Theories of Migration

Historical theories

Ernst Georg Ravenstein's model (1855)

New economics theory of migration

• Majority of migrants moves to short distance only (inverse relation between distance and volume)
• Migration is stage by stage
• Highly age-selective
• It mainly occuers due to econimic reasons
• Migration volume increases with the improvement of infrastructure and the process of diversification of the economy

Ernst Georg Ravenstein's model (1855) [Continue]

• The major direction is from agricultural areas to the centres of commerce
• Women are more mobile than men in the country of birth, but men more venture beyond
• Families are moving less likely than young adults

• Shifting the focus of migration research from individual independence to mutual interdependence
• Families or households > isolated individual actors
• Comprehensive set of factors which are shaped by conditions in the home country
• Income risk and to the failures of a variety of markets (labor market, credit market, or insurance market)

NEM has been criticized for

• sending-side bias
• its limited applicability due to difficulties in isolating the effects of market imperfections and risks from other income and employment variables
• overlooking dynamics within households
• and being too heavily future oriented

Migration

Push-Pull Model

Everett S. Lee (1960)

Multiple levels of analysis of migration:

• the origins of migration
• the directionality and continuity of migrant flows
• the utilization of immigrant labor
• the socio-cultural adaptation of migrants

• Every place have positive (pull) and negative (push) factors

The major message of the Oxford school is "the need to integrate migration studies more closely not only with the issues of development but also with broader questions of change, social transformation and economic integration."

Neoclassical theory of migration

These factors are associated with the place of origin and destination. Also the intervening obstacles and the personal factors belong to the list of Lee.

Some Examples:

Pull factors:

• Better living conditions
• Job oppurtunities
• Security
• A better medical care
• Education

SOURCES

Migration results from actual wage differentials across markets or countries that emerge from heterogeneous degrees of labor market tightness.

"Migration is stimulated primarily by rational economic considerations of relative benefits and costs, mostly financial but also psychological" (Todaro and Smith 2006, 342).

Push factors:

• War and political fear
• Poverty
• Poor medical care
• Pollution
• Discrimination
• Few oppurtunities
• Poor housing

• https://cream.conference-services.net/resources/952/2371/pdf/MECSC2011_0139_paper.pdf (Last login: June 29th, 2016)
• Todaro, Michael P. and Steven Smith. 2006: Economic Development. Boston: Addison Wesley.
• de Haas, Hein. 2007: “Turning the Tide? Why development will not stop migration,” Development and Change 38(5): 819-841.
• http://www.emigration.link/images/push-pull-04.png (Last login: June 29th, 2016)
• Lee, Everett S. 1972: Eine Theorie der Wanderung. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung: 117–129.
• http://cgge.aag.org/Migration1e/ConceptualFramework_Jan10/ConceptualFramework_Jan105.html (Last login: June 29th, 2016)
• Geis, Martin. 2005: Migration in Deutschland. Interregionale Motivationsmotivatoren. Wiesbaden: Deutsche-Universitätsverlag: 16-18

Migration is driven by:

• geographic differences in labor supply and demand
• the resulting differentials in wages between labor-rich versus capital-rich countries

“Migration is not just an (unwanted) by-product [of development], but an integral part of broader processes of social and economic change and should therefore be considered as an almost inevitable outgrowth of nations’ incorporation into the global economy”( Massey 2000a in de Haas, 2007).

wage differentials migration flows

an interplay of

individuals, motivations and contexts

human mobility global change

local dimensions of global change

Conceptual critiques of the neoclassical theory of migration

• mechanically reducing migration determinants
• ignoring market imperfections
• homogenizing migrants and migrant societies
• being ahistorical and static

Theories of Migration