Rural Immigrants Research Articles

RURAL TEMPORARY MIGRANT WORKERS: ADJUSTMENT AND INTEGRATION IN PORTUGAL

This study aimed to analyze the main adjustment difficulties encountered by temporary immigrants and to identify the ways in which organizations received them and implemented integration strategies. Using a sample of three human resource managers, six supervisors and 50 immigrants of varying nationalities, the results revealed that although immigrants claimed to feel largely integrated in the new society and the organizations where they worked, the supervisors argued that integration and adjustment practices directed at immigrant workers were almost non-existent. The practices carried out by the organizations were primarily related to the work aspect, alongside a degree of support with bureaucratic issues and in some cases the provision of Portuguese language courses. Studies on rural immigrants are scarce, especially with regard to organizational integration practices. Managing a diverse workforce is one of the great challenges of modern organizations, hence immigrant workers’ integration is critical not only for the individuals themselves but also for the performance and success of the companies as a whole.

An Assessment of Urban Park Access Using House-Level Data in Urban China: Through the Lens of Social Equity.

The various benefits of urban green space are gaining increasing attention nowadays. Hence, the distribution of green space has become a scrutinized concern for spatial equity among local governments and the planning scholars. This study is the first quantitative evaluation of urban park accessibility using house-level data in urban China, from the perspective of social equity. We chose Nanjing as the empirical case and examined 2709 real estate units and 79 parks within the city. Accessibility is measured by the 10-min walking distance from homes to the adjacent urban parks. Using the Street Network Analysis model in ArcGIS and the statistical methods in SPSS, the result shows that 60.5% of the real estates in Nanjing are located within a 10-min walk to access urban parks. However, this accessibility is positively correlated with housing prices, and negatively correlated with the age of the buildings, holding all other factors constant. While affluent homeowners capture a high-quality green amenity, newly-built low-income communities, where most residents are classified as a vulnerable population, have the lowest percentage of accessible green space. This study reveals the existing spatial disparities of urban park accessibility among different socio-economic groups in Nanjing, China. Additionally, we found that urban redevelopment projects with greening and the large-scale affordable housing construction are pricing out the urban poor and rural immigrants from the inner city to the urban peripheral areas. This will reduce the accessibility to urban parks and other public service facilities among the lower income families, and exacerbate the inequality among the rich and the poor in terms of their quality of life. Main findings of this study can inform policy decisions regarding equitable park provision in the construction of the green city and the sustainable development in urban China and other developing countries.

Inclusive Governance of Urban Informal Economy From the Perspective of Shared Development

Under the background of China's rapid urbanization, the informal economy in urban areas has become the rational choice of the action subject under the institutional constraints. The root cause is the insufficient supply of the action subject's rights in urban governance. Rural immigrants lack urban identity and their original identity suffers from identity crisis. Urban rights to share the fruits of urban development are suspended. Urban informal economy has gradually become an important object of urban governance. Adopting inclusive governance policies has become an inevitable choice for urban governments. From the perspective of Shared development, the future approach of urban governments to inclusive governance of urban informal economy lies in eliminating policy bias, reshaping competition and cooperation relations among government and market and implementing equalization of urban public services.

“Investigating the Mechanism of Place and Community Impact on Quality of Life of Rural-Urban Migrants”

In this study, we explore how urban places and associated community affect one other as well as the quality of life of rural immigrants. The purpose of this study is to provide more accurate insight into the spatial and social factors affecting the quality of life of rural-urban migrants. Migration is closely linked to people’s living conditions. Specifically, the feelings one has about the quality of their place and the society in which they live impacts decisions to stay or move from one place to another. If deciding to move, migration affects the quality of life through the migrants’ sense of place and the new community they are relocating to. Our study was conducted in Hamedan, Iran - a place that experiences the migration of many different ethnicities given its central location in Hamadan province and the quality of life conditions in surrounding geographical locations. We surveyed 2735 citizens who had migrated to the city in the last 2 to 5 years. Our results indicate that place attachment and social capital, as variables that represent rural migrants’ sense of place and urban community, are both related to the quality of life of migrants. Furthermore, social capital moderates place attachment and has a significant impact on subjective quality of life among rural-urban migrants. We suggest that high levels of social capital must be present to ensure a satisfactory subjective quality of life among rural-urban migrants.

