Theories of Migration
Explaining Why and How People
Migrate
Week1-Class 2
April1, 2010
Goal is to understand and
predict:
• Who migrates and why
• How the decision is made
• What factors affect ( facilitate or hinder)
the decision and the process of
migration
Challenges
Migration is hard to measure, and
migration patterns are hard to predict
since it is caused and shaped by many
different factors and variables at the
individual level, family level, society
level, state level and international level.
1) Rational Actor Model
• Migrants are rational actors who try to
maximize their gains and minimize their
losses.
• Assumes:
Migration is an individual level decision
Migrants have access to perfect information
Migrants are able to weigh the costs and
benefits of migrating
Shortcomings of the model
• Migration is not an exclusively individual
level decision
• Family tries to minimize the risks while
the individual tries to maximize the
benefits
• Household collective decision making
model (Women as contributors to the
decision)
Shortcomings of the model
(cont’d)
• Criticism of rational choice model:
– Individuals never have access to perfect
information
– It is hard to weigh benefits and costs when
people do not have access to all necessary
information
2) Economic Models
Dual economy model (Wage / employment
differentials in traditional and industrialized
economies)
Neo-classical economic model (Push-pull model)
Push and Pull Factors:
• Pull factors (destination):
– More jobs
– Higher income potential
– Political freedom
– Education opportunities (human capital)
– Better living standards
Push Factors (sending country):
• Low Wages
• Less Employment Opportunities
• High Population
• Bad living standards
Laborer at work in
rural Mexico, earning
less than 80 cents an hour
Mexican migrant harvests
broccoli in California,
earning $6.75 an hour
“Push” vs. “Pull” Factors in Mexican Migration to
the U.S.
Question: “The last time you went to the U.S.,
would you
say that it was mainly to escape conditions in
Mexico, or
because of the opportunities that the U.S.
offers?”
Conditions in Mexico:
19%
Opportunities in U.S.: 81%
Reasons for migrating to U.S. in 2005
(among residents of two Mexican rural
communities)
Economic Necessity
30.4%
Returning to the Same Job in the United States 13.9%
Better Pay in the United States 13.9%
More Job Opportunities in the United States 9.6%
No Jobs Available in Mexico
Family Reunification
Other 15.7%
12.2%
4.3%
Key assumptions of neo-classical
model
 Potential migrants have perfect information
 Initial costs of migration aren’t prohibitively
high
 Potential migrants are independent
decision-makers
 International borders are relatively
permeable
Shortcomings of economic
models
• It is not the poor workers who migrate,
but those with some resources.
• Migration is costly
• Undermines role of state and institutions
• Assumes migration takes place in a
free, laissez-faire migration market and
in a unregulated environment
3) World Systems Theory
• Marxist explanation of migration
patterns
• Stress the unequal economic and
political development of the core
(capitalist) and periphery countries.
• Migration is seen as an exploitation by
the rich/core countries of the resources
(cheap labor) of the poor countries in
the periphery.
Critique of the model
• Fails to explain why restrictive policies
emerge in the “core” receiving countries
4) Political Models (Role of State
Policies)
• Immigration policies ie. liberal, nativist (restrictive)
– US migration restrictions for Chinese (1875-1882)
– US Quota Period (1921-1965)
• Immigrant policies (social, political and economic
rights)
• Direct labor recruitment through guest worker
programs (economic agreements between receiving
and sending countries)
Mexican
“bracero”
contract
workers
arrive in U.S.
by train, 1942
Portuguese “guestworkers” arrive in Hamburg,
Germany, 1965
5) Migrant social networks
(Sociological model)
a) Informal networks: family and friends available in the
destination country.
b) Formal networks: Commercial /professional recruitment
networks
c) Illegal networks: Smugglers
• They decrease the risk associated with
international migration
• Increase the chances of survival and success
in the destination/
Unauthorized Mexican immigrant family
reunited in California
REASONS FOR MIGRATING TO THE UNITED STATES, GIVEN BY
IMMIGRANTS INTERVIEWED IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY, 1996
More jobs available in U.S.
