Migration, Incorporation, and Change in an Interconnected World

Syed Ali, Doug Hartmann

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317556756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

Written in engaging and approachable prose, Migration, Incorporation, and Change in an Interconnected World covers the bulk of material a student needs to get a good sense of the empirical and theoretical trends in the field of migration studies, while being short enough that professors can easily build their courses around it without hesitating to assign additional readings. Taking a unique approach, Ali and Hartmann focus on what they consider the important topics and the potential route the field is going to take, and incorporate a conceptual lens that makes this much more than a simple relaying of facts.

1
LEAVING HOME

As we saw in the introductory chapter, there are clearly identifiable patterns and paths of international migration. There are specific places that send off greater numbers of migrants, and specific places that are more likely to receive them. And the places they go to have shifted over time. Some countries that were net exporters of people have become net importers, and vice versa.

Here, we explore the main sociological explanations of why people emigrate, or leave their home countries: economic reasons, networks, and cultures of migration. We will also look at how migration affects migrants’ kinfolk and others back home through remittances, money, and ideas that migrants send home. Remittances shape future migration patterns, and thus are theoretically very important. We further examine how migrants travel back and forth and sometimes split their time and mental energies between countries, a process called “transnationalism.”

Many of the most important theories of emigration answer why people go, but do not adequately show how people go. We try to answer the question “how do migrants get to where they are going?” by looking at under-examined mechanisms in migration such as the role of middlemen—agents and smugglers. This consideration of why and how people move not only sets the stage for the rest of the book, but it provides a lens onto the organization and complexity of the contemporary, global world.

Economic Arguments

The basic economic argument for why people migrate is twofold: Migrants make a rational decision to leave home because job prospects and pay are poor, and they choose to go to a place because job prospects and pay there are better. This is known as the “push-pull” model and is the basis for “neoclassical” economic arguments for why people migrate. In this view, the broad migratory trend will be from developing world countries to developed countries. The migration trend will be in this direction because there is a great demand for labor in the richer, developed countries, and the wages are greater there.¹ Essentially, the individual does a cost-benefit analysis. If the financial costs of migration are outweighed by the benefits of a higher salary, the person goes. The motives for migration then are economically rational and individualistic.²

This economic framework is sensible but, in itself, has not proven to be a good explanation for why people migrate. If it were true, we would expect a lot more people to migrate than actually do, especially from poorer countries, and we would expect the poorest to go. In reality, the bigger sending countries, like India, Mexico, and China, are not the poorest countries. And within the sending countries, it is not the poorest generally who migrate. Further, this line of argument ignores social aspects of migration. It assumes that decisions are made by the individual and are made for purely monetary reasons.

A revised version of the neoclassical approach is the “new economics of labor migration.” Here the emphasis is not on the individual making a rational economic decision to migrate, but rather it is the household that makes the decision.³ Migration of a family member is an opportunity for the family to enhance its income base through the remittances sent home by the migrant family member and is also a hedge against economic risks at home. Families can protect against risk by the migrant sending home economic remittances. This theoretical approach in fact puts forward the idea that remittances are a central motive for migration.

While this is a marked improvement over the more simplistic “push-pull” model, there are multiple problematic assumptions. One is that everyone within the household shares the same interests and there is little conflict or inequality within the family. Another assumption is the possibility that no matter how long the migrant is abroad, he or she will keep sending remittances, and send the same or more. It also assumes the would-be migrant goes where the family wants him or her to go, and stays if they want him or her to stay.

But people are funny sometimes and do what they want, even going against their family’s wishes, not going along with the family game plan. For instance, Salman, a civil engineer, was being pressured by his parents and siblings in the late 1990s to leave Hyderabad, India, to get a job in Saudi Arabia, where he could make much more money. His sister’s husband lived in Saudi Arabia and remitted substantial amounts and built a three-story addition to the joint family compound for his nuclear family. His brother lived in Iran for ten years and also sent substantial remittances, and when he came back, built himself a large, fancy house. Salman, his wife, and three children lived in one room off the kitchen. His parents and siblings insisted, pretty much demanded, that he must go, that it was his moral duty to migrate to support his family. But he didn’t want to go. His nonmigration was a source of family tension for many years.⁴

So while this added emphasis on the family and remittances is an improvement over the neoclassical model, it still leaves much unanswered about the process and dynamics of international migration, and still suffers from the assumption that the sole reason to leave is monetary.

Networks

In the early 2000s, Germany tried to recruit high-tech workers, specifically from India. They expected a flood of migrants. What they got instead was a trickle.⁵

Germany’s assumption was that if you gave the opportunity to professionals in a developing country like India to come to a developed country with much higher wages, they would jump on it because it is the economically rational thing to do. Basically, they were operating under the “push-pull” model. It is true that a great number of migrants move initially for economic reasons—whether due to trouble at home or better opportunities abroad. But this is only a partial explanation of why people move, since migrants often dismiss opportunities abroad, as was the case with Germany. Basically, there are non-economic factors also at play.