Could Rural Immigrants Be Assimilated into the Urban Labor Market

This paper traces the period when the protection of rural immigrants’ rights and interests is relatively rare. Based on the CHIPS2007 data, this paper investigates whether rural immigrants could be assimilated into the urban labor market through extending the migration time and accumulating the non-agricultural work experience which is compatible with the destination. The results show that although the returns on the non-agricultural work experience of rural immigrants are higher than those of urban workers in the short-term, the relative returns on the experience will gradually decline in the long-term. As a result, rural immigrants could not be assimilated into the urban labor market during their life cycle. We should note that there is a sample self-selection problem in our empirical research, that is, some rural immigrants may choose to return to their hometowns, and their decisions are the results of their self-selection, which are related to the observable individual characteristics and the unobservable individual abilities. If we ignore the rural immigrants who may choose to return to hometowns, the estimation of the impact of migration time on the wage gap between rural immigrants and urban workers will suffer from a large deviation. Based on this judgment, we employ the Heckman’s two-steps model to correct the selection bias. After correcting the selection bias, we find that the hourly wage of rural immigrants is about 30.53% lower than that of urban workers at the beginning of migration, and the sustained migration could eliminate up to 9.4% of the wage gap. Although the assimilation rate between rural immigrants and urban workers has increased, rural immigrants still cannot be assimilated into the urban labor market through extending the migration time. In order to deeply investigate the reasons why rural immigrants cannot be assimilated by extending their migration time, we firstly use an occupational transfer matrix to analyze the occupational distribution of rural immigrants and whether there are rises in their occupational ladder. Our results show that the occupational distribution of rural immigrants is relatively fixed and there is a lack of rise in their occupational ladder. Furthermore, we employ the improved Brown Decomposition method to investigate the wage gap between rural immigrants and urban workers from three dimensions: between occupation effect”, within occupation effect”, and assimilation effect”. We find that assimilation effect” brought by the extension of the migration time can reduce the wage gap to a certain extent, but it could not fundamentally eliminate the wage gap caused by both the household register discrimination within the occupation and the lack of human capital which makes them not have the abilities to climb the occupational ladder.

Perspectives of Socio-Spatial Differentiation from Soaring Housing Prices: A Case Study in Nanjing, China

Launched in 1998, the market-oriented reform of urban housing has given urban housing the dual attributes of residence and investment, and led to the rapid growth of housing prices as well as the intensification of its spatial differentiation within cities. However, the spatial patterns of the differentiation and its mechanism as well as socio-spatial effects are rarely touched. This paper studies 3963 urban residential districts in central Nanjing and explores the socio-spatial differentiation pattern and process of the urban housing prices and its growth in Nanjing based on the sample data of housing transactions over 30 quarters during the period of 2009–2017. The paper concludes that, by splitting the research duration into phases of six quarters each, the average housing prices in Nanjing alternates between “rapid growth” and “relatively stable” phases. At the same time, this paper finds that the spatial heterogeneity of housing prices in the city has been enhanced constantly, and the price gap in different types of residential housing has been clearly widened. In combination with the price level, location characteristics and architectural attributes of residential districts, this paper has categorized housing in Nanjing into nine typical types in a comprehensive manner. Based on the differences in their spatial attributes such as location, comfort and scarcity etc., different types of residences exhibit different pricing and price-to-rent ratio growth models. Based on those findings, we discussed the mechanism of the socio-spatial differentiation of housing prices in Nanjing from the housing reform and strategies of urban renewal and expansion. Beyond that, we discussed the role of urban housing consumption in the process of (re)production of urban classes, and its negative effects on urban young people, rural immigrants and other disadvantaged families. At the end of the paper, the policy suggestion about the supply-side reform of the housing market to promote socio-spatial equity and sustainable development is also presented.

