Asylum Migration Research Articles

The Role of Gender in Asylum Migration to Europe: Analyzing Country-Level Factors of Gendered Selection of Asylum Seekers to Europe

While 50% of displaced individuals worldwide are female, women comprised only 31% of the people seeking asylum in Europe between 2008 and 2018. This study utilizes data from Eurostat on 5.6 million asylum-seekers between 2008 and 2018 to identify the country-level factors that drive this gendered selection. The effects are calculated using both a random effects panel model and a fixed effects panel model with clustered standard errors. The results suggest that country-level differences in the degree of gendered selection are largely driven by socio-demographic factors related to women’s social position within their country of origin.

VISproPT: A high-precision instrument for 3D shape analysis of parabolic trough panels

Simulation models of social processes may require data that are not readily available, have low accuracy, are incomplete or biased. The paper presents a formal process for collating, assessing, selecting, and using secondary data as part of creating, validating, and documenting an agent-based simulation model of a complex social process, in this case, asylum migration to Europe. The process starts by creating an inventory of data sources, and the associated metadata, followed by assessing different aspects of data quality according to pre-defined criteria. As a result, based on the typology of available data, we are able to produce a thematic map of the area under study, and assess the uncertainty of key data sources, at least qualitatively. We illustrate the process by looking at the data on Syrian migration to Europe in 2011–21. In parallel, successive stages of the development of a simulation model allow for identifying key types of information which are needed as input into empirically grounded modelling analysis. Juxtaposing the available evidence and model requirements allows for identifying knowledge gaps that need filling, preferably by collecting additional primary data, or, failing that, by carrying out a sensitivity analysis for the assumptions made. By doing so, we offer a way of formalising the data collection process in the context of model-building endeavours, while allowing the modelling to be predominantly question-driven rather than purely data-driven. The paper concludes with recommendations with respect to data and evidence, both for modellers, as well as model users in practice-oriented applications.

Exploring Migration Determinants: a Meta-Analysis of Migration Drivers and Estimates

This comprehensive study delves into over 100 empirical articles, examining the influence of structural drivers on both internal and international migration. Employing a meta-analysis approach, we dissect these studies to pinpoint the prevalent migration drivers frequently subjected to quantitative scrutiny. Our investigation extends to scrutinizing major migration drivers in terms of their statistical impact, directional tendencies, and statistical significance. Our findings underscore that indicators such as income or GDP, education, migrant networks, gender, age, and family characteristics are the most commonly scrutinized factors shaping migration patterns. Notably, geographical distance, gender, and migrant networks emerge as highly consistent drivers, exhibiting a remarkable uniformity in both effect direction and statistical significance across the most frequently studied factors. Numerous migration drivers exhibit statistical significance roughly around 50% of the time, while several others fall considerably below this threshold. Intriguingly, we delve into the complex variations characterizing the impact of destination country GDP per capita. Our exploration reveals that articles reporting a negative effect for destination country GDP per capita are more likely to focus on irregular or asylum migration flows. However, an intriguing subset of articles that also explore asylum migration flows finds a positive effect. These nuanced disparities are further influenced by variations in sample composition, control variables, statistical models, and the operationalization of GDP per capita. In sum, our in-depth analysis sheds light on the multifaceted landscape of migration drivers, offering critical insights into both the consensus and divergence within migration research.

Policy Change, Threat Perception, and Mobility Catalysts: The Trump Administration as Driver of Asylum Migration to Canada

Almost 60,000 people claimed asylum at Canada's border with the United States between 2017 and 2020, marking Canada's first sustained cross-border asylum migration since the 1990s. Virtually, all entered irregularly via a rural road on the New York/Québec border. The “Roxham Road route” was partly owing to the 2004 Canada/US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which allows both states to refuse asylum-seekers on the grounds that the other offers commensurate protection standards yet only applies to official ports of entry. Roughly, 40 percent of the 60,000 who claimed asylum were US residents with precarious immigration status. This article examines the route's emergence and contributes a novel case on decision-making and destination choices for asylum migration. Data are derived from interviews with over 300 asylum-seekers, two dozen experts, and monthly asylum statistics. The central finding is that Trump-administration immigration policies were the major driver for asylum migration yet do not entirely explain the new route, since a relatively small number of US residents departed for Canada. Interviews revealed that while Trump-era policies fostered a climate of fear, individual experiences with immigration enforcement, loss of temporary protected status, or deferred asylum cases were catalysts for migration. Welcoming Canadian rhetoric and liberal asylum policies were only considered in light of risk in the United States, challenging research findings that asylum-seekers are primarily motivated by destination-state policies. The article also offers qualitative methods for connecting asylum data with migrant decision-making and problematizes the STCA's ethics and effectiveness for managing asylum.

