Abstract

This paper presents a critical review of theories of

migration, their welfare and policy implications and their

empirical relevance. Theories have been developed to

explain the onset, continuation and (self)selection of

migration flows, as well as the socioeconomic and socio-

cultural integration of immigrants in receiving societies.

They show that migration does not flow automatically in

response to wage differentials. Characteristics of

migrants and the process of self-selection are found to be

important determinants of the rate of migration.

Explanations are sought at the micro-level of individual

immigrants, their personal backgrounds, motives and

qualifications, at the meso-level of immigrant

households, networks and community building, or at the

macro-level of sending or receiving societies.

This working paper refers to Douglas Massey and

Stephen Castles as migration theoreticians that have

described how today’s migration differs from yesterday’s

and what these changes imply for classic explanations of

migration from microeconomic motives and from push

and pull factors. Apart from a simplified review of the

existing theories the paper aims to contribute to the

theoretical discussion of migration by presenting the

diverse see of theories applicable on migration. Each

theoretical piece of the puzzle leads to a set of testable

predictions, linking theories to circling questions that

deserve further attention.

2

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary migrations

Globalization has changed the face of migration.

Climate change effects have changed the reasons for

migration. Development programmes aimed to bring

about the development of the sending countries with the

‘know-how’ technology hasn’t achieved its goal of

stopping migration. A solution of this kind is maybe a

desire for some but it is not likely to be found, as if

migration can ever be stopped. Not as regularly as the

birds but people have always migrated. From the

beginning of mankind and the nomadic order in search of

more fruitful territories and better surrounding and

opportunity people have wanted the best for themselves.

Europe and the challenges of international

migration

3

The fact that the European mainland has

erupted as an immigration destination in the last

three decades has made it almost impossible for some

countries to change their status and recognize that

they have become immigration countries, Germany

being the leading example. It has been the leading

immigrant attractive country in the European Union

counting the biggest number of immigrants and it

maintained its status of non-immigration country

until 2002. Until than although de facto it has became

a country of immigration Germany has maintained de

jure systems that deny this reality. Immigration is a

major challenge for Europe and in general a priority

in governmental agenda and international

organizations. Immigration policies should be linked

more and more to the reality and should be the

foundation stone of integration at all levels, in

combination with intelligent migratory flow controls.

It is important to establish commitments in areas such

as work, social, security, housing, health, education

and justice in a transversal perspective on one hand,

and on the other regarding discrimination, gender

4

equity, equal opportunities, citizenship rights, as an

example.

The European countries (and usually host

countries) control their migratory flows by creating laws

that try to restrict the immigration from third countries.

Research shows that Europe, due to demographic and

labour reasons, needs immigration. Nevertheless, besides

the political acceptance of immigration due to the above-

mentioned reasons, there is a populist and security-

centred argument that is sceptic to the values of

immigration and is discriminatory in the selection of the

few who are allowed to enter a country and furthermore

is resistant to an intercultural and inter-religious society

as one can see for example in the recent depiction of the

Kingdom of Netherlands drowning in minarets.

According to OECD statistics 33.6% of the

immigrants of the world live in Europe (28% in Asia,

26.8% in America, 9% in Africa and 2.6% in Oceania).

Hence, it is clear that Europe, since 1960s, has become a

principal destination of worldwide migration flows.

5

A unified Europe should strive to have common

parameters regarding reception, legalization and

naturalization of immigrants (i.e. there are common

policies about expulsion of immigrants in illegal situation

but no policies about the chance for them to legalise the

situation.)

Different naturalisation produces inequality in

rights

Focusing on the naturalisation law in some

European host countries, the right to acquire nationality

(naturalisation) varies widely, which produces

inequalities in the attribution of rights. Examples for

these are voting and movement of immigrants in Europe

and abroad depending on the receiving country’s

policies. According to the political scientist Rainer

Bauböck, Austrian Academy of Science, the authors (in

particular policy makers) of the concept of the European

citizenship were not aware of some tensions in the

attribution of nationality. Bauböck presents in the

following examples the reason for this: During the 1990s

Italy granted the Italian nationality to people with Italian

6

ascendancy while at first not requiring that people live in

the country. That resulted in many Brazilian and

Argentineans acquiring the citizenship without even

having been to Italy or Europe. After receiving the

European passport they could immigrate to Spain, UK

and United States.