Economic reform, uneven regional development and internal migration in India

ABSTRACTAs per the existing literature on the theory of migration, inequality, regional wage differentials and regional development create a natural spur for people to migrate. Focusing on India, this study aims to investigate the effects of uneven regional development on internal in-migration before and after economic reform using panel data regression analysis. The paper attempts to contribute to the literature by linking migration to the development aspect of the economy. The nature of streams of migration appears to change after economic reforms with internal movement occurring within rural sectors with much prominence. The variation in in-migration rates too dropped across states, showing a more homogenous spread of migrants. The models based on nine different in-migration behaviours show more significant relations between the economic variables than with social variables. With the highest share of migrants flocking in urban areas, migration between urban-to-urban and rural-to-urban areas dominates in terms of destination and source in contemporary times. Interestingly, development of the manufacturing sector appears to be the most significant pull factor in the urban sectors for male in-migrants and specifically in urban-to-urban stream of migration while development of construction sector has encouraged females more to move into rural-to-rural and rural-to-urban patterns of movement. The service sector development has significantly influenced the movement towards the urban sector. The role of expenditure on the social sector and literacy level of the states havs remained trivial in attracting migrants though the development of employment schemes has hindered the movement of migrants in nearly all realms of in-migration behaviours. Interestingly migration has also occurred in poverty-stricken states, specifically in urban-to-rural and urban-to-urban direction. Nevertheless, the urbanization rate of the state has played a decisive role in determining the in-migration trend except for rural in-migration behaviour, specifically in rural-to-rural in-migration behaviour. The study confirms that both the development and underdevelopment aspects of regions through structural adjustments initiated after the economic reform in India in the decade of 1990s are strongly associated with internal in-migration in contemporary India.

Rural attraction: The spatial pattern and driving factors of China's rural in-migration

Human migration is a direct indicator of rural attraction. As the world's most populous nation, China is experiencing a rural population decline. The government is actively focusing on a rural revitalization strategy to make rural areas sustainable. Based on data from the sixth census in 2010, this paper applies the Moran's I method and spatial lag regression model to analyze the spatial pattern and driving factors of China's rural migration. The main conclusions are listed as follows. (1) The areas, including the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the northwestern areas, were the most attractive destinations for rural migrants. (2) The inter-provincial rural migration pattern is close to the total rural migration pattern, but is different from the intra-provincial pattern. (3) In general, job opportunities in the secondary industry, rural income, rural investment, and the local economic levels were all main drivers for rural migration. The driving mechanisms varied in the eastern, central, and western provinces. To support China's efforts in rural revitalization, regionally different policies, urban-rural integration, and new economic factors are suggested and highlighted from the perspective of rural migration.

Factors Shaping Second Language Acquisition Among Adult Mexican Immigrants in Rural Immigrant Destinations

This article investigated the intrinsic, extrinsic, and integrative orientations shaping reading and speaking English skills among adult Mexican immigrants in two gateway communities in Illinois. Intrinsic orientations refer to reasons for second language (L2) learning derived from one’s inherent pleasure and interest in the activity. Extrinsic orientations refer to reasons that are instrumental to some consequence. In turn, integrative orientation refers to social identity issues that are addressed by neither the intrinsic nor the extrinsic orientations. Findings indicated that whereas extrinsic and integrative orientations influenced English language skills, intrinsic orientations did not. More specifically, immigrants had multiple extrinsic reasons to be motivated to learn the language, including succeeding in the United States, finding (better) jobs, and communicating with health providers, bank tellers, and grocery store employees. In turn, both quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that closeness and openness toward L2 group influenced the desire to learn the language.

