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Theories of migration: Best Lecture notes Presentation

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Demand-side theories What drives the demand for immigrant labor? • Last era of mass migration Segmented labor market theory • Idea of “dual” or “segmented” labor markets • Different labor markets Segmented labor market theory • Demand concentrated in “secondary labor market” • Low level jobs • Low prestige, seen as degrading, bottom of the totem pole Segmented labor theory • Chronic nature of demand for immigrant labor • Prestige differences: • Can’t be eliminated • as long as there is hierarchy, jobs will differ in prestige and attractiveness Demand for immigrants High growth occupations •Low-skilled •Non-tradable: can’t be outsourced abroad •Home health aides •Personal and home care aides •Higher-skilled occupations •Rapid proportional growth •But absolute growth modest Temporary migration: supply side • Sojourning: migration as investment or risk-reduction strategy • Circular migration • Temporary migration • One to three moves during a lifetime Temporary migration: demand side • Preferences of migrants coincide with those of employers • Workers go home when jobs disappear • Costs of unstable workforce low since skills are low Perpetuation of migration: social networks • Interpersonal ties between settlers and migrants • Concepts: • Migration chains; Friends and family effect; Social capital • Basic idea: Perpetuation of migration: social networks • Impact: Reduce costs, uncertainties • Physical costs of migration • Established migrants pay (or provide loans) Unemployment in receiving society • Established migrants facilitate finding of new jobs • Psychic costs (“compensating differential”) • Environment much less strange • Many friendly faces, familiar institutions Perpetuation of migration: social networks • Migrant institutions • Network consolidation Migrant networks • Impact: • Make migration a “self-feeding process” • More difficult to stop Cumulative causation • Migration becomes self-sustaining • Cumulative • each act of migration alters social context in which subsequent migration decisions are made Cumulative causation Point of origin: • Distribution of land by migrants • Buy land for prestige value or retirement Limits to migration • Network saturation • Local labor shortages and rising wages in home community Gaps in average professional salaries Reasons for emigration: university students in southern Africa High-skilled migration: causes • Supply • Expansion of higher education • Growth in source countries International Student Mobility: Temporary or Permanent Migration? Determinants of student migration Post-migration mobility channels: from student to worker Percent of immigrants among high skilled workers in US “Brain drain” (“Skill flow”) Global pattern U.S. pattern Highly educated more likely to move Higher ed in home country =>high skilled larger share of immigrants Case study: Indian immigration Indian immigrants: educational selectivity Channels of migration: student and temporary worker Supply-side causes • English proficiency • Growth of higher education • By mid-60s, small network, high quality institutions • Home society demand weak; global access opens Demand-side causes • Skill shortages • 1960s/70s – medicine • 45 percent of early movers had grad of professional degrees • Offshoring of programming

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