Emigration dynamics in developing countries.

Abstract

This paper describes the research objectives and summarizes first-stage findings of a joint project of the International Organization for Migration and the UN Population Fund on emigration dynamics in developing countries. The paper was prepared for a conference in Bellagio organized to allow academics, policy-makers, and officials to evaluate the first-stage findings and to appraise the stage-two research proposals. The research methodology developed at a 1993 project launching meeting held in Geneva drew on demographic transition theory and involves inclusion in the research framework of economic; demographic; community, family, and individual; and sociopolitical variables which would provide a dynamic understanding of why different migration flows were occurring and allow projections of various types of future migration. In addition, the research was to explain all types of migration, with disaggregation by type provided. The first stage of research (reported at this conference) was devoted to obtaining and assembling data on the factors known to influence emigration dynamics. The second stage will be devoted to attempts to measure the interaction among variables in a specific region. The first-stage findings are summarized in this paper for sub-Saharan Africa, southern Asia, and Central America and the Caribbean. This paper ends by noting that this research takes the same direction as objectives cited in the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development's (ICPD) Programme for Action. The evaluation of the proposal of second-stage research will include ways to maximize the concordance of that research with the goals of the ICPD.