Week 1.1
Migration is about personal stories
- Search for a better place
- Forced from/ to a place
- Social environment, integration, self-realisation
→ regional implications (labour market, competition and creation of jobs)
→ economic implications
→ social impacts
→ political implications
Many definitions on what is a migrant
- International migration vs internal migration
- What is the geographical line at which you say someone is a migrant?
Assen to Groningen, is that internal migration?
- No, residential mobility
Theoretical definition:
- Migration if:
- Move involving major change in DAS (Daily Activity Space)
- So what you do in your everyday life. If it changes by moving → migration
- Most important daily activity: work (or education)
- Differs per individual / household
Major concepts: development
- Individual level
- Local and regional economic development
- National and Global development (e.g. see UN Human Development Index)
Economic perspectives:
- Human Capital and labour market related factors affecting individual migration decisions
- Utility and happiness
- What are the indirect consequences of migration?
- What are the regional and local economic impacts of migration?
- What are the national and macro-level impacts of migration?
Population studies perspectives:
- View of migration: event in the life course
- Ways of studying migration:
- Macro-level: how flows affect size and composition of population
- Micro-level: explaining occurrence of migration events in individual life courses
(who, which circumstances); identifying consequences
- Meso-level: explaining migration in the context of households/families
Mobility transition: myth or reality? - historical part
, - Mobility transition
- Ancient immobility
- Modern mobility
KPN commercial
- Back in 2 days from Mumbai→ mobility
- Technology/modernity progress allows to be more mobile
Social representations of mobility
- Need to be mobile
- Mobility = modernity
- Conveyed by neoliberal thought
- Questions:
- Is this real? Are people nowadays more mobile?
- Which theories promote this representation?
- Mobility transition justifies social representation from a scientific
perspective. Demographic transition is ‘voorloper’
- During 1930/1920s
- Father: Notestein, Landry
- Along with development, society is going through different stages
of development (positivist theory)
- Path is summarised by development, ‘pushed towards modernity’
- At time of development of study, no country was in the last stage.
They only had countries at various stages. Hence, they assumed
there was a logical/normative path between the stages. Country A
will look like country B eventually etc.
→ longitudinal evolutions whilst they could only see snapshots of
different countries
- Also called: reading history sideways
- “Reading history sideways was a form of historical
geography that substituted variations across space for
variations across time, thereby converting spatial
heterogeneity into homogeneous development.”
→ some countries become role-model. Others NEED to
end up at that level as well: responsibility of policy maker
for this path.
- “Reading history sideways, of course, required a system
for ordering contemporary societies along the
trajectory of development. We should not be surprised
that ethnocentrism led the people of northwest Europe to
believe that they were at the pinnacle of development.”
- What about migrations?
- Classic demographic transition theory
- Only marginal references
, - Migration to cities as an agent of social change
- Little political interest in migration
- Ravenstein’s laws of migration (1885)
- 11 general rules drawn from census in U.K.
- Not mentioned in the Demographic transition
- Nothing really new until the 1970s
- 1970s → growing interest in migration
- Wilbur Zelinsky
- 1971: Hypothesis of Mobility transition
- 1983: impasse in migration theory: a sketch map
for potential escapees.
Mobility transition
- Main claim: modernization of societies affects patterns of mobility
- Mobility transition vs demographic transition link
- Hypothesis: “There are definite, patterned regularities in the growth of personal mobility
through space-time during recent history, and these regularities comprise an essential
component of the modernization process” p. 222
- Definitions:
- Mobility › “there is no realistic alternative to treating all territorial mobility as a
single continuum, extending from the shortest, most routine of iterated motions to
the most adventurous intercontinental journey” p. 226
- Migration › “any permanent or semipermanent change of residence (…) a spatial
transfer from one social unit or neighborhood to another, which strains or rupture
previous social bounds” p. 225-6
Week 1.2 - the mobility transition
What about migrations?
- Classic demographic transition theory
- Only marginal references
- Migration to cities as an agent of social change
- Little political interest for migration
Would you say this article is mostly theoretical or empirical?
• Theoretical, despite some empirical elements, which are highly disputable.
2. Which disciplines provided most inspiration to Zelinsky in this theory?
• Demography
• Geography
3. Which theories in particular inspired him most?
• Demographic Transition
• Ravenstein’s laws of migration
• Spatial diffusion
• Economic optimization
, 4. According to Zelinsky’s definitions, do the following forms of mobility qualify as migration:
circulation, seasonal, commuting ?
