Migration Aspirations Research Articles

Career development during COVID: Increased migration aspirations of South African University students

The purpose of this qualitative research study is to explore COVID-19 effects on South African university students and graduates’ experiences of career development and migration aspirations, using Stellenbosch University as a case study. Qualitative interviews (N=30) were conducted with university students and thematic analysis was used. Participants felt that the restrictive COVID measures increased unemployment levels in South Africa and young adults’ difficulties in transitioning to the world of work. Increased levels of migration aspirations were mentioned by participants to facilitate access to sustainable employment in a global workforce. This study provides useful information and recommendations for international career researchers and practitioners on how to integrate COVID life experiences in career development trajectories.

Moving across (Im)mobility categories: the importance of values, family and adaptation for migration

ABSTRACT The aspiration-capability framework introduces four (im)mobility categories – mobility, voluntary immobility, involuntary immobility and acquiescent immobility – which have received considerable attention. However, few studies have examined how people move across such categories. Drawing on the migration experiences of 17 self-identified Latin American gay individuals, this paper shows how prospective migrants can be pushed into a state of involuntary immobility by their families, and how they can adapt to overcome immobility and fulfill their migration aspirations. The article finds, firstly, that heteronormative values and familial expectations regarding sexuality shape the possibility of mobilizing the family’s economic, informative and emotional resources. Secondly, I discuss the adaptation strategies that individuals use to surpass involuntary immobility. To understand movement across (im)mobility categories, as well as the role of social boundaries for migration, this paper differentiates between individual and collective migration aspirations and capabilities. In doing so, the article introduces an approach to explore how interactions between social groups and their individual group members shape the (im)mobility projects of the latter.

Understanding drivers of migration: a preliminary case study of Libyan Tuareg

ABSTRACT In this preliminary case study, the aspirations capabilities model is applied to interviews conducted with Libyan Tuareg to confirm and develop ongoing theories on migration drivers. This article examines both migration theory, as well as the social, economic, and legal situation of Tuareg in Libya. Within the context of problems to achieve citizenship among some Libyan Tuareg, the notion of statelessness is assessed as an aspiration and capability that influences migration outcomes. This study confirmed that the general life ambitions of an individual are at the basis of aspirations to migrate and that migration functions as a vehicle to fulfil personal ambitions. The article stresses that the connection to the homeland is a factor that influences migration decision-making, which should be understood outside of citizenship. Moreover, this study observed the awareness of the aspirations and capabilities of acquaintances as a factor that influences migration aspirations.

Onward migration aspirations and destination preferences of refugees and migrants in Libya: the role of persecution and protection incidents

ABSTRACT The objective of this study consists of analysing the role of protection incidents on migration aspirations and destination preferences of refugees and migrants in Libya. We use a unique dataset that combines the 4Mi micro-level data from the Mixed Migration Centre with traditional macro-level variables. The micro-founded gravity equation allows using McFadden’s choice model that explains whether the experience of persecution in the origin country and protection incident in Libya shape onward migration aspirations and destination preferences of people on the move. Main results show first that refugees and migrants who reported having experienced persecution in their origin country that made them leave are more likely to aspire to migrate onward to Europe. Second, having experienced protection abuses in Libya increases onward migration aspirations to migrate to France, Germany, Sweden or the UK, but not to Italy. The findings call for comprehensive, contextualised and tailored approaches to programme and policy interventions that aim to provide long-term solutions, assistance and protection to people on the move. They also call for early warning and information systems in forced migration which would relate to the situation in countries of origin and transit.

The impact of the Internet on migration aspirations and intentions

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between Internet access and migration aspirations and intentions in Africa. While empirical evidence on the role of telecommunications in shaping migration flows is increasing, the relationship between aspirations (desire to migrate) and intentions (migration preparation) has been paid little attention. The analysis is based on the nationally representative 2014 and 2015 surveys of Gallup World Poll in 29 African countries. We modelled migration desire and migration preparation through Probit and Heckman Probit models. The results indicate that having Internet access is positively associated with the desire to move abroad and preparations to migrate once controlling for the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The association is higher in the case of migration preparation than in the case of migration desire. Slightly diverse effects are documented in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where the effect of Internet access on migration desire is somewhat higher than in the sample as a whole.

Hearts in Australia, Souls in Nepal

This article focuses on the intergenerational nature of migrants’ aspirations and the emotions that attach to them. Drawing on Ahmed’s (2014) notion of “affective economies” that emphasises that emotions circulate and accumulate affective value, I show how aspirations attached to migration or the “mobile aspirations” (Robertson, Cheng, & Yeoh 2018) are affectively experienced by their family. While studies have explored aspirations for permanent residency (PR) in the West, as well as the pathways to PR, less is documented of how parents experience their children’s migration aspirations, including for PR abroad. This article addresses this particular gap. Taking the case of Nepali education migrants in Australia and their transnational families, I explore the parents’ emotions when their children aspire for PR overseas. I argue that migration aspirations create a different kind of intergenerational affective economy between parents and children. This article is based on a multi-sited ethnography among Nepali education migrants in Sydney, Australia and their families in Nepal.