26.7%
Higher wages in U.S.
16.6
Economic crisis in home country
7.3
To improve economic situation,
4.0
accumulate savings
ECONOMIC REASONS
(56.7%)
Encouraged by U.S. employer
2.1
Relatives, friends already living in
15.5
U.S.
Was brought to U.S. by relative
5.7
FAMILY REASONS
(24.3%)
Better for children in U.S.
1.0
Other family circumstances
2.1
Political unrest in home country
6.5
Tourism, recreation
4.7
Better quality of life in U.S.
2.0
OTHER REASONS
(19.0%)
To continue education
1.3
All other reasons
5.2
Family ties determine choice of
migration destination
Question: [if planning to migrate to the U.S. :] “Where do you
think you will go, and why that place instead of some
other?“
Relatives who already live there:
42.7%
Already has a job arranged there:
15.3%
Likes it as a living environment:
15.3%
More job opportunities there:
Other reasons:
8.3%
18.4%
Source: UCSD survey of returned migrants and potential first-time
migrants, interviewed in two rural Mexican communities, January
2005
WHY IS IMMIGRATION SO
CONTROVERSIAL?
• What are the burdens and benefits
associated with international migration?
For Receiving countries:
•
•
•
•
Controlling borders (to keep the ‘undesirable
immigrants’ out)
-Ensuring economic and technical growth of the
society (in what ways are immigrants going to
contribute to the society?)
-Integrating immigrants admitted (structural and
cultural integration)
-Security and social stability (ie cultural clashes,
threats to dominant identity)
-Concerns over increased welfare costs, loss of
jobs and lower wages
Commonly used anti-immigration arguments
in the United States: Are they myth or reality?
Immigration is a drag on U.S. economic performance and
competitiveness (Assumption: immigrants are low
skilled)
 Immigrants enlarge the poverty population, straining
public health and education resources and causing higher
taxes.

Immigration reduces job opportunities for the least
skilled native-born residents, especially minorities
who must compete with low-skilled immigrants.
Ad running on Iowa
television stations,
December-January 2003-04,
sponsored by the Coalition
for the Future of the
American Worker, a
Washington DC-based antiimmigration advocacy
group.
 Immigration
degrades the
environment, causes
overpopulation,
overcrowding in big
cities.
Poster by anti-immigration group
NumbersUSA (Arlington, Va.)
 Immigrants raise crime rates; presence of
“illegals” breeds disrespect for our laws.
 Immigration is shifting the country’s
ethnic/racial balance to an unacceptable degree.
 Immigrants undermine cultural cohesion, dilute
the country’s “core culture,” contribute to
“Balkanization.”
“Lax immigration laws
caused the 9/11 attacks
on America.”
-- Federation for American
Immigration Reform (FAIR)
“Terrorist Alley:
The U.S.-Mexico
Border”
(website of U.S. House of
Representatives
Immigration Reform
Caucus)
More myth than reality:
• The perception that migrants are more of a
burden on host countries than a benefit is
NOT sustained by research
• In the UK, between 1999-2000, migrants
contributed $ 4 billion more in taxes than they
received in benefits.
• In the US, the National Research Council
estimated that national income had expanded
by $ 8 billion in 1997 because of immigration.
• There is rarely direct competition
between immigrants and local workers.
Migrants occupy jobs at all skill levels,
with particular concentration at the
higher and lower ends of the market,
often in work that nationals are either
unable or unwilling to take.
Pro-immigration arguments
 Immigration stimulates national economic growth, by
providing needed skills and an expanding labor supply.
--it replaces people who aren’t born and won’t enter the
labor force, due to low birth rates. ( = “replacement
migration”)
 Immigration helps consumers by dampening inflation,
by reducing labor costs
 Immigration provides new, young workers to pay for
Social Security and other benefits to retirees
For Sending Countries
• Brain-drain can deprive a sending country of
its educated and productive members
• Remittances sent by migrant to home country
can help the economic growth of the sending
country.
• Political advantages: Diaspora associations
can strengthen cooperation between
communities at home and abroad.