Entrepreneurial in-migration and rural development in Czechia: A challenge of integrating the local and extra-local in rural planning

Abstrakt: Despite the decreasing importance of farming for rural economies, diversification of farming activities is still perceived by the EU as one of the sources of new jobs in rural areas. However, as authors argue, there are more efficient ways for new job generation associated with entrepreneurial rural in-migration. Such migration movement brings new entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and creativity to rural areas. By presenting the results of our interview survey with urban newcomers to peripheral rural areas of Czechia, we would like to draw attention to this alternative and under-researched way of rural development, especially in the Central and Eastern Europe. This article analyses the contribution of entrepreneurial in-migrants to local economies and examines new ways for better incorporation of rural entrepreneurial in-migration into rural development planning.

The Rural Immigration Effects on Urban Service Delivery in South Africa (SA)

The current socio-economic and political problems of South Africa are rooted in the colonial apartheid era as scholars and researchers suggest through extensive research. However, there have been high levels of service delivery protests related to the government performance on the issues of service delivery to the local communities’ countrywide. Governments departments appear to be lacking much required knowledge and understanding of external factors associated with rural to urban migration such social-economic factors and other various relevant challenges, hence, local authorities are struggling to meet up with demands caused by the ever-increasing number of urban populations, which affects services delivery performance. The study was quantitative approach and used 5 Likert scale questionnaires which were distributed in the selected areas of eThekwini city. A total of 100 with 25 respondents per area, chosen areas include emhlabeni, emalandeni, ezimeleni and silver city. Whereas, qualitative aspects of the study were secondary data through extensive literature review, the study has found that indeed rural to urban migration has a negative impact on service delivery the study argue that service delivery, rural to urban migration, public participation need to be part of the government agenda holistically to improve service delivery and capacity of local authorities. This study recommends proactive urban planning and community involvement through public participation channels. The generalization of the findings of this study should be done with care.

The Rural Immigration Effects on Urban Service Delivery in South Africa (SA)

The current socio-economic and political problems of South Africa are rooted in the colonial apartheid era as scholars and researchers suggest through extensive research. However, there have been high levels of service delivery protests related to the government performance on the issues of service delivery to the local communities’ countrywide. Governments departments appear to be lacking much required knowledge and understanding of external factors associated with rural to urban migration such social-economic factors and other various relevant challenges, hence, local authorities are struggling to meet up with demands caused by the ever-increasing number of urban populations, which affects services delivery performance. The study was quantitative approach and used 5 Likert scale questionnaires which were distributed in the selected areas of eThekwini city. A total of 100 with 25 respondents per area, chosen areas include emhlabeni, emalandeni, ezimeleni and silver city. Whereas, qualitative aspects of the study were secondary data through extensive literature review, the study has found that indeed rural to urban migration has a negative impact on service delivery the study argue that service delivery, rural to urban migration, public participation need to be part of the government agenda holistically to improve service delivery and capacity of local authorities. This study recommends proactive urban planning and community involvement through public participation channels. The generalization of the findings of this study should be done with care.

Discussion of “Probability Sampling by Connecting Space with Households Using GIS/GPS Technologies” by Chen, X.; Xu, X.; Gong, J.; Yan, Y.; Fang, L.

Many innovative, new sampling plans that have been proposed for use in “resource limited” settings use GIS, GPS and Google Earth technology. In this issue of JSSAM, Chen, et al. describe a GIS/GPS-assisted area probability sampling method and its application to an epidemiological study designed to investigate the relationship between social capital and HIV risk behaviors among rural immigrants to the city of Wuhan, China. The following discussion examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Chen et al. sampling plan and related applications of GIS/GPS/Google Earth technology to area probability sampling of household target populations. The aim is to stimulate additional methodological research on GIS/GPS-assisted area probability sample designs, focused on the real constraints that exist in resource limited settings but with an eye to opportunities that the GIS/GPS and Google Earth technology provide to construct designs that are optimal under those constraints.

