Migration & Citizenship
HC 1 Origin countries – Hein de Haas
25 % in the Netherlands: migration background
Debate is polarized and ideologized : pro or anti migration: but migration will be there, we need to
understand it as social process.
Focus is now on destination countries we need to know the origins
Migration myths
1. We live in times of unprecedented mass migration
- If you control for growth of world population: migrants as percentage of world
population is stable between 1960 and 2010 (3%)
- Refugees: peaks but kind of stale through the years + 7/8 % of migrants is refugees
- 85 % of refugees stay around countries of origin
- What about illegal migration?
o Long term average: 50 000 per year (100 000 including 2015 peak)
- In perspective: non-migrants: 83.3%, Internal migrants 3.3%, Refugees: 0.3 %
No exodus/invasion: so what has changed?
Europeans have dominated migration (in colonizing), now decolonization (since end of WW2)
and migration to Europe
o Example: migration to US used to be mainly of EU origin, but that is not dominant
anymore, more Asians.
Immigrants used as scapegoats in media and politics
2. Immigration restrictions reduce migration
Restrictions lead to more migration!
Why? They are not based on understandings of how migration really works
Example Marocco: used to go for work to spain for a few months and then going back.
dynamic process (people also go back)
No borders: people tend to flow, get back and forth
Borders People who get in don’t go back. Because it cost them so much to go in (money
for smuggler, visa etc)
Example: Suriname immigration
Government accelerated Suriname independence to stop Suriname people from migrating:
presenting it as de-colonizing movement, but it was tactical
Migrating to the Netherlands was now or never before independence peak in migration
So: because of the restrictions, natural flow of migration is stopped: netto migration increases
because people will not go back
, 1991: EU citizenship, visa regimes, border controls
Enormous increase of migration
When you cut of flows/close countries, first migration to neighbour countries, but after
closing borders there people keep coming
Substitution effects: unintended consequences of immigration restrictions
1. Inter-temporal substitution (now or never migration)
2. Categorical substitution (Category jumping): example: from economic migrant to refugee
3. Reverse flow substitution (Interrupting circulation)
4. Spatial substitution (‘water bed’ effects): migrate to another country/via other country
3. Development in poor countries will reduce migration
Words like ‘desperate’, ‘suffering’ of migrants: reinforces image that refugees/migrants are poor
Push/Pull factors: it is not a scientific way of thinking about migration
Migration from Africa: relatively low out of continent migration
Growing wealth, growing emigration in Morocco
Tested:
The more developed countries are: the more immigrants
But not less developed more emigrants
Most emigrants from middle developed countries
Evidence: migration rises as poor countries get richer
Migration is expensive: really poor cannot afford it
once people go to school, their ideal life changes: idea of the good life: providing primary
education leads to more migration
Summarize
Macro-structural
The increasing structural complexity of labour markets and increasing levels of educational and
occupational specialization generate higher overall levels of migration and mobility
, Micro level
Development tends to increase people’s 1 capabilities and 2 aspirations to migrate
Migration as a resource and investment into a better future (not escape of miserable one)
4. climate change will lead to mass migration
not based on any evidence whatsoever.
Why?
Poverty and oppression tend to deprive people of mobility options
Most vulnerable populations are likely to get trapped into ‘involuntary immobility’
Example: hurricane katrina: most people who died where poor African-americans
Elephant in the room: labour demand of destination countries
The most effective way to reduce migration is a bad economy…
Discrepancy
1. growing labour demand in destination countries
2. the political call for less migration
need to reconceptualize migration as intrinsic part of broader processes of social transformation
HC 2 voluntary migration
Theories of migration
Functionalist theories (around actors)
- Neoclassical approach
Income differences drives migration (high labor, low capital in low-wage region, other way
around in high-wage countries, balance out)
Decision to migrate is a function of the discrepancy in economic opportunities available in
destination, and the lack of it at the place of residence.