• According to Zelinsky (p. 226), none of these types of mobility fit the definition of a migration
as a “permanent or semi-permanent change of residence” (p. 225), although the term
“semi-permanent” is vague and could have included temporary migration.
5. Look at Figure 2 (p. 233). Are these statements true of false?
• All types of mobility are supposed almost inexistent in phase 1. – True
• Migration between rural places are omitted – True
• Migration from urban to rural are increasing over time – False (they are omitted)
• Seasonal / temporary migrations are decreasing over time – False (they are omitted by
definition)
6. Still based on Figure 2, what can you say about the relative importance (proportions) of each
of these migration types at each moment in time?
• Nothing, because they are all represented on their own scale.
→ x-axis dont have a date. Y-axis dont have levels → you cannot test the hypothesis as you can
not compare the graphs. Always will have question of interpretation.
7. Which title would you give to subfigure 2F, using contemporary terminology?
• Commuting (i.e. daily travel between places of residence and work without a change of
residence).
8. Which title would you give to subfigure 2G, using contemporary terminology? •
Telecommuting/teleworking/working from home (i.e. avoiding the journey from places of
residence and work by using communication systems such as phone and Internet).
9. Which limitations do you see to the argument borrowed to Davis comparing the USA and
India? (p.235)
• In this good example of what Thornton calls “reading history sideways”, Zelinsky does not
compare the same country at different times (or degree of industrialization), but two countries
(India and the USA) at roughly the same time (1931 and 1940). The fact that the former shows a
lower degree of mobility than the latter is not a proof that it was caused by the lesser degree of
industrialization (or “Modernization”) of the former compared to the latter. There could be other
reasons why Indians are apparently less mobile: different familial, cultural or economic reasons
for Indians to move less than Americans, no matter the level of industrialization, or even the
different shape and size of Indian and American states (i.e. the so-called “modifiable areal unit
problem”). More generally, this type of comparison between supposedly more and less
“developed” (or “modern”) countries relies on the assumption that there is a common “path” to
development (or modernity).
10. Which limitation do you see to the use of census data to measure migration? (p.235)
• Censuses are “cross-sectional” pictures of the state of a population at a given time. It does not
Migration is about personal stories
- Search for a better place
- Forced from/ to a place
- Social environment, integration, self-realisation
→ regional implications (labour market, competition and creation of jobs)
→ economic implications
→ social impacts
→ political implications
Many definitions on what is a migrant
- International migration vs internal migration
- What is the geographical line at which you say someone is a migrant?
Assen to Groningen, is that internal migration?
- No, residential mobility
Theoretical definition:
- Migration if:
- Move involving major change in DAS (Daily Activity Space)
- So what you do in your everyday life. If it changes by moving → migration
- Most important daily activity: work (or education)
- Differs per individual / household
Major concepts: development
- Individual level
- Local and regional economic development
- National and Global development (e.g. see UN Human Development Index)
Economic perspectives:
- Human Capital and labour market related factors affecting individual migration decisions
- Utility and happiness
- What are the indirect consequences of migration?
- What are the regional and local economic impacts of migration?
- What are the national and macro-level impacts of migration?
Population studies perspectives:
- View of migration: event in the life course
- Ways of studying migration:
- Macro-level: how flows affect size and composition of population
- Micro-level: explaining occurrence of migration events in individual life courses
(who, which circumstances); identifying consequences
- Meso-level: explaining migration in the context of households/families
Mobility transition: myth or reality? - historical part
, - Mobility transition
- Ancient immobility
- Modern mobility
KPN commercial
- Back in 2 days from Mumbai→ mobility
- Technology/modernity progress allows to be more mobile
Social representations of mobility
- Need to be mobile
- Mobility = modernity
- Conveyed by neoliberal thought
- Questions:
- Is this real? Are people nowadays more mobile?
- Which theories promote this representation?
- Mobility transition justifies social representation from a scientific
perspective. Demographic transition is ‘voorloper’
- During 1930/1920s
- Father: Notestein, Landry
- Along with development, society is going through different stages
of development (positivist theory)
- Path is summarised by development, ‘pushed towards modernity’
- At time of development of study, no country was in the last stage.
They only had countries at various stages. Hence, they assumed
there was a logical/normative path between the stages. Country A
will look like country B eventually etc.