Globalising Swedish countrysides? A relational approach to rural immigrant restaurateurs with refugee backgrounds

ABSTRACTThe main purpose of the article is to connect rural immigrants’ business ventures and development in Sweden to relational perspectives on their proximate and distant family and co-ethnic networks at structural and individual levels. Accordingly, the authors employ a relational approach and draw on in-depth interviews. In the context of urban–rural relationships’ meanings for the restaurateurs’ business benefits and constraints, they address two questions: (1) What does embeddedness in proximate and distant family and co-ethnic networks mean for the interviewed restaurateurs and for their businesses? and (2) How do previous and anticipated transitions in the restaurateurs’ families influence their business decisions and migration trajectories? The results suggest that the interviewees employed transnational dimensions in their social embeddedness and that they maintained material and emotional relationships with their countries of origin. This relational approach thus contributes to a better understanding of what the studied businesses mean for the entrepreneurs and the selected localities. The restaurateurs contribute to a globalisation of Swedish countrysides, but their socio-economic potential for countering rural depopulation in Sweden is not fully realised. Additionally, the study illuminates how individuals influence, and are influenced by, place-to-place mobilities on a daily basis and during their life course.

Risks and Uncertainty in the Formal Solutions to the Informal Settlements in India

This paper discusses various formal solutions adopted by the Indian official bodies to deal with the Indian informal settlements “the slums”. It focuses on Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) or the “Housing for All by 2022” as an essential housing act toward improv-ing the living conditions of the informal settlements, and to achieve cities and housing for all. According to the Indian 2011 censes, 66% of formal towns and cities in India have informal areas. Nearly one in every six urban Indian res-idents lives in a slum. Poor and rural immigrants find in the slums a physical shelter, but they lack quality of living and basic social-economic infrastructure. Bringing formal solution to the informal set-tlements is a challenge that requires deep understanding of the Indian heterogeneous population. This paper starts with the main housing policies that were launched in India during the 2000s, and extend to cover several case studies in In-dian cities based on a field visit conducted in India. It discusses sever-al concepts applied such as in-situ and relocation alternatives; possible improvements for the local communities by promoting livelihood re-sources; the concepts of using land as a resource, land pooling and public private partnership in developing the slums. This paper aims to understand the notion of risks and uncertainty in these solutions as constraints in improving the informal settlements in India for a better urbanism future.

Dental disease and dietary isotopes of individuals from St Gertrude Church cemetery, Riga, Latvia.

This research explores oral health indicators and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data to explore diet, and differences in diet, between people buried in the four different contexts of the St Gertrude Church cemetery (15th– 17th centuries AD): the general cemetery, two mass graves, and a collective mass burial pit within the general cemetery. The main aim is to assess whether people buried in the mass graves were rural immigrants, or if they were more likely to be the victims of plague (or another epidemic) who lived in Riga and its suburbs. The data produced (from dental disease assessments and isotope analyses) were compared within, as well as between, the contexts. Most differences emerged when comparing the prevalence rates of dental diseases and other oral health indicators in males and females between the contexts, while isotope analysis revealed more individual, rather than context-specific, differences. The data suggested that the populations buried in the mass graves were different from those buried in the general cemetery, and support the theory that rural immigrants were buried in both mass graves. Significant differences were observed in some aspects of the data between the mass graves, however, possibly indicating that the people buried in them do not represent the same community.

Does industrialization affect segregation? Evidence from nineteenth-century Cairo

We investigate the impact of state industrialization on residential segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims in nineteenth-century Cairo using individual-level census samples from 1848 and 1868. We measure local segregation by a simple inter-group isolation index, where Muslims’ (non-Muslims’) isolation is measured by the share of Muslim (non-Muslim) households in the local environment of each location. We find that relative to locations that did not witness changes in the instance of industrialization, the opening of Cairo railway station in 1856 differentially increased Muslims’ isolation from non-Muslims (conversely, decreased non-Muslims’ isolation) in its proximity and that the closures of textiles firms in 1848–1868 differentially decreased it. The results are arguably driven by an “indirect” labor market mechanism, whereby state industrialized firms crowded in private-sector unskilled jobs that attracted greater net inflows of rural immigrants and unskilled workers who were predominantly Muslims.

