper, I consider the role of shifting Canadian immigration policies, notably the expanded streams for temporary workers, in the changing flow of migrants from Trinidad to Canada. Temporary programmes can bring workers to Canada relatively quickly, but they limit access to permanent residency and citizenship, in sharp contrast to most of Canada's earlier immigration policies. Ethnographic fieldwork reveals that Trinidadians actively seeking to make the move to Canada have little interest in new temporary work programmes. Rather, they continue to plan futures in Canada that they expect to be years in the making. I consider some reasons for this apparent refusal to submit to the new migration realities. I show that present-day Trinidadian emigrant desires and practices are deeply connected to individual, familial and national emigration and immigration histories. Trinidadians are declining to participate in new immigration regimes and are restricting their migration practices to those forms that are historically familiar and have been proven successful. I attempt to show how ethnographic approaches that take seriously migrants' agency can assist in developing a fuller understanding of the ways in which migration flows are changing. These approaches reveal what are otherwise the silences and invisibility surrounding those whose previous access to permanent migration streams has been diminished through neoliberal restructuring of migration policy. I argue that temporary worker policies disregard long-standing histories of migration and engagement with capitalist processes for people in particular regions of the world, rendering them, for policy purposes, effectively “people without history” (Wolf, 1982).

In this study, I use ethnographic, survey and Icelandic government data to examine the nexus of recent migration policy changes in Iceland and the increased use of marriage as a migration strategy. In the early 1980s, Thai women began coming to Iceland to either marry Icelandic men or “try out” a potential relationship with an Icelander before marriage. During that time, Iceland approved work permits for foreigners regardless of country of origin, allowing many Thais to immigrate independent of marriage. By 2006, however, Iceland's membership in the European Economic Area was making it almost impossible for Thais and other non-European migrants to secure a work permit. There has been an increase in marriage-based migrations among non-European migrants to Iceland compared to all other types of legal migration since 2006. Iceland's policy changes may have stemmed the flow of non-European labourers, but may also have opened the door to increased fraudulent marriages and abuse of foreign women by Icelandic husbands. These policy changes have only occurred in the past 5–7 years, and it remains for future research to investigate adjustments made by both Icelanders and Thais in response to the newest laws.

We present findings from an anthropological field study on the role of language and language policy in migration from Poland to Norway, and the larger implications for emerging language and immigration policy in Europe. Initial fieldwork in Norway found that Polish workers without knowledge of the Norwegian language struggled to secure employment in the formal economy. The 2008 financial crisis intensified competition in the labour market and underscored fluency in Norwegian as a means of discriminating among workers. Comparative case studies of language schools revealed that these organizations are active participants in channeling Polish migrants' movements into a segmented labour market, often in ways that involve cooperation between private companies and the State. We frame the Norwegian case within the larger context of Europe and the trend there toward favoring integration over multiculturalism. The emergence of restrictive language policies in Europe may be interpreted as a legally and culturally acceptable means for discouraging access to rights associated with permanent residency or citizenship by work migrants from CEE countries, while at the same time permitting them access to the labour market for temporary work. The long-term consequences of such policies for European society are uncertain.

In reviewing the articles in this special issue on the migration/policy/anthropology nexus, my comments will be in three parts: first, presenting a rough framework by which we might look at public policy in a way that bridges the academic and the practical; second, considering the actual cases presented in this special issue; and third, considering more broadly what the anthropological contribution might be to this complex and often acrimonious issue of migration policy. Throughout, the attempt is to search for a way of looking at migration policy that balances the inevitable academic critiques of public policy with a recognition of what public policy can and inevitably must be as a tool of societal discussion, planning, and progress.

Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004 brought many new possibilities and opportunities for Polish migrants to the United Kingdom. However, the focus on individual migrants has underestimated the complex roles of families in migration strategies and decision making. This paper brings together data from two studies of Polish migrants in London. In 2006–2007, we carried out a qualitative study, Recent Polish Migrants in London. That research examined how families may be reconfigured in different ways through migration, for example, transnational networks and splits within families. While the study participants represented varied examples of family reunification, they also revealed the complex decision making processes about leaving, staying, rejoining and returning. In our most recent study, Polish Children in London Primary Schools, we interviewed parents, who had migrated with children, about their experiences and expectations of London schools. This study revealed that the age of children was usually a factor in family migration decision making. There was a common expectation that younger children could easily adapt to a new school and learn English quickly. Drawing on the findings of these two studies, this paper will explore firstly, the variety of family migration strategies and secondly, the factors that inform migrants’ decisions to bring their families (especially children) or to leave them back home. Finally, the paper concludes by considering some of the policy implications of our findings.