→ longitudinal evolutions whilst they could only see snapshots of
different countries
- Also called: reading history sideways
- “Reading history sideways was a form of historical
geography that substituted variations across space for
variations across time, thereby converting spatial
heterogeneity into homogeneous development.”
→ some countries become role-model. Others NEED to
end up at that level as well: responsibility of policy maker
for this path.
- “Reading history sideways, of course, required a system
for ordering contemporary societies along the
trajectory of development. We should not be surprised
that ethnocentrism led the people of northwest Europe to
believe that they were at the pinnacle of development.”
- What about migrations?
- Classic demographic transition theory
- Only marginal references
, - Migration to cities as an agent of social change
- Little political interest in migration
- Ravenstein’s laws of migration (1885)
- 11 general rules drawn from census in U.K.
- Not mentioned in the Demographic transition
- Nothing really new until the 1970s
- 1970s → growing interest in migration
- Wilbur Zelinsky
- 1971: Hypothesis of Mobility transition
- 1983: impasse in migration theory: a sketch map
for potential escapees.
Mobility transition
- Main claim: modernization of societies affects patterns of mobility
- Mobility transition vs demographic transition link
- Hypothesis: “There are definite, patterned regularities in the growth of personal mobility
through space-time during recent history, and these regularities comprise an essential
component of the modernization process” p. 222
- Definitions:
- Mobility › “there is no realistic alternative to treating all territorial mobility as a
single continuum, extending from the shortest, most routine of iterated motions to
the most adventurous intercontinental journey” p. 226
- Migration › “any permanent or semipermanent change of residence (…) a spatial
transfer from one social unit or neighborhood to another, which strains or rupture
previous social bounds” p. 225-6
Week 1.2 - the mobility transition
What about migrations?
- Classic demographic transition theory
- Only marginal references
- Migration to cities as an agent of social change
- Little political interest for migration
Would you say this article is mostly theoretical or empirical?
• Theoretical, despite some empirical elements, which are highly disputable.
2. Which disciplines provided most inspiration to Zelinsky in this theory?
• Demography
• Geography
3. Which theories in particular inspired him most?
• Demographic Transition
• Ravenstein’s laws of migration
• Spatial diffusion
• Economic optimization
, 4. According to Zelinsky’s definitions, do the following forms of mobility qualify as migration:
circulation, seasonal, commuting ?
• According to Zelinsky (p. 226), none of these types of mobility fit the definition of a migration
as a “permanent or semi-permanent change of residence” (p. 225), although the term
“semi-permanent” is vague and could have included temporary migration.
5. Look at Figure 2 (p. 233). Are these statements true of false?
• All types of mobility are supposed almost inexistent in phase 1. – True
• Migration between rural places are omitted – True
• Migration from urban to rural are increasing over time – False (they are omitted)
• Seasonal / temporary migrations are decreasing over time – False (they are omitted by
definition)
6. Still based on Figure 2, what can you say about the relative importance (proportions) of each
of these migration types at each moment in time?
• Nothing, because they are all represented on their own scale.
→ x-axis dont have a date. Y-axis dont have levels → you cannot test the hypothesis as you can
not compare the graphs. Always will have question of interpretation.
7. Which title would you give to subfigure 2F, using contemporary terminology?
• Commuting (i.e. daily travel between places of residence and work without a change of
residence).
8. Which title would you give to subfigure 2G, using contemporary terminology? •
Telecommuting/teleworking/working from home (i.e. avoiding the journey from places of
residence and work by using communication systems such as phone and Internet).
9. Which limitations do you see to the argument borrowed to Davis comparing the USA and
India? (p.235)
• In this good example of what Thornton calls “reading history sideways”, Zelinsky does not
compare the same country at different times (or degree of industrialization), but two countries
(India and the USA) at roughly the same time (1931 and 1940). The fact that the former shows a
lower degree of mobility than the latter is not a proof that it was caused by the lesser degree of
industrialization (or “Modernization”) of the former compared to the latter. There could be other
reasons why Indians are apparently less mobile: different familial, cultural or economic reasons
for Indians to move less than Americans, no matter the level of industrialization, or even the
different shape and size of Indian and American states (i.e. the so-called “modifiable areal unit
problem”). More generally, this type of comparison between supposedly more and less
“developed” (or “modern”) countries relies on the assumption that there is a common “path” to
development (or modernity).
10. Which limitation do you see to the use of census data to measure migration? (p.235)
• Censuses are “cross-sectional” pictures of the state of a population at a given time. It does not