“Let Them Make It Rain and Bling”: Unveiling Community Expectations towards Returned Migrants in Cameroon

In Africa, international migration to the Global North is often interpreted as a means to achieve upward social mobility. This article highlights the importance of considering the socio-economic and political transformations that form migration aspirations, especially among African youths. Simultaneously, increasing restrictive migration regimes impacts the extent to which migrants can meet the clauses in the moral economy of migration in their origin communities. We focus on (Anglophone) Cameroon, where international migration is referred to as “bushfalling”. A person who migrates to a Western society desires or is expected to return home to share the wealth he/she has accumulated. This interpretation of migration forms different perspectives regarding migrants and guides expectations towards returned migrants. However, little is known on how these expectations are defined and redefined in the society of return. Based on focus group discussions conducted among local community members, we show that the expectations were guided by the visa regimes of destination countries. Moreover, successful returnees were defined by their ability to be visible and create an impact after return. Thus, this article contributes more broadly to an African perspective on the meaning and impact of return migration.

ІНСТРУМЕНТИ РЕГУЛЮВАННЯ МІГРАЦІЙНОЇ МОБІЛЬНОСТІ МОЛОДІ У КОНТЕКСТІ ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ ЛЮДСЬКОГО ПОТЕНЦІАЛУ РЕГІОНУ

The article establishes that the main reasons for the intensification of youth migration in Ukraine are the lack of a regional policy to stimulate youth employment, the creation of highly paid places, as well as the lack of a full-fledged effective organizational system for regulating migration processes. Based on the results of the sociological survey, it was identified that migration experience has a beneficiary nexus with human potential but maximizing the economic effect for the host country requires the use of measures to stimulate reverse young migration. Critical growth of youth migration mobility in the Carpathian region of Ukraine leads to an increase in the scale of intellectual migration, and a weakening of the personnel stability of the territory. It is proved that the measures for regulating youth migration and preserving the intellectual and human resources in the region should be focused on reducing the level of positive youth migration aspirations, ensuring employment and decent wages, and reducing the scale of educational migration for stationary migration. It was revealed that the lack of a national strategy for reforming the wage system, especially in creative sectors of the economy, education, science, and health care, will contribute to the young migration outflow, including highly qualified staff. The growth of incomes of youth abroad and the availability of highly paid places of work with decent conditions are the main drivers of the capitalization of human potential. Young people with low and moderate incomes abroad capitalize on the migration experience, improving their financial and economic potential. The system of the preventive toolkit for regulating youth migration mobility in the region provides for the implementation of organizational and economic measures in areas (1) improving employment and balancing the labour market; (2) the micro and small business developing, (3) increasing the level of reverse migration aspirations, (3) improving the investment climate and developing the migration capital market, (4) increasing the competitiveness of the educational sphere. The priority vectors of the progress of the migration capital market in Ukraine are increasing the investment capacity of migration capital, ensuring the target orientation of remittances to the small and medium-sized businesses, ensuring the security of remittances, and developing financial inclusion.

Migration Aspirations and Intentions

Migration Aspirations and Intentions

What Explains People's Migration Aspirations? Experimental Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

What Explains People's Migration Aspirations? Experimental Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Covid-19 insecurities and migration aspirations

ABSTRACT Using an original survey, this paper examines how pandemic-driven insecurities have affected aspirations to migrate internationally among youth in The Gambia. We find that individuals perceive wide inequalities between their government’s performance and the speed of Covid-19 recovery abroad. However, superior recovery abroad does not have significant effects on aspirations to migrate. Individual and local sources of security are more important: Individuals who were able to maintain their jobs throughout the pandemic are less likely to aspire to move abroad. The insecurity of Covid-19 job loss may be compensated by confidence in one’s government’s ability to tackle the pandemic. This suggests that, in the context of an event that has upended people’s lives, would-be migrants who managed to maintain a source of stability may seek comfort in familiar contexts; even if they appear worse than alternatives abroad.