This article discusses the behavioural and institutional mechanisms that guide the matchmaking process of arranged marriages¹ amongst Muslim migrants in Germany and clarifies how this practice may influence ethnic homogamy. The focus is on general characteristics of arranged marriages rather than differences between diverse ethnic groups. The methodology is qualitative due to the sensitive and complex topic and the current state of research. Typically, the whole family is deeply involved in the process of arrangement, which consists of three stages (pre-engagement, engagement, marriage). Thereby, the extension of parental scope of action by means of institutionalized admission procedures turns out to be vitally important. In consideration of the fact that mate selection takes place at the pre-engagement stage, it is the most crucial. Furthermore, differences to other partner-choosing processes are at their most distinct at this point, being responsible for the identification and labelling of this model as an arranged marriage. Selection criteria are mainly determined by the reputation of the marriage candidate and her/his family along with cultural features (such as belonging to a particular religious group, ethnicity or nationality). In our study, preferences for a cultural homogenous match were the most dominant ones. This inclination may cause the tendency towards transnational marriages when there are no suitable marriage candidates to be found in Germany.

In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of fertility differentials between female migrants and the native-born by examining the transition to first child using event history analysis. We use event history as a quantitative translation of the life-course approach. The data examined are the Italian Families and Social Subjects (FSS) survey, conducted in 2003, and the Russian Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society survey, conducted in 2004. We examine the data sets separately and contrast the results. The objective of the study is twofold. First, we seek to determine whether differences exist in the decision and timing of childbearing between native and immigrant women in Italy and in Russia. Second, we aim to compare the experiences of immigrants in the two countries, to determine whether there may be any commonalities inherent to the immigrant populations despite moving into widely different contexts. Our results suggest that the age profiles and marital status similarly affect the immigrant regardless of whether she is migrating to Russia or to Italy. In Italy, educational attainment is positively correlated with first-birth intensities for immigrants – the opposite of what is observed for the native-born. In Russia, education is not a significant determinant for immigrants. This leads us to the following conclusion: the similarity in the risk profiles of our immigrants into vastly different country contexts is more suggestive of immigrants following a distinct life course, with common risk profiles for bearing their first child, than assimilating or conforming to the native fertility patterns. Social capital in particular may play a different role in determining fertility patterns for immigrants, as it does for the native-born.

The paper attempts to explore the adaptation-related challenges that Bangladeshi migrant workers in Hong Kong face and the strategies they adopt to triumph over them. Data were collected through administering both closed and open-ended questionnaires to 56 migrant workers in Hong Kong during 2005–2006. The study revealed that most of the respondents stayed in Hong Kong legally but worked illegally because of the fact that although they could extend their stay permits, they were not grated work permits. This exclusive circumstance places them in a number of difficult situations. In attempting to adapt to Hong Kong society, they embrace a number of interesting and unique strategies to surmount challenges.

Collective remittances, in the framework of migrant transnationalism, have been recently dealt with in some empirical research, especially on the Mexican-US migration system. Far less studied is their significance in different migration flows, including their real contribution – as desirable as this may be – to local development. The article is concerned with a bottom up analysis of a migration flow where collective remittances – as the only way for emigrants to keep helping their local communities, well beyond their own families – are still in their infancy. It explores, through a translocal ethnography of Ecuadorian migration to Italy, the underlying attitudes, personal meanings and expectations – as well as the structural opportunities and constraints – accounting for helping practices at a distance. Charitable transfers to communities of origin are reconstructed as to their motivations, their main aims and beneficiaries, their embeddedness in mutual networks among immigrant co-nationals. How is it that some of them decide to help “people in need” in their own communities overseas, or in their home towns, or in both? Is this an expression of communal belonging, or a matter of social status maintenance, or something else?

Further reflections on the dilemmas inherent in transnational helping practices are then developed. Concluding remarks emphasize the relatively poor scope for such initiatives, in a recent and first-generation flow over a long distance. While co-ethnic solidarity overseas is a precondition for transnational helping practices, the latter are also affected by the developments of public policies in the countries of origin and of destination. Overall, an effective integration overseas is necessary for collective remittances to have some currency and impact.