Immigrant entrepreneurship contextualised

PurposeThis paper aims to address the rural and gender gaps in the immigrant entrepreneurship literature by exploring the start-up stories of 18 female immigrants who currently run a business in northernmost Norway.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a qualitative fieldwork including business visits and in-depth interviews. The transcripts from the interviews were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach.FindingsFour modes of entry to entrepreneurship were identified: entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment; entrepreneurship as a means to avoid underemployment, entrepreneurship as a means to live in a region of perceived attraction; and entrepreneurship as a preferred choice for women in satisfactory wage labour. In addition, the paper reveals the importance of family support and of spatial embeddedness among immigrant entrepreneurs living in a rural context.Practical implicationsThis study notes that the modes of entry to rural immigrant entrepreneurship are diverse, but that they are often partly related to the pursuit of an initial feeling of belonging in the new region of settlement. Hence, developing the knowledge of how to not only attract but also retain and increase the feeling of local belonging of immigrants may be important for many rural regions in the Western world. This is because rural immigrants not only represent a much needed in-flow of younger people in a typically decreasing and ageing population but also entail cultural variation and job creation, thus contributing to place development.Social implicationsThe paper argues for the importance of considering immigrant entrepreneurs as significant actors of rural development.Originality/valueWhile immigrant entrepreneurship has emerged as an important field of study, it has been criticised for focusing predominantly on men and for neglecting contextual variations in the analysis. The rural context especially has been largely omitted. By focusing on female immigrants having established a business in a rural context, the paper adds to the literature, firstly, by highlighting the experiences of female immigrant entrepreneurs. Secondly, it reveals that rural immigrant entrepreneurship cannot be conceived in terms of “ethnic resources” or “enclave economy” that are often central explanatory dimensions in megacity studies. Thirdly, it argues for the importance of considering both the spatial as well as the family contexts in the author’s theoretical conceptualizations of the (immigrant) entrepreneurial start-up phase.

Coping and resilience of rural and regional Australian immigrants: imperatives for successful settlement

This research provides an understanding of the coping strategies for successful settlement of Australian immigrants by elucidating key conceptual constructs relating to resilience development. Using qualitative descriptive methodology, 10 in-depth interviews with immigrants settling in regional South Australia between 2007 and 2012 were conducted. Thematic analysis was used to identify participants’ meanings and realities associated with immigration and settlement. Five themes emerged around resilience, goals, settlement planning, healthy lifestyles and adaptation. A multidimensional conceptual model was created to capture how the immigrants coped and developed resilience. Findings offer insights for Australian immigrants, policymakers, and human service and health professionals, as well as academic researchers.

Becoming Spatially Embedded: Findings from a Study on Rural Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Norway

Objective : The purpose of this article is to offer a nuanced understanding of (immigrant) entrepreneurship as a socio-economic and spatially embedded practice by analysing data from a qualitative study in Finnmark, in northernmost Norway. Research Design & Methods : The article is based on a qualitative fieldwork including business visits and in-depth interviews. The transcripts from the interviews were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach (CGT). Findings: The article contributes to the entrepreneurship literature in general and to the immigrant entrepreneurship literature in particular by investigating mutual connections between immigrant entrepreneurs, place and community. The article firstly reveals that immigrants may be able to successfully create and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities literally from day one in the rural community in which they settle. Implications & Recommendations: This study notes that immigrant entrepreneurs may contribute to building the periphery. Hence, developing our knowledge of how to increase the feeling of local belonging of immigrants may be important for many rural regions. This is because, rural immigrants not only represent a much needed inflow of younger people in a typically decreasing and ageing population, but also entail cultural variation and job creation, thus contributing to place development. Contribution & Value Added: The originality of this article is to investigate mutual connections between immigrant entrepreneurs, place and community, hence revealing how immigrants, when being supported by the rural community, may be able to successfully create and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities in rural communities, and, through entrepreneurship processes, may even contribute to (re)build the rural areas. Â Â Â Â