Introduction in Migration Studies

Transcription

1 Introduction in Migration Studies Pânzaru Ciprian West University of Timisoara Department of Sociology Tel: Fax:

2 DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT. The contents of this document may be freely used for private study or teaching purpose. The data contained in this document are freely available. However, its contents cannot be copied and published printed or electronic without consent. Permission to use any material in any form of publication, such as an article, a book, a research report or a conference presentation must be requested prior to use. If you have accessed this document through a third party (e.g. content farm), keep in mind that this party is not authorized to redistribute this content. Please refer to the original source ( instead of the third party. Information cited from this document should be referred as: Panzaru C. (2013). Introduction in Migration Studies. The West University of Timisoara, Department of Sociology.

3 Introduction There are a lot of studies about migration which deal with the relation between migration and age, the relation between migration and sex, the relation between migration and race, the relation between migration and education, the relation between migration and distance etc. There are, also, a many studies about the migrant s characteristics and there are only a few studies about the reasons of migration.

4 Introduction The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1795), in Eternal Peace, argued that all world citizens should have a right to free movement, a right which he grounded in humankind's common ownership of the earth. Emile Durkheim, took into account the break-up of rural solidarity as a result of migration to the cities. Karl Marx considered the migration as a more violent process. Displacing the peasant from the soil for industrial purposes has been seen as a brutal practice. Marx argues: "great masses of men were suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled on to the labour market as free, unprotected and rightless proletarians".

5 Introduction Other sociological studies have focused on the differences between 'free' and 'unfree' labour connecting these concepts with migration phenomenon. Unfree labour named all work relations, in which people are employed against their will by the threat of detention or violence. Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery, and related institutions Many of these forms of work may be covered by the term forced labour. The deployment slaves from Africa to the 'New World', was a typical case of forced migration and unfree labor. An example of free labor is the model practiced by the Germany after the World War II. It is the policy known as gastarbeiter (guest worker). The aim of these programs was to replace the local labor force which was diminished after the war.

6 Introduction Another area of interest in contemporary sociology of migration is the role of women migrants in the global labour force and the specifics of gendered consequences of migration. In contrast to viewing the 'woman question' in the context of 'family migration', the rise of independent women's migration is both a reflection of increasing demand for female labour and the transformation of patriarchal relations.

7 Definition Migration represents the movement of people from one geographical area to another geographical area crossing the administrative boundaries. The starting place represents place of origin whilst the ending place represents place of destination. Migration has a few forms: permanent, temporary, voluntary or forced. It can be international ( migration between countries) or internal (migration within a country) or transnational (movement back and forth between national boundaries).

8 Internal and international Migration Internal Migration: Rural to Urban (Rural urban migration) Urban to Rural (Urban rural migration) Rural to Rural (Inter- rural migration) Urban to Urban (Inter urban migration) International Migration Developing country to Developed Developing to Developing country Developed to Developing country Developed to developed country

9 Directions in migration research Migration is one of the most important demographic component which determine the size, dynamic, distribution and composition of population. Migration, especially the international migration has become an important area of study. There has been much debate focused on the impacts of migration (positive or negative), labor force migration, migration and social security, migration and conflicts, migration and education and so on.

10 Dimensions of International migration ( ) Number of international migrants (millions) Percentage distribution of international migrants International migrants as percentage of the population Development group and major area World More developed regions Less developed regions Least developed countries Africa Asia Europe Latin America and the Caribbean Northern America Oceania

11 Dimensions of International migration In 2010, the number of migrants exceeded 200 million people, more exactly it reached 213,943.8 million (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Age and Sex of Migration). More than half, i.e. 86,232.3 million, came from less developed countries (ibid.). The largest number of international migrants lived in 2010 in Europe about 70 million. In Europe, migration started to increase in the 80s, a time when countries such as France, Germany and Britain became priority destinations (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2011); International Migration Report 2009: A Global Assessment). More recently, especially after the 90s, Italy and Spain have also started to become favourite destinations. The fall of the Iron Curtain allowed free movement of people from Eastern Europe to the West. Subsequently, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the war in Yugoslavia between 1990 and 1994 have generated new waves of migration.

12 Theories of migration Micro level Values, desires and expectancies Improving survival Wealth Satus Comfort Meso level The Social Networks Family and Household Ethnic, Religious and Organizational connections Solidarity Social interactions Macro level Macro level opportunities Income Unemployment Norms and laws in destination countries Political or religious freedom Technology development Demographic factors Labor Market conditions

13 Studies about migration Ravenstein gives one of the first explanations for migration in his work, Laws of Migration (1885). Migration flows are generated by the distance and the volume of the population from the destination area (William J. Reilly,1931) The causes of migration are social, economic and demographic (Everett S. Lee, 1966; Waldo Tobler, 1995) Migration changes the size, ethnicity and age structure of populations, alters the cultural, religious and linguistic composition of societies, and enriches or impoverishes society (Castles, 2000). Migration affects cultural and national individual identity both of migrants and their hosts (Triandafyllidou, 2001). A very extensive description of factors that influence international population movement has been made in the Worlds in Motion Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium (Massey, Douglas S., Joaquin Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kouaouci, Adela Pellegrino, and Edward J. Taylor, 1998)

14 The modern history of international migration Mercantile period of migration between 1500 and 1800 Altman (1995), Hefferman (1995), Lucassen (1995) or Tinker (1995) Industrial migration from the beginning of the XIX century (Hatton and Williamson, 1994; Ferenczi, 1929; Massey,1988) Period of limited migration - First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War (Daniel Massey, 1995) Post-industrial period of international migration (Abadan-Unat, 1995; Anwar, 1995; Hammar, 1995; Hoffman-Nowotny, 1995 and Ogden,1995) - European countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands became important destinations for the modern wave of economic and social migrants. Only significant levels of migration flow from Romania before 1990 were in the XIX century, when people emigrated from the Transylvania area (former province of Austro- Hungarian Empire until 1918) to North America. This sort of migration was part of the migration phenomenon which saw about 4.5 million people from the Austro-Hungarian Empire emigrate to North America (USA and Canada) between 1875 to In that period, about 250,000 people left for the new world (the total population of the province was about 4.8 million people) (Akos Egyed, 1970)

15 Sources of migration data Population censuses Population registers Sample surveys International migration statistics records Other sources