Another way to look at this case is to put yourself in the potential Indian migrant’s shoes and ask, “Why would I go to Germany?” Your answer would likely be, “It’s cold and I don’t speak German. In fact, I don’t know anything about Germany or anyone there.” Indeed, that is a good question and those are good points. For the most part, migrants are going to places that already have links with their country. These could be colonial (India was a British colony, so it shouldn’t be surprising that there are large numbers of Indians in the United Kingdom) or military (the United States has had a military presence in countries like Philippines and Vietnam, and this helped spur migration). There are of course economic links. Firms need workers, and one way to get them is to go to the source and recruit them directly. (We’ll have more to say on recruitment and agents later.) Another type of economic link is indirect and unintended. Many firms instead of bringing workers back take their workplaces to them, for instance with US firms setting up in China, Haiti, Mexico, etc. Many people thought this foreign investment would deter migration, but paradoxically, it may actually increase it.⁶

The dominant theoretical explanation today looking at why people migrate examines personal networks. The basic idea here is that once these links between places are made, as more people from certain groups—family, village, ethnic group—start migrating, the financial and psychological costs for each succeeding migrant within the network decrease. And as more migrants go, it becomes easier and easier, and the migration flow will become self-perpetuating. This is known as “chain migration” or “cumulative causation.”⁷

One of the more important aspects of this approach is the insistence that interpersonal ties drive international migration, and that these networks provide various kinds of aid—information, money, housing, and so on.

Maritsa Poros expands on network theory, while also criticizing it, by introducing more network possibilities beyond the standard “strong” personal network ties, which result in chain migration where family and friends encourage other family and friends to migrate.⁸ Her criticism of network theory is that it only looks at one kind of network—the interpersonal network. To that she adds “weak” ties through organizations and institutions, that is, relations with co-workers, employers, bureaucrats, or community leaders.⁹ They provide other sources of information and opportunities to migrate through intracompany transfers, study abroad programs, and direct potential migrants to particular destinations that are often different than those where people who migrate through interpersonal ties settle. Then there are composite ties made up of interpersonal and organizational ties. These ties differ from those above because the interpersonal and organizational aspects of these ties are inseparable, for instance with certain Indian family firms involved in the global diamond trade.

Poros’s approach to networks is quite interesting. She says we should see networks as variable—she uses the term “relational”—in strength, and we need to understand that individuals have multiple networks. Given that, we should try to understand why and how they vary, and when one rather than another network will be important for a migrant.

Studies of migrants generally look at them through geographical origins—Mexicans, Gujaratis, Dominicans, and so on—and assume that the strong interpersonal connections based on these places are the network, and are important for migration patterns. In fact, if you look at the titles of important empirical scholarly work on migrants, nearly all look at migrants from specific places, and they assume (to greater or lesser degrees) that ethnicity or nationality is a basis of solidarity, that, say for instance, Turks in the Netherlands will aid each other because they share nationality. Poros acknowledges that is often the case, but she then wonders about those who are not helped by “their people.” Why and on what basis are they excluded? Why do some get resources from co-ethnics while others do not? Not everyone is equally loved by their co-ethnics, and some people don’t want to be around their co-ethnics or to get help from them, as taking help can put you into financial or social debt, which can lead to more problems than it’s worth.

Poro’s suggests that we look at the number and quality of the network connections of migrants, and what actually happens between people in these networks. Some networks provide help and resources; others do not. We also have to get away from the assumption that just because people share the same nationality/religion/ethnicity that they will provide assistance to others who share those characteristics. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. It is important to see when and where they do or don’t. By looking at migrant networks as variable, and by looking at the broad types of networks (interpersonal, organizational, composite), we can see more clearly and with greater focus more exactly how migration happens.

Another major criticism of migrant network theory is that it concentrates too much on the supply side. That is, it puts too much emphasis on the actions of migrants themselves and the activities within their networks. It ignores the role that employers, the demand side, have in driving migration.¹⁰ If there were no employer demand, then a lot of migrants, perhaps the vast majority of migrants, would never bother going to those places, and the networks might shift location, or wither away.

This has immediate policy implications concerning migration generally, but undocumented migration specifically. Today in most countries concerned with undocumented migration, policing efforts center on finding, punishing, and deporting the migrants themselves. But if migration is largely demand-driven, then it might be more practical and more effective to focus on employers (who are fewer in number than undocumented migrants and often concentrated in certain types of jobs and industries). In the United States, for example, migrant employers are in very high numbers in restaurants, sweatshops, agriculture, meat-processing plants, and construction. If governments gave harsher financial penalties and jail time for employers, it’s possible they would not take the risk and would refuse employment to undocumented workers, and there would be less reason for these migrants to come. Currently under US federal law, an employer only faces relatively small fines for hiring undocumented workers, even if the employer is a repeat offender.¹¹

Culture of Migration and Remittances

In spite of the above criticisms, networks are a useful way to understand migration chains that have already occurred. But people don’t migrate just because they are connected to others who have migrated, which is essentially the story of migrant network theory, or because there are better jobs available, the basis of economic theories of migration. They have to learn that migration, which is often scary and lonely, is a good thing to do, and they have to have the desire to do it. Or at the least they have to overcome their fears or desires not to do it. Some scholars call this the “culture of migration.”¹² This culture of migration, once developed, has the effect of reinforcing and even expanding the migrant networks. We should point out that this is usually a local, not a national phenomenon. When we talk of emigration from Mexico or India, it is from specific areas like Oaxaca or Hyderabad where migrants d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Leaving Home
• Chapter 2 Cheap Meat for the Global Market
• Chapter 3 Globally Mobile Professionals
• Chapter 4 Assimilation of Second-Generation Immigrants
• Chapter 5 Maligned Migrants: Muslims in the United States and Western Europe
• Chapter 6 How Migration Impacts Societies
• Conclusion: Factors and Actors That Will Shape the Future
• Bibliography
• Index