Migration

Contents

 

Introduction………………………………………………………………………...3

1. Migration History……………………………………………………………5
2. Migration: definition, statistics……………………………………………...7
3. Modern migrations: Industrialization………………………………………12
4. Migration in Russia……………………………………………….………..13

Conclusion…………………...……………………………………………………17

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

            Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic people have retained this form of lifestyle in modern times. Migration has continued under the form of both voluntary migration within one's region, country, or beyond and involuntary migration (which includes the slave trade, trafficking in human beings and ethnic cleansing). People who migrate into a territory are called immigrants, while at the departure point they are called emigrants. Small populations migrating to develop a territory considered void of settlement depending on historical setting, circumstances and perspective are referred to as settlers or colonists, while populations displaced by immigration and colonization are called refugees. The rest of this article will cover sense of a "change of residence", rather than the temporary migrations of travel, tourism, pilgrimages, or the commute.

          International migration occurs when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum length of time [1]. Migration occurs for many reasons. Many people leave their home countries in order to look for economic opportunities in another country. Others migrate to be with family members who have migrated or because of political conditions in their countries. Education is another reason for international migration, as students pursue their studies abroad.[2] While there are several different potential systems for categorizing international migrants, one system organizes them into nine groups: temporary labour migrants; irregular, illegal, or undocumented migrants; highly skilled and business migrants; irregular migrants; refugees; asylum seekers; forced migration; family members; return migrants; and long-term, low-skilled migrants.[3] These migrants can also be divided into two large groups, permanent and temporary. Permanent migrants intend to establish their permanent residence in a new country and possibly obtain that country’s citizenship. Temporary migrants intend only to stay for a limited periods of time; perhaps until the end of a particular program of study or for the duration of a their work contract or a certain work season.[4] Both types of migrants have a significant effect on the economies and societies of the chosen destination country and the country of origin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Migration History

Historical migration of human populations begins with the movement of Homo erectus out of Africa across Eurasia about a million years ago. Homo sapiens appear to have occupied all of Africa about 150,000 years ago, moved out of Africa 70,000 years ago, and had spread across Australia, Asia and Europe by 40,000 years BC. Migration to the Americas took place 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, and by 2,000 years ago, most of the Pacific Islands were colonized. Later population movements notably include the Neolithic Revolution, Indo-European expansion, and the Early Medieval Great Migrations including Turkic expansion. In some places, substantial cultural transformation occurred following the migration of relatively small elite populations, Turkey and Azerbaijan being such examples.[4] In Britain, it is considered that the Roman and Norman conquests were similar examples, while "the most hotly debated of all the British cultural transitions is the role of migration in the relatively sudden and drastic change from Romano-Britain to Anglo-Saxon Britain", which may be explained by a possible "substantial migration of Anglo-Saxon Y chromosomes into Central England (contributing 50%–100% to the gene pool at that time."[5]

Early humans migrated due to many factors such as changing climate and landscape and inadequate food supply. The evidence indicates that the ancestors of the Austronesian peoples spread from the South Chinese mainland to Taiwan at some time around 8,000 years ago. Evidence from historical linguistics suggests that it is from this island that seafaring peoples migrated, perhaps in distinct waves separated by millennia, to the entire region encompassed by the Austronesian languages. It is believed that this migration began around 6,000 years ago.[6] Indo-Aryan migration from the Indus Valley to the plain of the River Ganga in Northern India is presumed to have taken place in the Middle to Late Bronze Age, contemporary to the Late Harappan phase in India (ca. 1700 to 1300 BC). From 180 BC, a series of invasions from Central Asia followed, including those led by the Indo-Greeks, Indo-Scythians, Indo-Parthians and Kushans in the northwestern Indian subcontinent.[7][8][9]

From 728 BC, the Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in several places, including Sicily and Marseille. In Europe, two waves of migrations dominate demographic distributions, that of the Celtic people and that of the later Migration Period from the North and East, both being possible examples of general cultural change sparked by primarily elite and warrior migration.[citation needed] Other examples are small movements like that of the Magyars into Pannonia (modern-day Hungary). Turkic peoples spread from their homeland in modern Turkestan across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries. Recent research suggests that Madagascar was uninhabited until Austronesian seafarers from Indonesia arrived during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Subsequent migrations from both the Pacific and Africa further consolidated this original mixture, and Malagasy people emerged.[10]