МІГРАЦІЙНА МОБІЛЬНІСТЬ МОЛОДІ КАРПАТСЬКОГО РЕГІОНУ: ПРОПОЗИЦІЇ ДО ВДОСКОНАЛЕННЯ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНО-АНАЛІТИЧНОГО ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ РЕГІОНАЛЬНОЇ МІГРАЦІЙНОЇ ПОЛІТИКИ

Формування нового інформаційного суспільства разом з проникненням глобалізаційних процесів у всі сфери суспільства та економіки стали чинниками лібералізації міграційних відносин, які в цілому спростили процес переїзду молоді та підвищили її мобільність. На основі аналізу статистичних і адміністративних даних стосовно міграції молоді з Карпатського регіону визначено, що швидке поширення позитивних міграційних аспірацій серед молодого населення набуває нових загрозливих форм і в перспективі може призвести до нарощування обсягів міграційних втрат у Карпатському регіоні.Активізація зовнішніх міграційних настроїв і загострення проблемної ситуації значною мірою зумовлено й чинником пасивної державної та регіональної міграційної політики, яка проявляється через несформованість системи реального комплексного обліку міграції, незавершеність системи інституційно-організаційного та інституційно-правового регулювання міграційних процесів на регіональному і місцевому рівнях, низьку якість і організаційно-технічні можливості елементів інфраструктури міграційних послуг, недовикористання потенціалу міграційних програм обміну у сферах освіти, науки, науково-дослідної та інноваційної діяльності, туризму, інвестиційних і бізнес-проєктів, відсутність регіональних програм стимулювання рееміграції освітніх і трудових мігрантів.З метою усунення цих недоліків міграційної політики і мінімізації завдяки цьому ризиків і загроз зростання міграційної активності молоді Карпатського регіону запропоновано інструменти і засоби підвищення якості системи моніторингу зовнішньої міграції, створення регіональних баз даних щодо структурно-динамічних характеристик міграції, формування системи превентивних інструментів міграційної політики, спрямованих на регулювання регіональних ринків праці, а також відповідні напрями реалізації концепції розвитку інфраструктури ринку міграційних послуг, стимулювання рееміграції освітніх і трудових мігрантів, удосконалення системи інституційного забезпечення міграційної політики в Карпатському регіоні.

Gender, Environmental Change, and Migration Aspirations and Abilities in Tangier and Tinghir, Morocco

Gender, Environmental Change, and Migration Aspirations and Abilities in Tangier and Tinghir, Morocco

Syrian refugees and other Syrian forced migrants in Jordan: forms of capital approach

ABSTRACT The article explored human, social, and economic capital of Syrian refugees and other Syrian forced migrants in Jordan. Interrelations of their human, social, and economic forms of capital affected their everyday lives in Jordan as well as their future migration aspirations. The data consisted of a semi-structured survey among 408 Syrian refugees and other forced Syrian migrants in Jordan. Varied combinations of these forms of capital significantly impacted the well-being of these Syrians in the host state. Those who consolidated human capital and possessed dispersed and open social networks created coping strategies through education and employment that were more likely to be effective, and they considered immigrating to countries that are more developed. Syrians who lacked capital stocks in Jordan often found themselves at the risk of poverty, immobility or forced return to their ruined livelihoods in Syria. The article debunked the myth about powerlessness and passiveness of refugees and other forced migrants and drew attention to their agency and assets. Their levels of vulnerability in the host country significantly varied among individuals with different capital stocks. The authors provided policy recommendations on empowerment of these increasingly vulnerable migrants.

Migration Decision-Making and Its Key Dimensions

Migration decisions are made in the context of personal needs and desires, and the individuals making these decisions face uncertain outcomes. Information about future opportunities is incomplete, and whether migration turns out to be a personal success or failure depends mostly on circumstances that are ex ante unknown and ex post not fully under the control of the individuals who migrate. This article elaborates on four dimensions of the complex process of migration decision-making: the formation of migration aspirations, the cognitive rules for searching and evaluating information about migratory options, the timing and planning horizons for preparing and realizing migratory decisions, and the locus of control and degree of agency in making migration decisions. We review the current state of evidence and identify opportunities for future empirical research that can help us to better understand these key dimensions of migration decision-making.

The ambivalent relations behind civil society’s engagement in the “grey zones” of migration and integration governance: Case studies from Belgium

Based on qualitative data collected in two different Belgian cities (Brussels and Liège), this article focuses on the emergence of civil society initiatives to address the grey zones of migration and integration governance in the country. We define the concept of grey zones as situations that appear in specific time-spaces where problematic issues arise and the state fails to intervene. This triggers the intervention of civil society to deal with specific governance issues. In Belgium, the state – through an indifference-as-policy approach – delegates the responsibilities of reception and integration policies to multiple actors and leaves space for a variety of citizens’ initiatives to emerge. The grey zones of government policies become spaces for possible citizen-organised actions aimed at both providing initial reception and legal support to migrants, and denouncing the absence of state intervention. These citizen actions operate in particular on the issue of housing and reception of forced migrants with different legal status and migration aspirations. We also highlight the ambivalent relations emerging between civil society actors and the state. Through the analysis of two situated case studies, this article aims to provide evidence on how these civil society initiatives develop and how their humanitarian approach becomes political.

