Return migration,rural household investment decision,and poverty alleviation: Evidence from rural Guangdong,China

Return migration has been considered advantageous to the productivity of labor and the economic development of origin regions and countries. However, how and why return migrants make their investment decisions and how such processes contribute to poverty alleviation remains unclear. This study evaluated how migration experience influences rural families' choices for productive investments and the underlying mechanism of village poverty alleviation. The result indicates that, when all are given the same monetary budgets, return migrants are more inclined to invest in single agricultural-related subjects rather than multiple subjects. A concentrated investment implies the investor's intention of expanding the production scale, which can further lead to a more organized, professional agricultural production that can be considered beneficial for community poverty alleviation. Moreover, different approaches of human capital accumulation led to varied capacity growth, among which migration experience effectively enhances the non-cognitive ability of return migrants. Based on these findings, we suggest that more returnee-preferential policies, supporting production and organization services should be established to promote agricultural entrepreneurship among the returning groups in poor rural areas.     

Returning and New Montana Migrants: Socio‐economic and Motivational Differences

This paper examines return migrants and new migrants to Montana: Who are they? Why do they move? Do return migrants move for different reasons than new migrants? Data from the 1994–1997 Montana Poll, a representative survey of Montana households, are used. A comparison of socio‐economic differences of return and new migrants shows that the two migrant types are very similar in terms of education, income, and age. This stands in contrast to the findings of others who maintain that return migrants are negatively selected with respect to education. Logistic regressions were employed to identify the effect of age and place ties on reasons for moving. Return migrants and new migrants move to Montana for very similar reasons, with family being the most important primary reason for moving. Moving for lifestyle reasons, such as environmental quality and urban amenities, were found to systematically change with age. This could explain why people return to a place they left earlier in life. While other research on return migration compared return migrants and other migrants who left the same place of origin, this paper offers a comparison of return migrants and other migrants who seek out the same destination. Results from the Montana Poll suggest that the same destination attracts return migrants and new migrants with similar socio‐economic characteristics who move there for very similar reasons.     

Returning and New Montana Migrants: Socio‐economic and Motivational Differences

This paper examines return migrants and new migrants to Montana: Who are they? Why do they move? Do return migrants move for different reasons than new migrants? Data from the 1994–1997 Montana Poll, a representative survey of Montana households, are used. A comparison of socio‐economic differences of return and new migrants shows that the two migrant types are very similar in terms of education, income, and age. This stands in contrast to the findings of others who maintain that return migrants are negatively selected with respect to education. Logistic regressions were employed to identify the effect of age and place ties on reasons for moving. Return migrants and new migrants move to Montana for very similar reasons, with family being the most important primary reason for moving. Moving for lifestyle reasons, such as environmental quality and urban amenities, were found to systematically change with age. This could explain why people return to a place they left earlier in life. While other research on return migration compared return migrants and other migrants who left the same place of origin, this paper offers a comparison of return migrants and other migrants who seek out the same destination. Results from the Montana Poll suggest that the same destination attracts return migrants and new migrants with similar socio‐economic characteristics who move there for very similar reasons.     

Older Chinese and Korean migrants' experiences of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand: A qualitative study

Later-life migrants, as older people living away from their home nations, occupy multiply-precarious positions in relation to national COVID-19 pandemic responses. Concern has particularly centred on this group's increased risk of social and linguistic exclusion. We explore the perspectives of later-life older Chinese and Koreans living in New Zealand during the nation's COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. This paper presents a sub-analysis of culturally-matched interviews conducted with 3 Korean and 5 Chinese later-life migrants. These participants are a sub-sample of a larger qualitative interview study comprising 44 interviews. A social capital approach has been used to aid conceptualisation of participants' experiences and a reflexive thematic approach guided analysis. Despite their underrepresentation in national response efforts, Chinese and Korean later-life migrants resourcefully participated in ethnically-specific pandemic initiatives. Three themes identified were: (1) taking it seriously (2) already digitally literate (3) challenges and difficulties. Older Asian migrants engaged in a range of creative strategies to stay connected during COVID-19 lockdowns which drew heavily on pre-existing social capital. Future pandemic responses should seek to improve connectedness between the national government COVID-19 response and older Korean and Chinese later-life migrants.     

Migration and circulation as a way of life for the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea

Migration and circulation are now an integral part of the socio-economy of the Wosera Abelam of Papua New Guinea. Since the 1950s large numbers of Wosera Abelam have settled in West New Britain (WNB) towns and government sponsored resettlement schemes. These long-term migrants provide a base in WNB for temporary migrants from the Wosera seeking work or a break from village life. This paper explores the linkages between temporary and long-term migrants in WNB, and between migrants and their relatives remaining in the village. We argue that migration is now a ‘way of life’ for the Wosera Abelam, and is, to a large extent, underpinned by indigenous (precapitalist) social and economic relations.     