One common hypothesis of the Bantu expansion

Before the expansion of the Bantu languages and their speakers, the southern half of Africa is believed to have been populated by Pygmies and Khoisan-speaking people, today occupying the arid regions around the Kalahari Desert and the forest of Central Africa. By about 1000 AD, Bantu migration had reached modern day Zimbabwe and South Africa. The Banu Hilal and Banu Ma'qil were a collection of Arab Bedouin tribes from the Arabian Peninsula who migrated westwards via Egypt between the 11th and 13th centuries. Their migration strongly contributed to the Arabization and Islamization of the western Maghreb, which was until then dominated by Berber tribes. Ostsiedlung was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans. The 13th century was the time of the great Mongol and Turkic migrations across Eurasia.[11]

Between the 11th and 18th centuries, the Vietnamese expanded southward in a process known as nam tiến (southward expansion).[12] Manchuria was separated from China proper by the Inner Willow Palisade, which restricted the movement of the Han Chinese into Manchuria during the Qing Dynasty, as the area was off-limits to the Han until the Qing started colonizing the area with them later on in the dynasty's rule.[13]

The Age of Exploration and European colonialism led to an accelerated pace of migration since Early Modern times. In the 16th century, perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered American ports.[14] In the 19th century, over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas.[15] The local populations or tribes, such as the Aboriginal people in Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Japan[16] and the United States, were usually far overwhelmed numerically by the settlers.

 

2. Migration: definition, statistics

According to International Organization for Migration, "no universally accepted definition for (migrant) exists. The term migrant was usually understood to cover all cases where the decision to migrate was taken freely by the individual concerned for reasons of "personal convenience" and without intervention of an external compelling factor; it therefore applied to persons, and family members, moving to another country or region to better their material or social conditions and improve the prospect for themselves or their family. The United Nations defines migrant as an individual who has resided in a foreign country for more than one year irrespective of the causes, voluntary or involuntary, and the means, regular or irregular, used to migrate. Under such a definition, those travelling for shorter periods as tourists and businesspersons would not be considered migrants. However, common usage includes certain kinds of shorter-term migrants, such as seasonal farm-workers who travel for short periods to work planting or harvesting farm products." [1] Also, human migration happened when the Paleo-Indians entered America.

Migration occurs because individuals search for food, sex and security outside their usual habitation.[25] Idyorough is of the view that towns and cities are a creation of the human struggle to obtain food, sex and security. To produce food, security and reproduction, human beings must, out of necessity, move out of their usual habitation and enter into indispensable social relationships that are cooperative or antagonistic. Human beings also develop the tools and equipment to enable them to interact with nature to produce the desired food and security. The improved relationship (cooperative relationships) among human beings and improved technology further conditioned by the push and pull factors all interact together to cause or bring about migration and higher concentration of individuals into towns and cities. The higher the technology of production of food and security and the higher the cooperative relationship among human beings in the production of food and security and in the reproduction of the human species, the higher would be the push and pull factors in the migration and concentration of human beings in towns and cities. Countryside, towns and cities do not just exist but they do so to meet the human basic needs of food, security and the reproduction of the human species. Therefore, migration occurs because individuals search for food, sex and security outside their usual habitation. Social services in the towns and cities are provided to meet these basic needs for human survival and pleasure.

Similarly, the countries which receive these migrants are often grouped into four categories: traditional settlement countries, European countries which encouraged labour migration after World War II, European countries which receive a significant portion of their immigrant populations from their former colonies, and countries which formerly were points of emigration but have recently emerged as immigrant destinations.

International migration has become a central element of international relations and global integration process due to its rapidly increasing economic, social and cultural impact in both the source and destination countries.

International Migration Research Centre

Rationale:

Migration management is one of the major political and humanitarian challenges facing the world in the twenty-first century. In coping with this enormous challenge, the International Migration Organization identifies four main pillars of migration management: migration and development, facilitating migration, regulating migration, and forced migration. Each of these pillars demands multiple research and policy responses: 

Migration and development is clearly a vital issue in migrant source countries, where in some cases remittances and migrant investments surpass official development aid. Migration and development are also key issues in destination countries where labour shortages and population aging are challenges to continued economic growth. Additionally, the role of labour migrants is increasingly being articulated as a solution to labour needs in developed economies. Such debates need to include a critical evaluation of the process and ethics of temporary labour migration regimes.