Critiques:
o Agency is missing in model
o Assumes individuals are main decision making unit (but people are part of a larger
structure)
o Doesn’t explain why people do NOT migrate
HC 1 Origin countries – Hein de Haas
25 % in the Netherlands: migration background
Debate is polarized and ideologized : pro or anti migration: but migration will be there, we need to
understand it as social process.
Focus is now on destination countries we need to know the origins
Migration myths
1. We live in times of unprecedented mass migration
- If you control for growth of world population: migrants as percentage of world
population is stable between 1960 and 2010 (3%)
- Refugees: peaks but kind of stale through the years + 7/8 % of migrants is refugees
- 85 % of refugees stay around countries of origin
- What about illegal migration?
o Long term average: 50 000 per year (100 000 including 2015 peak)
- In perspective: non-migrants: 83.3%, Internal migrants 3.3%, Refugees: 0.3 %
No exodus/invasion: so what has changed?
Europeans have dominated migration (in colonizing), now decolonization (since end of WW2)
and migration to Europe
o Example: migration to US used to be mainly of EU origin, but that is not dominant
anymore, more Asians.
Immigrants used as scapegoats in media and politics
2. Immigration restrictions reduce migration
Restrictions lead to more migration!
Why? They are not based on understandings of how migration really works
Example Marocco: used to go for work to spain for a few months and then going back.
dynamic process (people also go back)
No borders: people tend to flow, get back and forth
Borders People who get in don’t go back. Because it cost them so much to go in (money
for smuggler, visa etc)
Example: Suriname immigration
Government accelerated Suriname independence to stop Suriname people from migrating:
presenting it as de-colonizing movement, but it was tactical
Migrating to the Netherlands was now or never before independence peak in migration
So: because of the restrictions, natural flow of migration is stopped: netto migration increases
because people will not go back
, 1991: EU citizenship, visa regimes, border controls
Enormous increase of migration
When you cut of flows/close countries, first migration to neighbour countries, but after
closing borders there people keep coming
Substitution effects: unintended consequences of immigration restrictions
1. Inter-temporal substitution (now or never migration)
2. Categorical substitution (Category jumping): example: from economic migrant to refugee
3. Reverse flow substitution (Interrupting circulation)
4. Spatial substitution (‘water bed’ effects): migrate to another country/via other country
3. Development in poor countries will reduce migration
Words like ‘desperate’, ‘suffering’ of migrants: reinforces image that refugees/migrants are poor
Push/Pull factors: it is not a scientific way of thinking about migration
Migration from Africa: relatively low out of continent migration
Growing wealth, growing emigration in Morocco
Tested:
The more developed countries are: the more immigrants
But not less developed more emigrants
Most emigrants from middle developed countries
Evidence: migration rises as poor countries get richer
Migration is expensive: really poor cannot afford it
once people go to school, their ideal life changes: idea of the good life: providing primary
education leads to more migration
Summarize
Macro-structural
The increasing structural complexity of labour markets and increasing levels of educational and
occupational specialization generate higher overall levels of migration and mobility
, Micro level
Development tends to increase people’s 1 capabilities and 2 aspirations to migrate
Migration as a resource and investment into a better future (not escape of miserable one)
4. climate change will lead to mass migration
not based on any evidence whatsoever.
Why?
Poverty and oppression tend to deprive people of mobility options
Most vulnerable populations are likely to get trapped into ‘involuntary immobility’
Example: hurricane katrina: most people who died where poor African-americans
Elephant in the room: labour demand of destination countries
The most effective way to reduce migration is a bad economy…
Discrepancy
1. growing labour demand in destination countries
2. the political call for less migration
need to reconceptualize migration as intrinsic part of broader processes of social transformation
HC 2 voluntary migration
Theories of migration
Functionalist theories (around actors)
- Neoclassical approach
Income differences drives migration (high labor, low capital in low-wage region, other way
around in high-wage countries, balance out)
Decision to migrate is a function of the discrepancy in economic opportunities available in
destination, and the lack of it at the place of residence.
Critiques:
o Agency is missing in model
o Assumes individuals are main decision making unit (but people are part of a larger
structure)
o Doesn’t explain why people do NOT migrate