Occupation‐specific analysis of migration and remittance behaviour: Pacific Island nurses in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract: Most previous empirical studies of migration and remittances ignored possible differences among occupational categories of migrants. Where human capital investment decisions and occupational choices are influenced by perceived prospects for international migration, internationally tradable occupations such as nursing are likely to attract individuals with particular attributes and with a stronger propensity to migrate. We argue that this can also affect the remittance behaviour of such occupational groups, pointing to the need for a disaggregated analysis by occupational category. This paper reports the results of a recent survey of nurses in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, and nurse migrants from the same countries in Australia and New Zealand. We also report the findings from a re‐analysis of earlier remittance data from Tongan and Samoan migrants in Australia. Nurse household remittance behaviour is statistically different from others, with nurses remitting more generously and consistently over time. The reasons and implications are explored. The impact and volume of nurse remittances emphasise the sustainability of the migration, remittances, aid and bureaucracy (MIRAB) system.     

Estimating Employment‐Related Migration from Overlapping Migration and Commuting Networks

A U.S. county workplace‐to‐workplace or latent migration data set is generated from overlapping migration and commuting networks. The latent migration network is the estimated number of movers between places of work, which is then compared with the actual number of migrants between places of residence. This allows both employment‐related and amenity‐related migration and pull/push factors as causes of migration flows to be identified and contrasted. Certain counties and cities that are not important migration destinations (e.g., with <200,000 net in‐migrants between 1995 and 2000) according to official data are in fact important targets when additional in‐migrants who commute into surrounding counties also are considered. An econometric analysis is then used to examine whether different regressors have different effects on the residence‐ versus employment‐based migration patterns. This is a first assessment of whether or not the proposed approach has merit. Results are consistent with prior expectations regarding the factors that would motivate latent versus actual migration.     

Return migration to Eastern Kentucky and the stem family concept

This research provides a conceptual framework--based on the stem family concept--with which to explore the cyclical nature of return migration to Eastern Kentucky. The work of Brown, Schwarzweller, and Mangalam shows how the stem family facilitates the outward movement of migrants during times of economic opportunity outside Appalachia, while providing a potential haven when sociocultural pulls within Appalachia exceed the economic tugs outside the region. Responses from 119 households in Laurel, Pike, and Powell counties are used to test hypotheses associated with the general model. The survey results support the continued existence of extreme stem family forces within Eastern Kentucky. Most immigrants are return migrants; return migration motives continue to be more related to sociocultural factors than they are job-related decisions. Most returnees are well below retirement age, and even the younger and more educated among these have a strong preference for remaining in Eastern Kentucky, although their historical tendency had been to move away when economic pulls are strong enough. The work of Brown, Schwarzweller, and Mangalam shows how the stem family facilitates the outward movement of migrants during times of economic opportunity outside Appalachia, while providing a potential haven when sociocultural pulls within Appalachia exceed the economic tugs outside the region. Overall, there is a need to better understand the role of awareness space in the destination selection of cyclical migrants.     

Population mobility and the transformation of a village community in Northern Thailand

The paper studies the role of population mobility in the transformation of the Mae Sa village community in Mae Rim District of Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand. Data for the analysis derive from an in-depth investigation in 1976–1977 and successive studies over the following 22 years including a substantial reinvestigation in 1995–1996. In these two decades, the village has been transformed from a traditional agricultural community to a ‘modern’ rural community with considerable employment outside the village and other links to the outside world. The paper discusses the complexity of the in- and out- migration process and the significance of the roles played by permanent and non-permanent migration in the transformation of the village resource base and social institutions. Special attention is given to social relations at the individual, family and community levels with implications on the definition of movement for the people of Mae Sa.     

An analysis of employment patterns of domestic migrants and immigrants in a Rustbelt city: A study of Buffalo-Niagara Falls

This study evaluates employment patterns of domestic migrants and immigrants and also explores the role of ethnic niching for Asian and African American recent arrivals in the context of local structural transformation (e.g., the shift from manufacturing to services). Employment patterns are examined for industry-occupation groups using the 5% Public Use Micro Sample of the 2000 U.S. Decennial Census and the 2006–2010 of the American Community Survey. The study area is a Rustbelt city that has suffered from population loss: the Buffalo-Niagara Falls MSA. Location quotients and shift-share analysis are used to classify employment shifts into four industry-occupation groups: growing, transforming, declining, and emerging. Logistic regressions are estimated to identify the role of various demographic factors and ethnic niches on the employment of recent arrivals in the above four industry-occupation groups. The results show that the employment of recent arrivals vary by migration status and ethnicity. The role of ethnic niches is especially important in declining industry-occupation groups. The analytical framework can be used to understand where and how migrants, both domestic and immigrants, find work. Future studies can focus on the pros and cons of ethnic niching (e.g., barriers to suitable jobs, ethnic entrepreneurship through niche experience) as structural transformation continues across U.S. regions, especially with new technologies.     