Notion of Belonging in the Nation-State: Gendered Construction of International Migration Aspirations among University Students in Bangladesh

Migration is not a new phenomenon, yet migration aspirations need to be studied carefully. This research looks into the gendered constructions of migration aspirations among university students. Bangladesh as a nation-state plays a pivotal role to construct gender specific migration propensities. Prevailing gender relations influence migration dynamics at macro, meso and micro-level. Consequently, girls have often different reasons for migration aspirations than their counterparts. This study finds that young men aspire to go abroad for better employment opportunities and standard livelihood, while young women tend to do so for personal security and secured life. Mostly, informants are found dissatisfied and frustrated about the state and fellow citizens.

Disciplining migration aspirations through migration-information campaigns: A systematic review of the literature.

In the past few years, governmental agencies have developed a diverse repertoire of migration‐management measures to steer migration flows and discipline unwanted migration. Migration‐information campaigns have become a prominent tool aimed at communicating directly to migration aspirations of the targeted population in transit and sending countries. Through these information campaigns the geographical locus of control is shifted toward where the receiving state seeks to steer migration flows. This review paper is a research synthesis on literature engaging with migration‐information campaigns. The study is based on 17 peer‐reviewed journal articles from the years 2010–2020. Articles were coded based on discipline, type of research, research perspective, geographic origin and focus of the campaigns, objectives and rationale of the campaigns, tools and methods used in those campaigns, campaign funding, actor constellations, and a general assessment of each article. Findings from this study identify prominent trends as well as blind spots in the current research and indicate that there is still little research available on information campaigns concerning irregular migration, and even fewer studies report on their effectiveness. By implication future research is advised to focus on empirical studies on the impact of information campaigns on migrants' aspirations.

Migration aspirations of territory population: A case study of Ukraine

The level of positive migration aspirations of the population is determined by the unfavorable socio-economic environment and ineffective management of territory development, in particular the level of deprivation, including labor, security and living conditions. The paper aims to assess the impact of different components of deprivation on the spread of migration aspirations and create the landscape of a territory migration capacity. The methodological tool of the study is a sociological survey (a case study of Lviv Oblast, Ukraine) using a questionnaire (self-administration), which covered more than 500 people. Processing of results is carried out using SPSS software. The results of the sociological survey across migration vectors show the cause-effect relation between positive external aspirations and deprivation components. According to the assessment, the EU countries vector (72.0%) has the highest level of positive migration aspirations by income deprivation, and domestic migration vector – the lowest level (41.0%). The highest deprivation levels among socio-economic, environmental, and medical-demographical conditions for ineffective management of Lviv Oblast was detected for educational services with the level of 3.6 out of 5 possible, moderate level – for living and environmental conditions (2.9 each), and the lowest one for medical services (2.7). The spread of deprivation components at the territory according to the level of positive migration aspirations analysis shown that the highest deprivation levels in Lviv Oblast are peculiar to components such as the quality of medical services (43.4%), income (36.5%), and living conditions (35.1%). This study is of practical value for forming landscape of territory migration capacity including weighed migration aspirations and socio-economic deprivation levels. AcknowledgmentsThe study has been conducted within the framework of Applied Research “Financial determinants of the provision of economic growth in the regions and territorial communities based on behavioral economy” with the support of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (M. Dolishniy Institute of Regional Research of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the grant Reg. No. 2020.02/0215, 2020-2022).

Educational and migration aspirations among children of Mexican migrant returnees in a border context

Abstract There has been a significant increase in migrant children from the USA living in Mexico in the last two decades. This article analyses the association between transnational schooling and the education and migration aspirations (the country one wishes to live or work in) of lower secondary students in Tijuana, a border city with very high return migration. This article also addresses how education and migration aspirations are connected and the extent to which these aspirations are mediated by US-specific capital (US citizenship, having family members in the USA, English proficiency, and cultural identification with the USA). The analyses draw from the 2017 School Integration and Migration Survey, conducted among students in 86 lower secondary schools, and 38 follow-up semi-structured interviews with transnational students. The results indicate that students with US school experience were more likely to aspire to study a two-year college or technical degree than nontransnational students. Transnational schooling was also directly associated with aspiring to migrate or engage in cross-border employment. Interviews elucidate the ways tertiary education plans were subordinate to intentions to work in the USA as funding their education became part of transnational students’ life projects. US schools were essential conduits through which education values, English skills, and national identities became ingrained in Mexican migrant children. Students’ migratory aspirations were nurtured by their experience in US schools and transnational social networks, in addition to their US citizenship. The public policy implications of these findings are also discussed.