Triaging Mixed Migration: Trump Card or Achilles Heel of the Common European Asylum System? Insights from Organized Hypocrisy

Abstract With border screening at the core of the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’, the European Commission presents the effective triage of mixed migration as a trump card to finally fix the dysfunctional Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This calls for a closer examination of how triage governmentality relates to dysfunctionality as a trope in the European Union’s (EU) asylum policy. The article shows how, in the last three decades of policymaking, EU actors have consistently represented the CEAS as dysfunctional. One of the core problems put forward is that the EU’s common standards of qualification, procedures, and reception have failed to harmonize how persons in need of protection are identified and treated across the EU. The resulting asylum lottery undermines the legitimacy and efficacy of the EU’s allocation and return systems. Can the effective triage of mixed migration render the CEAS functional? This article argues that, in the design of the CEAS, triage mechanisms are key to reconciling the competing objectives of asylum protection and migration control. As implementation falls short, a gap has emerged between promises and results within triage governmentality.

Migration and Asylum Flows to Germany: New Insights Into the Motives

This study analyzes the determinants of both total migration and asylum migration to Germany. For the analysis, a comprehensive empirical model is set up that includes climate change, economic opportunities, such as per capita income differentials, links to Germany, home country characteristics (population growth, poverty, consumer confidence, unemployment), the political and institutional situation in the sending countries (measured by internal and external conflict, ethnic and religious tensions, government stability, law and order, military in politics), and a control for migration opportunities to alternative destinations. Panel data techniques (Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood) for the estimation of the parameters of interest are employed using a panel of 115 (134) origin countries for asylum migration (total migration) over the period of 1996–2017 or 2001–2017, depending on data availability. The analysis reveals that political, socioeconomic, and economic factors determine both total migration and asylum migration. Economic factors are also determinants of asylum applications, as asylum seekers most often come for several reasons. Poverty plays a distinct role in total migration and asylum migration. An alleviation of poverty in origin countries is associated with less overall migration to Germany but with more asylum migration. Increases in average temperature also impact asylum migration in the expected direction, thus, increasing forced migration. The most interesting findings are revealed when considering country groupings (main migration countries, major asylum countries, countries whose asylum applicants enjoy high, intermediate, or low recognition rates).

Asylum Migration, Borders, and Terrorism in a Structural Gravity Model

In this article, we examine the impact of terrorist attacks on asylum-related migration flows. So far, the literature that examines the “push factors” such as terrorism that explain forced migration has omitted the fact that the vast majority of people forced to flee typically do so toward other locations within the country. The novel feature of our research is the estimation of a structural gravity equation that includes both international migration and internally displaced persons (IDP), a theoretically consistent framework that allows us to identify country-specific variables such as terror attacks. For that purpose, we use information on the number of asylum applications, the number of IDP, and the number of terrorist attacks in each country for a sample of 119 origin developing countries and 141 destination countries over 2009–2018. The empirical results reveal several interesting and policy-relevant traits. Firstly, forced migration abroad is still minimal compared to IDP, but globalization forces are pushing up the ratio. Secondly, terror violence has a positive and significant effect on asylum migration flows relative to the number of IDP. Thirdly, omitting internally displaced people biases downward the impact of terrorism on asylum applications. Fourthly, we observe regional heterogeneity in the effect of terrorism on asylum migration flows; in Latin America, terrorist attacks have a much larger impact on the number of asylum applications relative to IDP than in Asia or Africa.

The consequences of hosting asylum seekers for citizens’ policy preferences

Asylum migration is a major societal challenge in the Western world affecting residents’ policy preferences. We analyze the effects of newly hosting asylum seekers in a given municipality on local citizens’ preferences in terms of migratory and redistributive policies as well as of support or opposition to political change in general. Policy preferences are measured based on citizens’ actual voting behavior in national referendums in Switzerland between 1987 and 2017. We exploit the administrative placement of asylum seekers across municipalities and find that citizens vote temporarily slightly more restrictively on immigration issues in national referendums and are less supportive of redistribution than before hosting asylum seekers. Citizens are not more likely to vote for the status quo and not more likely to participate per se.

