Circular Migration and Enhanced Mobility

byGraeme Hugo

ARC Australian Professorial FellowProfessor of Geography and Director of the Australian Population and

Migration Research Centre, The University of Adelaide

Draft Policy Memo for ‘What We Know About Migration andDevelopment in 2013: Recommendations for Policymakers’, Initiative of Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and Center for Migration Studies (CMS)

12 June 2013

 

 

Outline of Presentation • Introduction• Conceptualising Circular

Migration• Why is it Important?• Controversies and

Misunderstandings• Development Outcomes• Recommendations• Policy Levers

Circular migration is a long established pattern of mobility within and between countries.

Considerable literature on circular migration especially within low

income countries.

Circular migration and permanent migration is usually

seen as a dichotomy, but mobility is best seen as being distributed along a continuum

Zelinsky’s (1971, 226) definition of circulation…

“… denotes a great variety of movements, usually short term, repetitive or cyclical in nature but all having in common the lack of any declared intention of a permanent or long lasting change in place of residence”

The Mobility Continuum

commuting circular migration migration

temporary permanent

commitment to origin commitment to destination

A Model of the Australia’s Migration RelationshipWith the Asia-Pacific

Movement Between China and AustraliaSource: DIAC unpublished data

1. Permanent 1993/94-20011/12 Settler Arrivals 166,973 Permanent Departures 51,994 Overseas-Born Departures 39,813 Australia-born Departures 12,181

2. Long Term Temporary Migrants from China to Australia 2007

Students 55,550 457s 6,418

3. Average Number of Short Term Visits of China-Born 1998-2006

To China from Australia - Chinese immigrants 1994-2006 2.4 - Chinese immigrants before 1994 6.2 From China to Australia - Return migrants from Australia 5.9 - Other visitors 4.4

Circular Migration

• Significant commitment to origin and destination

• Repeat moves between them

• Both internal and international migration

• Often rural-urban

• Often periphery to core

Beyond Temporary Migration

• Can migrants “belong” to more than one country?

• Can they have citizenship or long-term residence rights in more than one country?

• Significant cultural shift needed in destination country migrant policy

• “Positive Circularity” (Agunias and Newland 2007)

Increasing Significance of Circular Migration

• Modern forms of transportation make it increasingly feasible in money and time terms to circulate between two ‘homes’.

• Modern forms of communication make it increasingly possible to stay connected in an immediate and intimate way with one home while one is in the other home.

• It is increasingly being appreciated that in a favourable context, emigration can deliver benefits in terms of economic development and poverty reduction to origin areas. These benefits are likely to be maximised if the migrant retains a strong commitment to their origin by leaving their family there and repeatedly returning.

‘Circular migration is based on a continuing long term, and fluid relationship among countries that occupy what is now increasingly recognised as a single economic space’.

Agunias and Newland (2007, 3)

Types of International Circular Migration

• Overseas Contract Workers• Return Migration of Members of the

Diaspora• Student Migrants• Working Holiday Makers• ‘Astronauting’ • Company Transferees• Seasonal Labour Schemes• Transilients

The Contemporary Discourse

• Part of the migration and development debate

• Most countries facilitate high skill circular migration – ‘skill friendly’ visa systems

• Many oppose low skill circular migration – some pilot programs

Circular Migration in Contemporary Discourse on International Migration

• Has been advocated as more conducive to development in origin than permanent settlement because …- higher levels of remittances- higher levels of return migration

• In addition at destination …- reduce social cohesion difficulties- doesn’t contribute to ageing problems- facilitates meeting short term sectoral labour shortages- mitigates illegal migration

Opposition(partly based on Vertovec 2006, 43)

• Migrant workers locked into modes of dependency and exploitative relationships with employers

• Prevents upward mobility• Social costs of family separation• Compliance issues• Migrant workers vulnerable to exclusion• Costs of migration outweigh benefits

Misconceptions of Circular Migration

• Circular migration is peripheral and lacking in economic and social significance

• Temporary migration invariably leads to permanent settlement

• It is a less preferred strategy to permanent settlement among migrants

• The movers lack agency• It is a form of subsistence providing only enough for

survival• Circular migrants lack social mobility

Two Theories on Circular Migration

• All temporary migration is in the initial stage of permanent settlement (Price, 1963; Massey, 1986)

• Alternative view point sees temporary migration as a long term migration strategy (eg Chapman and Prothero 2011)

• In reality both occur

Advantages of Circular Migration• Circular migration allows poorer families to maximise income and

spread risk of income failure by facilitating them working in both rural and urban areas and in both agricultural and non agricultural sectors.

• It maximises the benefit of this income by earning in the city where both wages and costs are higher and spending in the village where both are lower.

• It facilitates the redistribution of wealth from the fast developing urban areas, which are the centre of investment and economic growth to peripheral and poorer rural areas, which lack such investment.

• It provides a scarce source of funds in rural areas to facilitate job creation and development in those areas.

• It reduces the pressure on urban areas to provide housing, schooling, infrastructure, health facilities, etc. for their inhabitants.

Disadvantages of Circular Migration

• The social costs of separation from family can be substantial and very painful to the people involved, especially where there is a great distance separating origin and destination.

• It is difficult to mesh with the time demands of modern sector jobs, which require 5-6 day weeks and 8 hour days of their workers.

• The origin community can lose substantial numbers of it youngest, entrepreneurial and most economically and socially active members for long periods so that economic and social capital is diminished.

• What policy interventions at both origin and destination can maximise the impacts of circular migration in delivering positive development and poverty reduction outcomes in both origin and destination?

• How can circular migration options best be built in to the immigration policies and programs in high income countries?

Lack of Empirical Basis for Policy Development

• Limited data– failing to measure it effectively– invisible in official data

• Lack of research attention – Mitchell (1978, 6-7)“… the topic (circular migration) has in my opinion remained remarkably intractable to thorough growing analysis. Part of this analytical recalcitrance derives from the great difficulties in collecting suitable data to carry adequate theoretical formulations.”

An analysis of migration to Germany from a number of ‘guestworker countries’ found that more than 60 percent of the migrants were repeat or circular migrants (Constant and Zimmermann, 2007, 17). This concluded that such migrants are:

‘attractive for employers and policy makers because they are less likely to be illegal and more willing to adjust to the temporary needs of the economy of the receiving country’.

Moreover they distilled three policy relevant lessons:

• The easier mobility is in and out of the destination, the more likely migrants will opt for a circular strategy over permanent settlement.

• Family members left behind encourage circular migration.

• High education, home ownership and labour market attachment in the destination encourage permanent settlement at the destination.

Development Outcomes: Origin• Relieving labour surplus situations.• Remittance flows. There is evidence that circular migrants

send back higher levels of remittances (both numerically and relatively) because they retain a greater stake in the origin country than those who permanently relocate.

• Migrants bring back enhanced skills and attitudes and new ideas to the home community.

• Brain drain loss of human capital is not as great.• Potentially the networks developed with destinations can be

corridors for trade (e.g. penetration of Korean companies like Samsung and Hyundai in the US using the Korean migrant community as bridgeheads).

Maximising the Impact in Origin Areas

• Facilitating regular circulation

• Facilitating remittances

• Protection in destination and while travelling

• Encouraging investment at home

• Embedding in national and regional development strategy

Development Outcome: Migrant

• Enhance income, skill and experience.

• Create opportunities for family.

• Retain valued cultural heritage.

• Social remittances

• Multiplier effects