Facilitating migration requires that international structures and agreements governing migration facilitation must be both enforced and evaluated. The geographical, logistical and legal challenges introduced by processes of international human mobility, or immobility, demand integrative multidisciplinary assessment. In addition research must also focus on the growing "migration industry" and the transnational social networks and cultural communities which facilitate migration.

Regulating migration presents a complex set of interrelated challenges for any society, which includes, but is not limited to, issues of social and economic justice, health, human rights, security, pluralism and multiculturalism and national sovereignty.

Forced migration has become an increasingly distressing dimension of global human existence in an age of regionalized conflict, extreme poverty, ethnic, racial, religious and gender discrimination, and environmental disaster. Forced migration, and the range of international responses to it, poses significant challenges to global peace and security, and as such, policy debate must include exceptional input from researchers.

 

Migration statistics

According to the International Organization for Migration's World Migration Report 2010, the number of international migrants was estimated at 214 million in 2010. If this number continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years, it could reach 405 million by 2050.[2] While some modern migration is a byproduct of wars (for example, emigration from Iraq and Bosnia to the US and UK), political conflicts (for example, some emigration from Zimbabwe to the UK), and natural disasters (for example, emigration from Montserrat to the UK following the eruption of the island's volcano), contemporary migration is predominantly economically motivated. In particular, there are wide disparities in the incomes that can be earned for similar work in different countries of the world. There are also, at any given time, some jobs in some high-wage countries for which there is a shortage of appropriately skilled or qualified citizens. Some countries (e.g., UK and Australia) operate points systems that give some lawful immigration visas to some non-citizens who are qualified for such shortage jobs. Non-citizens, therefore, have an economic incentive to obtain the necessary skills and qualifications in their own countries and then apply for, and migrate to take up, these job vacancies. International migration similarly motivated by economic disparities and opportunities occurs within the EU, where legal barriers to migration between member countries have been wholly or partially lifted. Countries with higher prevailing wage levels, such as France, Germany, Italy and the UK are net recipients of immigration from lower-wage member countries such as Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

Some contemporary economic migration occurs even where the migrant becomes illegally resident in their destination country and therefore at major disadvantage in the employment market. Illegal immigrants are, for example, known to cross in significant numbers, typically at night, from Mexico into the US, from Mozambique into South Africa, from Bulgaria and Turkey into Greece, and from north Africa into Spain and Italy.

The pressures of human migrations, whether as outright conquest or by slow cultural infiltration and resettlement, have affected the grand epochs in history and in land (for example, the decline of the Roman Empire); under the form of colonization, migration has transformed the world (such as the prehistoric and historic settlements of Australia and the Americas). Population genetics studied in traditionally settled modern populations have opened a window into the historical patterns of migrations, a technique pioneered by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.

Forced migration has been a means of social control under authoritarian regimes, yet free-initiative migration is a powerful factor in social adjustment and the growth of urban populations.

In December 2003, The Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) was launched with the support of Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and several countries, with an independent 19-member commission, a threefold mandate and a finite lifespan ending December 2005. Its report, based on regional consultation meetings with stakeholders and scientific reports from leading international migration experts, was published and presented to Kofi Annan on 5 October 2005.[3]

International migration challenges at the global level are addressed through the Global Migration Group, established in 2006.

Different types of migration include:

• Seasonal human migration mainly related to agriculture and tourism
• Rural to urban, more common in developing countries as industrialization takes effect (urbanization)
• Urban to rural, more common in developed countries due to a higher cost of urban living (suburbanization)
• International migration

 

3. Modern migrations: Industrialization

While the pace of migration had accelerated since the 18th century already (including the involuntary slave trade), it would increase further in the 19th century. Manning distinguishes three major types of migration: labor migration, refugee migrations, and urbanization. Millions of agricultural workers left the countryside and moved to the cities causing unprecedented levels of urbanization. This phenomenon began in Britain in the late 18th century and spread around the world and continues to this day in many areas.

 

Industrialization encouraged migration wherever it appeared. The increasingly global economy globalized the labor market. The Atlantic slave trade diminished sharply after 1820, which gave rise to self-bound contract labor migration from Europe and Asia to plantations. Overpopulation[citation needed], open agricultural frontiers, and rising industrial centers attracted voluntary migrants. Moreover, migration was significantly made easier by improved transportation techniques.

