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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MADE (Migration as Development)

Teaser

The relation between development and human mobility is highly contested. While economic development in poor countries and areas is usually seen as the most effective way to reduce migration, other studies suggest that development actually increases migration. The MADE project...

Summary

The relation between development and human mobility is highly contested. While economic development in poor countries and areas is usually seen as the most effective way to reduce migration, other studies suggest that development actually increases migration. The MADE project develops new theoretical and empirical approaches to understand the relation between development processes and migration. By applying a broader definition of development, we examine how internal and international migration trends and patterns are shaped by wider social, economic, technological and political transformations. MADE seeks to delve deeper into how development affects the geographical orientation, timing, composition and volume of both internal and international migration. Thus, we focus on six countries (Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Italy, Morocco, and the Netherlands) with different development-migration histories over the 19th and 20th centuries. To fully grasp the effect of these country-wide transformations, we also zoom into a particular area in each of these and explore the local events that have shaped this particular location. This project is scientifically ground-breaking by fundamentally shifting our understanding of how long-term development processes shape migration. This is also relevant for policy by challenging popular understandings of migration as a development failure, and to make more realistic assessments of how future global change may affect migration.

Work performed

The MADE research team has elaborated a conceptual framework around the concept of social transformation and its relation to the occurrence of many forms of migration over time & space. Our starting point was the conceptual framework of ‘migration transitions’ presented by Zelinsky in 1971, which links different phases of demographic change & ‘vital transitions’ to specific migration patterns. The MADE conceptual framework extends Zelinsky’s model by drawing on long-standing and new theoretical approaches towards development, social transformation & modernization in order to understand the ways in which these processes have been analysed across the social sciences & in relation to migration. The framework has defined 5 key dimensions of social transformation (economic, political, cultural, technological and demographic) which in turn break into 5 sub-dimensions.

This framework constitutes the conceptual backbone of the elaborate methodologies for the country case studies & for the quantitative-comparative studies, and provides an analytical structure for the empirical groundwork of the project. For the quantitative-comparative analyses, MADE evaluated the contested relation between dimensions of (1) social transformation & development and (2) patterns & trends of migration. Most notably, MADE focused on the role of income levels & economic development, inequality, education, demographic transitions, urbanization, political conflict & violence. For the country case-studies, MADE has selected 6 countries: Brazil, Ethiopia, Italy, Japan, Morocco, & the Netherlands. Each case study has 2 components each: A country-level analysis of migration trends & social transformations at the national level, as well as a within-country empirical study on the migration & social transformation history of a particular town to grasp the detailed dynamics at play. MADE has prepared an internal Methodology Guidelines document presenting the rationale for the selection of these countries and the within-country areas and it has also compiled a comprehensive list of indicators for the 6 countries that allow a quantitative-comparative measurement of the key sub-dimensions & their relation to changing trends and different patterns, volumes & trends of internal & international migration.

While much work in the MADE project is still in progress, a number of key insights are emerging from the project. The main substantive insight is the need to rethink migration as an intrinsic part of broader processes of social transformation & development rather than a ‘function’ of push-pull forces or the international income and welfare inequalities. MADE highlights that development, not poverty, drives migration. This is a rather radical departure of common ways of conceiving migration based on push-pull and neoclassical migration models. Evidence generated by MADE corroborates that the fundamental economic, technological, demographic, cultural and political changes associated to modernization tend to increase people’s tendency to migrate. This is because this complex of changes—also known as ‘development’ in parts of the literature—tend to increase people’s capabilities as well as aspirations to migrate. For instance, our paper Formal Education and Migration Aspirations in Ethiopia (forthcoming in Population and Development Review) finds that even completing primary levels of education increases the aspiration to live elsewhere. In another key paper, Social transformation and migration: An empirical inquiry, we corroborate the idea that there is an inverted U-shaped relation between processes of development & emigration. This challenges push-pull models and confirms ‘transition theories,’ which hypothesize that development & social transformation initially tend to boost emigration. Another finding shows that demographic factors only play an indirect role in migration processes. Finally, the analyses also suggest that rural-to-urban m

Final results

The MADE team will contribute a set of papers to present the theoretical, methodological and empirical findings during the course of the MADE project. A conceptual paper, preliminary entitled ‘Universal and substantive dimensions of social transformation’, is aimed at migration scholars. However, given the broad societal applications of our conceptual framework, it is also aimed at social scientists. The paper will define social transformation, its key characteristics in relation to time and space, and its operationalization in 5 dimensions & 25 sub-dimensions.

The ‘Methodology Guidelines’ present the elaborate methodology we developed to investigate the reciprocal relations between social transformation, which tackles three fundamental issues: (1) Identification of social transformations, their difference from social change or development, as well as their subdivision in five dimensions (economic, political, cultural, technological and demographic); (2) Observation & accounting for variation in social transformation mechanisms in terms of nature & speed; and (3) Identification of novel approaches to link macro-level changes & micro-level behaviour. The Guidelines also present the rationale for the selection of the case study countries and the within-country areas and include a comprehensive list of indicators for the 6 countries that allow a quantitative-comparative measurement of the key sub-dimensions & their relation to changing trends and different patterns, volumes & trends of internal & international migration.

In addition to the two quantitative articles previously mentioned, ‘Social transformation and migration: An empirical inquiry’ and ‘Formal Education and Migration Aspirations in Ethiopia,’ the team is working on other quantitative-comparative papers. A paper is planned to measure the effects of political transformations, e.g. conflict, authoritarianism, and another on the role of development (aid) on shaping trends and patterns of migration.

To present the work of the country case-studies, the MADE team will publish two papers for each case: one paper will present long-term national-level social transformations and their relation to the various forms of migration observed over the 19th and 20th centuries; a second paper will present the empirical study of a specific town as it underwent the latest social transformation and a shift in migration dynamics. Thus, the country case-studies will generate a total of 12 empirical papers.

The MADE team will produce a comparative paper based on the six country case studies to draw from the ample empirical evidence and make theoretical contributions. This paper will also draw from the insights gained from the quantitative papers as to produce a set of key insights. Going forward in the project, the MADE team also aims to begin dissemination activities through project briefings, keynote addresses, guest lectures and presentations at seminars, workshops and conferences.

Website & more info

More info: https://migrationasdevelopment.wordpress.com/.