The distinction between the attributions of

nationality by jus soli (by the place of born) or jus

sanguini (nationality of parent, by blood connection) is

important. For example, when a child of a non-EU citizen

mother is born in an EU country that applies jus soli, the

mother will receive a residence permit or nationality

(depending on the country) in order to take care of the

European citizen (a minimum time spent in the respective

EU country may be required for jus soli to be applicable.)

Hence it is possible that a child receives the nationality

automatically while for example a Spanish that

immigrates to Portugal might have to wait 6 years until

becoming eligible for naturalisation.

The attribution of nationality by jus soli or jus sanguini,

double nationality or rejection of one of the nationalities,

the time needed to receive the citizenship as an

7

immigrant should be similar or even equal in a unified

Europe.

Therefore, Europe should decide upon a common

approach on migration, especially regarding:

Designing a European law regarding the

attribution of nationality

Homogenising the rules of access to European

host countries

Creating an efficient European governmental

network on migration

Monitoring the European common migration

policies

Viewing the current diversity in European

immigration laws on the one hand and the European

common market and Schengen on the other hand and the

need for immigration to satisfy Europe’s economic

needs, a common approach to immigration becomes

more important.

This does not only mean a common approach to

prevent people coming into the EU but much more a

common approach on what grounds working in residence

permits and finally citizenship should be granted. This

8

would not only allow potential immigrants to better

understand the policies but as well business would

benefit as it would be much easier to employ the

immigrant where needed and not where the immigrant

entered the EU. This would not only be a benefit for the

individuals but also for society as a whole, as integration

and social inclusion would be facilitated, and therefore

European ideal supported.

9

Theories of migration

Interdisciplinary approach

Before starting with the elaboration on the

complex of applied migration theories one must get

acquainted with the diverse approach towards migration

offered by the different social sciences. The importance

of knowing this comes from the fact that if unaware of

the interconnection and overlapping between two or three

different social sciences on the issue of migration would

leave us blinded and short of possible solutions of a

certain problem. According to Brettell and Hollifield,

sometimes intense disagreements and debates about the

interpretation of the same body of data exists within

single disciplines. Sometimes there can be an agreement

across disciplines on the nature of the problem, or even

on the methodology. But to believe that a single

explanation or model can be agreed upon is almost

impossible, even a hypothesis which is multidisciplinary

10

is hard to identify, since each discipline has its favoured

or suitable list of questions, hypothesis, and variables.

Similarly, Castles points to the intrinsically

interdisciplinary research of migration, since disciplines

such as sociology, political science, history, economics,

geography, demography, psychology, cultural studies and

law look at different aspects of population mobility and

full understanding requires contributions from all of

them.

Traditional approaches

Migration is a collective action, arising out of

social change and affecting the whole society in both

sending and receiving societies. The theoretical approach

that has prevailed in the past fifty years does not suffice

its explanatory purposes to the complex changes that this

phenomenon has undergone since. As found in Massey,

scientists have started to question the conceptualization

of migrants as rational actors responding to economic

disparities between countries at micro-level, and question

the ‘push-pull’ approach which views migration as a

11

means of establishing equilibrium between regions of

labour supply and demand at macro-level.