Border crossing of Muslim women in southern‐border provinces of Thailand

In general, the main roles of married Thai Muslim women were as home makers good wives and good mothers. Nevertheless, both married and single women from rural areas have been increasingly obliged to work outside the household, locally and in other countries. People in rural areas are now faced with the difficulty of maintaining their livelihoods if they depended on agricultural production alone. In some instances, female migration might be a response to families not being able to survive on the incomes earned by the male household heads. In response, women in southern Thailand provinces use long‐standing social networks that facilitate their migration for work, because they benefit from the close proximity, language, and religion that they share with the destination area. Commonly, they travel to work in Malaysia by using a border pass, while some travel and work without any documents. The effects of crossing national borders on migrants themselves and on their communities are mixed, generally positive from an economic perspective, but negative from a social viewpoint. Socially negative responses reflect a system of social control in the region based on patriarchy.     

Asia and the Pacific on the move: workers and refugees,a challenge to nation states

In the last 30 years international migration has been transformed from being of little or no significance in Asia to being of substantial economic, social, political and demographic importance. Two types of migration which have increased greatly in significance since the 1970s are international labour migration and refugee movements. Throughout most of the last two decades Asia has had more refugees than any other world region, although numbers have declined in the 1990s with the success of resettlement and repatriation programmes for Indochinese refugees. On the other hand, international labour migration has continued to increase in scale and importance, with the majority of workers moving between Asian countries in the 1990s, although the Middle East remains an important destination. It is argued that two elements, proliferating migrant social networks and the emergence of a vibrant immigration industry, have given a momentum to international migration which to some extent limits the power of nation states to control it. There is some concern among countries in the region that the increase in migration is creating excessive economic dependence upon the export of labour. Fears that migration threatens social cohesion depend upon the extent to which migrants settle permanently in destination areas.     

The Shifting Destinations of Metropolitan Migrants in the U.S., 2005–2011

Recent estimates that central cities are growing faster than their suburbs in the U.S. have captured the attention of both academics and the popular media. Many commentators have used these numbers to claim that internal migration trends in the U.S. have reached a turning point, in which migrants increasingly prefer urban residences to suburban locales. However, these assertions often rely on problematic definitions of city and suburb, and pay too little attention to demographic variations among migrants. This paper examines whether recent internal migrants in the U.S. are choosing closer‐in destinations, drawing from microdata samples from the American Community Survey since 2005. During this period, there is an overall trend of migrants to the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. choosing to migrate closer to the metropolitan core. However, this trend varies significantly among major demographic groups; whereas younger, single, educated, and white‐collar migrants show evidence of a return to the core, migrants who are blue‐collar, less‐educated, older, and with families remain more suburban. In turn, this analysis suggests that overall trends of “back to the city” migration are producing considerable divergence in the metropolitan destinations of different demographic groups.     

Polish Labour Migration to the UK: Data Discrepancies,Migrant Distributions,and Indicators of Entrepreneurial Activity

This paper contributes to a growing body of work on labour market migration to the UK from the new Member States (NMS) of the European Union, particularly the migration of Polish nationals to the UK, drawing attention to the weaknesses of existing data sets which attempt to quantify these migration flows and in particular to map the geographical distribution of migrants. The analysis of Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) and National Insurance Number (NINo) allocation data demonstrates that NMS migration has focused on urban and rural locales rather than having a predominantly rural or “peripheral” area bias. The paper also argues that the discrepancies between WRS and NINo data potentially reveal a “hidden” geography of self‐employment and entrepreneurial activity among NMS migrants which merits further investigation.     

Do rural migrants benefit from labor market agglomeration economies? Evidence from Chinese cities

We combine the 2005 China Inter-Census Population Survey data and the 2004 China Manufacturing Census to test whether workers, particularly rural migrants, benefit from labor market Marshallian externalities. We find that workers in general, and rural migrants in particular, benefit from labor market pooling effects (measured by total employment in a city-industry cell) and human capital externalities (measured by share of workers with a college degree or above in a city-industry cell). These findings are robust to various sorting bias tests. However, rural migrants benefit much less than do local or urban workers, possibly because rural migrants lack social networks and are discriminated doubly in terms of being both “rural” and “migrants.” Our findings have policy implications on how Chinese cities can become skilled during the rapid urbanization process coupled with global competition.     