Out of sight, out of mind? Terror in the home country, family reunification options, and the well-being of refugees

• Most refugees flee to escape terror and violence. • Terror might still have psychological effects when distance eliminates direct exposure. • We find strong and adverse effects of terror intensity in the home country on the life satisfaction reported by refugees in Germany. • Effects on symptoms of psychological distress indicate that strong emotions could be a relevant mechanism. • The effect is short-lived for most refugees, except when they have family members abroad without options for reunification. In this paper, we ask whether the main cause of asylum migration, that is, violence in the home country, still affects the life satisfaction of refugees even after they reach a safe country. We combine individual-level survey data on refugees in Germany with country-level data on terror fatalities. The timing of the survey interviews generates exogenous variation in the intensity of recent terror activity in respondents’ countries of origin, which we exploit to assess the effect of terror fatalities on the level of self-reported life satisfaction. Our results indicate that fatalities due to terror activity reduce, on average, the level of life satisfaction reported by refugees. We find that this effect is most substantial for events occurring one or two days before the interview, while older events have no effect. However, we observe an effect of fatalities during the four weeks preceding the interview on persons who have a family member abroad. We show that the group of respondents with a rejected or pending asylum application without legal family reunification options mostly drives this effect.

Making Sense of the Global: A Systematic Review of Globalizing and Localizing Dynamics in Refugee Governance

AbstractWhat does the research literature on refugee and asylum migration tell us about the impact of global norms and standards on the protection of asylum-seekers and refugees? Do we see the effective reach of global standards or do we see responses to be dependent on ‘local’ contexts? We conducted a systematic review of the literature across six case countries on two key issues in contemporary refugee governance: ‘mobility’ and ‘containment’. After coding 252 documents, we found that while ‘the global’ has an important normative and aspirational resonance and is an identified source of rights expansion and increased mobility, there is significant evidence for the ‘localisation’ of global standards on asylum and refugee protection. This has important implications for the diffusion of global norms and standards. Our results also reveal a strong focus in the research literature on ‘containment’ policies and on the role of state actors in developing these policies.

Origin and transit migration of Afghans and Syrians to Germany: The influential actors and factors behind the destination choice

AbstractWe use Process Net‐Maps to visualize the irregular migration patterns of refugees and identify influential actors/factors shaping their decisions. A qualitative case study was used that included 87 Afghan and Syrian refugees (52 individual in‐depth interviews and 35 participants in five focus group discussions) residing in Stuttgart, Germany. Results show a typical pattern for respondents to first migrate to a neighboring country, and then a mixture of decisive factors induce them to migrate onward. The perspective of refugees in the destination country covers the migration processes between transit and destination countries which is vital information for the stakeholders in international migration management, and policy developments on asylum migration, integration and repatriation.

Climatic conditions are weak predictors of asylum migration

Recent research suggests that climate variability and change significantly affect forced migration, within and across borders. Yet, migration is also informed by a range of non-climatic factors, and current assessments are impeded by a poor understanding of the relative importance of these determinants. Here, we evaluate the eligibility of climatic conditions relative to economic, political, and contextual factors for predicting bilateral asylum migration to the European Union—a form of forced migration that has been causally linked to climate variability. Results from a machine-learning prediction framework reveal that drought and temperature anomalies are weak predictors of asylum migration, challenging simplistic notions of climate-driven refugee flows. Instead, core contextual characteristics shape latent migration potential whereas political violence and repression are the most powerful predictors of time-varying migration flows. Future asylum migration flows are likely to respond much more to political changes in vulnerable societies than to climate change.

Grenfell, Race, Remembrance

The conflagration of the Grenfell Tower in West London on 14 June 2017, and its aftermath, exposed the institutional indifference and hierarchical, colonial system of governance within contemporary Britain. Cutting across a range of political inequalities, and exposing the ‘slow violence’ that communities without capital, especially those seeking asylum or undertaking economic migration, are subject to in everyday life, the tower showcased the imposed voicelessness of refugees in plain sight in Britain. Through artistic and grassroots organising, this voicelessness was, to an extent, overcome. Drawing on the theories of Rob Nixon, Ture and Hamilton, Taiwe Afuape, Micheal White and Etienne Balibar, this article explores the tragedy, and its aftermath, focusing in particular on the role of writer-activists Potent Whisper, Lowkey, Jay Bernard and Ben Okri in working with communities to reclaim the agency of representation in solidarity against violence.

The Consequences of Hosting Asylum Seekers for Citizens' Policy Preferences

Asylum migration is a major societal challenge in the Western world affecting residents' policy preferences. We analyze the effects of newly hosting asylum seekers in a given municipality on local citizens' preferences in terms of migratory and redistributive policies as well as of support or opposition to political change in general. Policy preferences are measured based on citizens' actual voting behavior in national referendums in Switzerland between 1987 and 2017. We exploit the administrative placement of asylum seekers across municipalities and find that citizens vote temporarily slightly more restrictively on immigration issues in national referendums and are less supportive of redistribution than before hosting asylum seekers. Citizens are not more likely to vote for the status quo and not more likely to participate per se.