Rational Expectations

In the core of reasons to migrate since the very

beginning of researching migration has been found the

economical reason, the one which states that migrants as

rational actors are responding to economic disparities and

thus they are moving. In the post-industrial era examples

can be found of similarly developed neighbouring

countries can have completely opposite experiences with

migration, in which one has a high rate of emigration

while the other one doesn’t, or maybe that migrants do

not migrate where salaries are highest, on the contrary,

according to neoclassical economic theory, the departure

of migrants raises wages in sending areas and increases

them in receiving areas. Thus this will continue until the

wages are equalized and than migration should stop. But

even without any increase in developed country wages,

the number of candidates for international migration has

steadily grown throughout the world. Reasonable

expectation of such behaviour should be as null

12

migration among the citizens of the member states of the

European Union. Although aiming towards unified

centralized governance without physical borders,

migration still appears within. Noted in Massey (1998),

migration typically has not ended with the equalization of

wages, but with the attainment of bearable conditions of

life in areas of origin, after which people find migration

not worth the effort. Thus an example of ceased

migration appears in the early 1970s between Spain and

Germany, but not for long, proving that human

motivations can not simply be found in the desire to gain,

but by an aversion to risk, a desire to be comfortable, or

simply an interest in building better lives at home.

(Massey et al., 1998) The influence of material growth

on the inclination to migrate is deep, but it is not

sufficient to explain international migration or even to be

presented as the core of the conditions to emigrate. With

the information and transportation revolution in the

previous century, causing dramatically lowered travel

and information costs can not be ascribed as reasons for

an ongoing migration in some cases where these costs

13

were low even before, examples to be found between

Southern and Northern Europe migration.

Push and pull theories

Ernest Ravenstein is widely regarded as the

earliest migration theorist. Ravenstein, an English

geographer, used census data from England and Wales to

develop his “Laws of Migration” (1889). He concluded

that migration was governed by a “push-pull” process;

that is unfavourable conditions in one place (oppressive

laws, heavy taxation, etc.) “push” people out, and

favourable conditions in an external location “pull” pull

them in. Revenstein’s laws stated that the primary cause

for migration was better external economic opportunities;

the volume of migration decreases as distance increases;

migration occurs in stages instead of one long move;

population movements are bilateral; and migration

differentials (e.g. gender, social class, age) influence a

person’s mobility. As opportunities for migration have

grown, as it will be shown further on these ‘general

theories’ have modified but still it can be said that most

of the scholars researching migration have followed

14

Ravenstein’s laws and the most dominant contemporary

theories are more or less variations of his conclusions.

According to Massey, the ‘push-pull’ theories

have always been an inseparable companion to the

economic approach to migration and they have always

been exclusively economic. The push-pull framework

assumed that migration enabled certain equilibrium to be

achieved between forces of economic growth and

contraction in different geographic locations. (Massey et

al., 1998)

Contemporary theories of international migration

Economic theories of migration

Neoclassical Economies - Present day dominant

school of economies thought is built on the foundation

laid by the 18th century (classical) theories of Adam

Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823), and

refined by the 19th and 20th century theories of Alfred

Marshal (1842-1924), Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), John

Clark (1847-1938), and Irving Fisher (1867-1947). It is

‘classical’ in the sense that is based on the belief that

15

competition leads to an efficient allocation of resource,

and regulates economic activity that establishes

equilibrium between demand and supply through the

operation of market forces. It is ‘neo’ in the sense that

departs sharply from the classical viewpoint in its

analytic approach that places great emphasis on

mathematical techniques. In opposition to Keynesian

economics1, this school states that savings determine

investment (not the other way round), and is concerned

primarily with market equilibrium and growth at full

employment instead of with the under-employment of

resources.2 As stated in Castles work the neoclassical

perspective has its antecedents in the earliest systematic

theory on migration: that of the nineteenth – century

geographer Ravenstein, who formulated statistical laws

of migration (Castles and Miller, 2009). Borjas managed

1 Keynesian Economics – Named for economist John Maynard Keynes. An economic theories which advocates government intervention, or demand-side management of the economy, to achieve full employment and stable price (definition taken from: http://www.investorwords.com/2693/Keynesian_Economics.html on the 12.01.2010)2 Definition taken from the Business Dictionary on the 01.12.2009 available at www.businessdictionary.com

