Migration I

1
Migration - I

• Why study migration?
• Types of migrationduration and destination
• Explanations of migration
• Push and Pull factors (Lee)
• Migration as an individual decision
  (Harris-Todaro)
• Migration as a household decision (Stark)
• Readings Parnwell Chant Radcliffe

2
Why Migration?

• Common feature of developing countries
• coping strategy
• improvement strategy
• Urbanisation problems
• pressure on urban infrastructure housing,
  health, education, transport
• competition for jobs drives wages down
• Migration and Immigration policy
• within countryChina, Vietnam
• between countries developed country policy

3
Types of Migration

• Duration
• seasonal agriculture, tourism
• oscillating repeated, short-term movements to
  several destinations
• relay household members move in sequence
• circular/return long-term movement but return to
  home
• Destination
• rural to urban rapid urbanisation in LA and EA,
  latterly in SSA
• rural to rural commercial agriculture mines
  land resettlement
• between countries developed and developing

4
International Destinations

• Predominance of 1 or 2 origin countries
• geographically close
• NZ to OZ Mex to US Russia to Finland Cambodia
  to Thailand Lesotho to SA
• refugees
• Somalia to Denmark Iraq, Chile to Sweden
• Persistence of traditional flows
• Ireland, India to UK French colonies to France
• Emerging flows
• China, Haiti to France China to USA, Canada, OZ

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Push and Pull factors (Lee)

• Push factors
• economic high population density, low wages,
  un/underemployment land inequality policies
  biased against rural areas
• environmental natural resource degradation,
  natural disasters
• social/political ethnic conflict/civil war
  displacement marriage
• Pull factors
• economic higher wages and employment, asset
  (human and physical) acquisition
• environmental bright lights infrastructure
• social/political safety/security, networks,
  marriage

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Push and Pull
O -
O -
Origin
Intervening Obstacles natural reluctance risk cos
t of travel cultural/language govt restrictions
Destination
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Migration as an Individual Decision H-T

• The expected income hypothesis
• individuals migrate if the expected wage in the
  destination minus costs of migration is greater
  than the actual wage in the origin
• expected wage in destination depends on actual
  wages and probability of finding a job neither
  may be known with certainty
• costs of migration may be travel costs, visas etc
  or psychic costs

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Migration as an Individual Decision H-T

• Problem 1 empirically we observe that migration
  continues even though expected wage in
  destination is greater than actual wage in origin
  
• is wage in the destination known?
• young migrants have long time horizons
• Problem 2 individuals are part of households /
  families
• decision to migrate may be a household decision

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Migration as a Household Decision -Stark

• Migration is a solution to fluctuations in
  incomes and imperfect credit markets.
• Poor (esp. rural) households are characterised by
  lack of access to credit markets (loans,
  insurance).
• Hence very vulnerable to shocks because they
  are unable to diversify activities and spread
  risk across a portfolio of different
  activities.
• Migration is a way of spreading household risk
  across rural activities (farming) and urban
  activities (wage employment)
• migrant is supported by family when newly arrived
  in destination, then remits part of wage back to
  origin
• remittances from migrant can be used to smooth
  consumption, to invest in farm activities or to
  invest in human capital of younger children.

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Migration II

• Effects of migration on destination and origin
• wages, income and employment
• remittances
• inequality
• technological change
• population
• availability of amenities
• Readings Lipton Parnwell, Todaro OECD

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1. Wages, employment and incomes

• Rural Areas
• increased demand for rural output by urban areas
  rise in rural output price, in wages and incomes
  rise in demand for labour
• But rural productivity may fall if migrants are
  young, able-bodied and educated Net effect
  depends on ability of rural area to adapt and
  change traditional divisions of labour tech
  change
• Urban areas
• Excess labour supply in urban areas
  unemployment, low wages
• But
• migrants may be highly educated, more productive,
  create demand for labour
• alleviates labour shortages at all parts of the
  skills spectrum
• in service sector - hotels, catering etc in
  professions such as teaching and nursing in high
  tech sector -computing, bio-tech

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2. Remittances

• 80 million people in China classified as migrants
  (rural to urban), most since 1985.
• Many migrants send money home
• China 85 of migrants remit amounts up to 1/3 of
  earnings
• Peru receipts from migrant members form 45 of
  total household income
• South Africa many black households in rural
  areas are almost completely dependent on migrants
  remittances
• Motivation
• altruism support poor parents/younger siblings
• exchange remittances are to pay for services
  provided by parent household (childcare,
  education, bequests and inheritance, coinsurance,
  social standing)

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3. Inequality
Rural Urban
Pre-industrialisation Low incomes but low
inequality
Early industrialisation Rising incomes and
rising inequality
Migration
Late industrialisation Rising incomes and
falling inequality
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4. Technological Change

• Migration and urbanisation may encourage
  technological innovation in order to increase
  output
• Technological change facilitated by remittances
• Return migrants bring new ideas
• But rural non-migrants may have less info on
  (appropriate) technology brain drain from
  rural areas and from developing countries to
  developed countries (esp. given immigration
  policies).
• Remittances may be infrequent and/or small or
  spent on consumption rather than invested

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5. Population effects

• Effects on origin lower fertility levels, lower
  education
• migrants tend to be young and male
• change in cultural values of migrants
• rural populations become increasingly elderly,
  with hollow households of grandparents and
  grandchildren
• rural populations have unequal sex ratios
• difficult to find a marriage partner
• partners absent for long time

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5. Population effects

• Effects on destination
• much international migration is now by families
  accompanying family members or family reunion
• migrants are younger than destination population
  and have higher fertility rates, although
  fertility rates soon converge
• moderates the effects of ageing in western
  societies
• immigration used in past to populate remote areas
  and colonies (USA, Australia, Latin America)
• current immigration policies in Australia, Canada
  and New Zealand favour young migrants

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6. Availability of Amenities

• Out migration eases pressure on rural amenities
  BUT may lead to reduced investment in new
  facilities, maintenance and service levels
• Migration to urban areas increases demand for
  amenities housing, health, education, transport,
  water, electricity and raises land and housing
  rents and values BUT often economics of scale in
  provision of public amenities