Performing ‘Chinese‐ness’ in Singkawang: Diasporic moorings,festivals and tourism

Through an examination of two festivals – Qing Ming and Cap Go Meh – in the town of Singkawang in Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan), we show how Singkawang‐bound Chinese Indonesian tourists and their Singkawang‐based relatives produce a diasporic heritage network through ‘moorings’ generated by both transnational and internal migration. Instead of returning to a singular ‘homeland’ in distant China, these tourists return to Chinese‐majority Singkawang as a result of their personal genealogical roots and of their broader cultural allegiance with a kind of Chinese‐ness that Singkawang has come to represent within a post‐Suharto Indonesia. Through these two festivals, we demonstrate how personal heritage practices like ‘roots tourism’ and visiting friends and relatives are intimately bound up with identity and developmental politics at local, national and international scales. In so doing, we identify a range of ways in which migratory and tourism flows by Chinese Indonesian internal migrants shape relations to their ancestral hometowns and cultural ‘homelands’ in Indonesia within the context of membership to and participation in a broader transnational diaspora.     

Practices of place‐making: Globalisation and locality in the Philippines

Abstract: Global flows of people and information in the Asia–Pacific region are creating new forms of place that stretch across national boundaries and rural–urban distinctions. These new mobile forms of place link long‐inhabited rural areas to cities, national centres, and to rural frontiers within the nation. Here, we describe new forms of place that are being produced by contemporary migration and economic change, using data from the Philippines and applying Appadurai's theorisation of translocality. Our analysis links these flows of overseas migrants to concomitant processes of economic change, migration and new rural livelihoods. We outline changing practices of place within the Philippines, exploring ways that transnational migration can articulate with apparently ‘local’ development and the flow‐on effects from migration on the spatial patterns of rural livelihoods.     

The Impact of Migration on Social Capital: Do Migrants Take Their Bowling Balls with Them?

Questions surrounding the impact of population migration on social capital is the focus of this study. Putnam observed that “for people as for plants, frequent repotting disrupts root systems. It takes time for a mobile individual to put down new roots.” However, because of a trending decrease in mobility over time, Putnam rules out migration as an explanation for the long‐term decline in social capital that was the subject of his widely read 1995 book Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. This study undertakes an empirical examination of the impact of migration on county‐level social capital, which in tribute to Putnam one might view as an attempt to answer the question—do migrants take their bowling balls with them when they move? The potential for county‐level migration of population to impact social capital levels at particular locations in space arises from the conventional argument that social capital promotes trust and cooperation among agents. This trust increases socially efficient collective action but requires investment in relationships and commitment of scarce resources to build social capital. It seems plausible that migration of population might have a negative impact on the stock of social capital by interfering with trust and cooperation among agents. However, it is also possible that migrants may take their social capital with them to new places of residence. In other words, the propensity to join social and civic organizations might reflect inherent traits of individuals who are willing to make commitments of their resources to building social capital in any community where they reside.     

Internal Migration in Mexico: Consolidation of Urban–Urban Mobility, 2000–2015

Internal migration has been recognized as the major influence in terms of population redistribution across urban systems, but it is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Within the context of internal rural‐urban migration decline and the negative changes in migratory balances in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, the core of enquiry in this paper is the approach to growth and consolidation of an internal urban–urban migration system in the early twenty‐first century (2000–2015). This process has taken place through two main networks, among metropolitan areas not corresponding to the principal city and among intermediate cities. Internal migration is a complex process that involves both individual and spatial characteristics and which leads to spatially uneven development in the long term. Data from three censuses of the population of Mexico (2000, 2010, and 2015) show a transition to a more urban–urban migration pattern, with skilled migrants tending to have metropolitan and urban destinations, whereas less‐skilled migrants prefer rural and small urban destinations.     

Spatiality,belonging and citizenship in the age of migration in contemporary China

While internal migration in contemporary China ascribes a great change to urban China's demographic composition, social structures and economic development trajectories, it is yet to restructure the formal definitions of urban identity and belonging, which are still dominated by the household registration system (hukou). The paper suggests that as a result of changes in the political, economic, demographic and social contexts within which China's internal migration develops, there emerge a crucial need to re‐examine the crude forms of determining identity and belonging, questioning the addressing of spatiality within the existing mechanisms (such as hukou system or the shiminhua discourse). To do so, the paper argues that the existing de‐territorialisation of the migration experience has to be replaced with a more nuanced understanding of how spatial practices and conceptualisations shape migrants’ experiences, as it is becoming imperative to develop a new framework that is more sensitive to migrants’ lived process of identification and belonging, especially as these traverse multiple geographies and spatial scales. This close engagement with migrants’ spatiality can then be used as a base from which to engage with a more complex view of migrants’ spatial and social relatedness, as well as the development of their urban belonging and identity.