16

to use this particular theory in modelling an “immigration

market”:

Neo-classical theory assumes that individuals

maximize utility: individuals ‘search’ for the country

of residence that maximizes their well-being … The

search is constrained by the individual resources, by

the immigration regulations imposed by competing

host countries and by the emigration regulations of the

source country. In the immigration market the various

pieces of information are exchanged and the various

options are compared. In a sense, competing host

countries make ‘migration offers’ from which

individuals compare and choose. The information

gathered in this marketplace leads many individuals to

conclude that it is ‘profitable’ to remain in their

birthplace … Conversely, other individuals conclude

that they are better off in some other country. The

immigration market nonrandomly sorts these

individuals across host countries. (Borjas 1989, p.

461)

17

In the same line, Chiswick claims that migrants are

positively self-selected: the more highly skilled are more

likely to move because they obtain a higher return of

their human capital investment in mobility. This has

negative effects for countries of origin, by causing a

‘brain drain’ (Chiswick 2000). To sum up, as Massey

points out, the neoclassical theory has two distinguishing

waves, one offering a macro view stating that due to the

differential in wages, “workers move from low-wage or

labour-surplus country to the high-wage or labour-scarce

country” and by causing this movement the result is that:

The supply of labour decreases and wages eventually

rise in the capital-poor country, while the supply of

labour increases and wages ultimately fall in the

capital-rich country, leading, at equilibrium, to an

international wage differential that reflects only the

costs of international movement, pecuniary and

psychic. (Massey 1998, p. 18)

On the other side, Massey (1998) offers a micro

approach emphasizing that the individuals “decide to

migrate because a cost-benefit calculation leads them to

18

expect a positive net return, usually monetary, from

movement.” (p. 19)

Critiques on the neoclassical theory - studies of specific

migration experiences cast doubt on neoclassical theory.

In spite of the actual assumptions that the poorest people

are the one that are moving to the richest countries it is

the people of intermediate social status that come from

countries that are undergoing social and economic

changes that we can call migrants. In the same way push

and pull theories predict movements from densely

populated to scarcely populated areas, but that doesn’t

give a solution to the extensive immigration that exists in

the Netherlands and Germany, although they are one of

the most densely populated countries in Europe. The new

migration reasons that appear on daily basis are not

possible to be explained only by applying the

neoclassical theory nor it is possible to identify possible

migration trends for the future (see Sassen, 1988; Boyd,

1989; Portes and Rumbaut, 2006; Castles 2009, p. 23). It

almost is absurd to look at migrants as individuals who

are well acquainted with their options and freedoms but

on the contrary they have limited and often contradictory

19

information, especially in the eyes of the employers and

governments. As proof of belonging they build up their

culture and social capital. As claimed by historians,

anthropologists, sociologists and geographers, migrants’

behaviour is strongly influenced by historical experiences

as well as by family and community dynamics. (Portes

and Bӧrӧcz, 1989 in Castles 2009, p. 23)

The new economics of migration – The biggest

difference between the neoclassical economies and the

new economics of migration is that the migration

decisions are not made solely by the individual

concerned but are collectively decided usually by

families or households, and not only them, but whole

communities as well. This is due to the fact that in the

process of working together the decisions made are

trying to minimize the risks and maximize the expected

income by predicting the possible market failures, apart

from those that are related to the labour market. (Stark

and Levhari 1982; Stark 1984a; Katz and Stark 1986;

Taylor 1986, 1987; Lauby Stark 1988; and articles by

various authors reprinted in Stark, 1991, and in Massey

20

1998). The manner in which the households are able to

control risks that are being taken by the individual is

through diversification. That is they first maintain

security in the home country, and in case if this market

does not provide sufficient income than they rely on the

migrant remittances for support. In case of examining

highly developed countries than risks to the households

are in general secured by private insurance and credit

market or at times even governmental programmes, but if

we change the developed countries with developing

countries than we would notice that these institutional

measurements “are imperfect, absent or inaccessible to

poor families, giving them incentives to diversify risks

through foreign wage labour.” (Massey, 1998) In order

to prove the possible differences in the developed and the

developing countries we should take a look at particular

examples that will vividly illustrate not only the links

between various market failures and international

migration but will also provide in some extent the

motivation for why certain people move and where do

they move.