Asylum Migration in OECD Countries: In Search of Lost Well-Being

Alongside the economic determinants and unobserved structural forces that drive migration flows, asylum migration faces additional natural and man-made hazards, which fall in the broad category of well-being. This paper estimates the effect of a composite well-being indicator on asylum migration flows, using a structural gravity equation. The paper starts by augmenting the gravity model to explain asylum flows with country-pair relative well-being, relocation costs and multilateral resistance. Taking the OECD Better Life Index as a starting point, we then combine data envelopment analysis and multi-criteria-decision-making to construct a multidimensional well-being indicator that groups 22 raw indicators into a single composite indicator with 10 consistently comparable dimensions across countries. Then, using a panel of bilateral asylum flows in OECD countries, we are able to obtain theoretically-grounded and consistent estimates. Results reveal that the composite indicator of well-being significantly explains asylum decisions and also show that certain dimensions of well-being act as push and pull determinants.

The Push and Pull Factors Contributing Towards Asylum Migration from Developing Countries to Developed Countries Since 2000

AbstractIn the early 2000s, asylum seekers went primarily to destinations their countries had historical relationships, including former colonial ties, common languages and ethnic networks. Since the mid‐2000s, there has been a shift towards asylum seekers arriving in destinations without such relationships. In this study, we apply spatial interaction models to understand the factors contributing to recent asylum migration from developing countries to developed countries from 2001 to 2015. We find that the push factors of political terror, civil rights violation and poverty do not result in increased asylum migration to developed countries. Instead, they act to reduce the number of asylum seekers. We also find that interactions between a range of push factors are important for understanding the movements and that immigration policies can have considerable effects on the destination choices of asylum seekers.

Asylum Migration to the Developed World: Persecution, Incentives, and Policy

The European migration crisis of 2015–2016 and the migrants from Central America gathering on the US border since 2017 have created headlines and presented challenges for Western governments. In this paper, I examine the trends in, and determinants of, the number of asylum seekers applying for refugee status in the developed world. This must be understood against the background of an international policy regime that evolved in response to refugee crises and geopolitical imperatives. While policy has drawn a sharp distinction between refugees and other immigrants, that difference has become increasingly blurred among asylum migrants. In this light, I examine the interplay between migration pressures, public opinion, and asylum policies in recent decades.

The Role of the CJEU in Ensuring Migrants’ Security – Analysis of the Post-Crisis Case-Law

The current article presents the findings of the research on the case-law of the CJEU in the area of asylum and return migration law concerning protection of migrants’ rights. The analyzed case-law concerns the proceedings from the period after the escalation of the European migration crisis in April 2015. The presented study seeks to answer the question about the existence of a juridical standard for the protection of the right to migration security. The analysis also includes the examination of the relation between the necessity of providing security in migration processes and the obligation to ensure the protection of migrants’ fundamental rights.

Refugee crisis in Europe: determinants of asylum seeking in European countries from 2008–2014

ABSTRACT This article reviews determinants of migration attempts for asylum, using the push/pull factors framework, and examines how well this framework can explain asylum-seeking in European countries. Our analyses show that most pull/push variables offer sound explanations for asylum migration. Different political push variables and proximity variables have robust explanatory power. However, the business cycle measured by unemployment rate of origin and host countries does not explain refugee flow from one country to another. In this regard, asylum-related migrations differ from labour migrations, sensitive to job opportunities. These findings suggest that some countries are set to attract more asylum seekers due to their diverse features, and a higher solidarity among host countries is required to deal with this question at European level. It is also necessary for the EU’s asylum policy to be extended to the area of ‘push factors’, tackling the root causes of asylum-seeking.

Ferroconcrete cases, sausage migrants, and Santa Barbara: self-reflexive metaphors among Russian-speaking refugees in Estonia

ABSTRACTIn this article, I present the results of my fieldwork among refugees and asylum seekers in Estonia. I start with an explanation of the refugee situation in Estonia and its public perception which mainly concentrates on Asian and African refugees. Then, the article focuses on a large yet overlooked group of asylum seekers from post-Soviet countries, the reasons they have for coming to Estonia, and the main discussions among them on the asylum process. The analysis of how this considerable refugee community conceives of the asylum-seeking process in Estonia collectively provides the understanding of the Estonian asylum migration system from below. I show how self-reflexive metaphors crystallizing in the discussions of Russophone refugees codify the asylum-seeking process in familiar categories and help them to navigate the legal strategies for constructing the narrative appealing to the decision-makers.