 

Transnational labor migration reached a peak of three million migrants per year in the early twentieth century. Italy, Norway, Ireland and the Guangdong region of China were regions with especially high emigration rates during these years. These large migration flows influenced the process of nation state formation in many ways. Immigration restrictions have been developed, as well as diaspora cultures and myths that reflect the importance of migration to the foundation of certain nations, like the American melting pot. The transnational labor migration fell to a lower level from 1930s to the 1960s and then rebounded.

 

The United States experienced considerable internal migration related to industrialization, including its African American population. From 1910–1970, approximately 7 million African Americans migrated from the rural Southern United States, where blacks faced both poor economic opportunities and considerable political and social prejudice, to the industrial cities of the Northeast, Midwest and West, where relatively well-paid jobs were available.[17] This phenomenon came to be known in the United States as its own Great Migration. With the demise of legalized segregation in the 1960s and greatly improved economic opportunities in the South in the subsequent decades, millions of blacks have returned to the South from other parts of the country since 1980 in what has been called the New Great Migration.

4. Migration in Russia

         Both external immigration and internal migration are crucial for social and economic development in Russia. Russia is in the middle of a severe demographic crisis. Despite minor recent improvements, ageing and depopulation are most likely to continue for decades. Given current trends in migration, Russia’s population is estimated to shrink by 20% to 112-119 million people by 2050. In the nearest future Russia will also face the problem of a shortage of  working age population. To compensate for this, Russia needs an annual inflow of 1 million immigrants – 3 times as many as the average official annual flow over the last 15 years, and 5 times as many as in the recent years after tightening the migration legislation. Not only is there a need for immigrants, but there is also a huge potential pool from which to draw from: tens of millions of skilled Russian-speaking residents of former Soviet Union countries, many of whom are willing to migrate to Russia.

        Internal migration is also important as it can help mitigate huge interregional employment imbalances and put Russia’s scarce labor resources to more efficient use. Given the Soviet legacies, there is substantial potential for improvement. Even though some reallocation has occurred during transition, there are still millions to be moved. Despite 6 years of economic growth and quickly rising wages (exceeding growth of labor productivity), and trivial unemployment in many prosperous regions, Russia still has many regions with low wages and high unemployment. If one assumes 5.5% natural unemployment rate, there are 2.3 million unemployed who could find jobs in the labor-scarce regions. And as the natural rate is probably lower, this estimate could be adjusted upwards. There are also many additional workers currently employed in depressed regions who could make a substantial contribution to Russia’s growth by moving away from these regions with low productivity and low wages to highlyproductive, high-wage regions..

       The existing data and research on both external and internal migration is far from complete in providing a clear picture of the intensity and composition of migration flows; the impact of immigration on the labor market opportunities of native populations; the careers and human capital accumulation of legal and illegal migrants; and the implications of migration for overall social welfare. All existing work does suggest, however, that the major barriers to migration are administrative controls and underdevelopment of financial and housing markets.

Russia’s migration policy has been rather counterproductive. Russian policymakers chose to follow the policies introduced in the EU and the US even though these countries’ situations are quite different from that of Russia. First, Russia’s need for migrants is more urgent as Russia’s demographic problems are more severe. Second, the costs of legal migration in Russia are lower. Most migrants have the same cultural background. Russia also has a much smaller welfare state. In addition, the higher level of corruption in Russian bureaucracy implies that repressive migration policy is very likely to push migrants into the shadow economy – even more so than it does in the OECD countries. In recent years Russia, has accumulated a stock of about 2-5 million undocumented immigrants (estimates widely vary). Given the overall problems with crime and law enforcement, the cost of having a large stock of undocumented migrants is higher in Russia than in the developed countries. The overall analysis of costs and benefits of migration implies that Russia should be much more in favor of immigration than EU countries.

       Given that Russia’s restrictive migration policy fails to stem the tide of immigrants, does the policy matter at all? There are three reasons to believe that it does. First, it may well be the case that under a different policy regime the intensity of migration flows would be different. Second, the existing policy affects the skill composition of migration. As we argue below, the existing research has not yet provided sufficient evidence on these two effects. Third, the repressive policies may have pushed many otherwise legal migrants into a clandestine migration. Again, there is little research on undocumented migrants in Russia. Yet, the research on illegal immigrants in other countries suggests that (a) repressive policy measures do create substantial illegal immigration; and (b) those who enter the country illegally are trapped in a low-skilled jobs, do not invest in their human capital, and eventually lag behind in productivity relative to native workers with the same initial levels of human capital.