21

Crop insurance market – The incentives of one

family or farm household investing in crop sowing can be

seen as the products or the food that they are able to sell

or to directly consume once the sowing is done. But from

the moment of planting the seed to the moment of sowing

the crop can undergo some substantial risks (introduction

of new agricultural technology, new seed variety which

can be either good or bed). In developed countries these

risks are insured, through formal insurance arrangements,

for which insurance the farmers pay only a fee to

companies or governmental agency to have their crop

insured against future loss (possible drought or flood)

(Massey et al. 1998). In developing countries, sometimes

there is no possibility for a small amount for the

agricultural families to insure their crop so they see the

insurance in sending one or two workers abroad to be

insured by remittances in case of crop failure.

Futures markets – In case of no harm done and

crop has been sowed, it is assumed that the crop will

bring cash in the household if it is sold for a price

sufficient to sustain the family or even improve their

financial situation. But a problem may arise if the price

22

for the crop falls below the expected levels so that the

remunerative incentives are not achieved. In cases like

this, ‘in developed countries, the price risk is managed

through futures markets that allow farmers to sell all or

part of their crop for future delivery at a guaranteed

price,’ while in most developing countries future markets

can not be identified within the system, or they are not

accessible to the poor agricultural households (Massey,

1998). Again migration becomes an insurance solution

for risks of price fluctuations.

Unemployment insurance – Most working people

are dependent on the wages they earn through the

working years without many possibilities to save some

substantial amount of money for “dark” times. In case of

weaken economic situation, and decrease of employment,

or if a family member looses its ability to work due to

injury or medical condition, the living conditions can

suddenly worsen the state in a household. In rich

countries the government takes care of the workers and

their families through the development of special

programmes aimed at the protection of such risks, but in

poorer countries ‘such unemployment and disability

23

programmes are absent or incomplete in their coverage’

(Massey, 1998), thus one more time presenting migration

as a self-insurance programme.

Retirement insurance – The inevitable question of

how one can support himself/herself after he/she

withdraws from productive activities is being differently

solved in developed versus developing countries. While

the developed countries have evolved a mix of private

pensions and government security programmes to reduce

or eliminate the risk of penury in old age, most of the

developing nations, have rudimentary or even non-

existent private and public schemes able to provide for

retiring individuals and families. International migration

here plays the role of a helping hand in time of such

necessity, in manners such as money being saved in

foreign accounts, or invested in some production lines

during the years of migration for future income. These

money can make a difference not only in old age, but

through years of earning different scale salaries

compared with the regular surrounding, they can provide

for significantly better opportunities and livelihood

during the working age as well. (Massey, 1998)

24

Capital markets - Sometimes in order to achieve

greater productivity of our own assets we are forced to

make an investment. In order to makes such investments

we should accumulate capital. In developed countries,

such capital can be acquired and accessed through the

functioning sound and efficient banking system, but on

the other hand, in the developing countries these kind of

saving institutions are not the safest place to entrust your

long saved capital, or the possibility to become loan

eligible is not so easy for the poor families, for whom the

only way to get the amount of capital they are in need of

future investing it, are through the local moneylenders,

charging them with high interest rates, making these

transactions law prohibited. Been forced to accumulate

savings, international migration becomes the strongest

incentive to send one or more workers abroad to fulfil the

duty of capital providers.

Credit markets – Developed countries offer their

citizens the possibility to have an immediate loan just by

owning an ordinary Mastercard or Visa, while

developing countries by not providing this service push

people in short term migration, due to the fact that the

25

family in concern or individual has the necessity to

provide himself with the expensive but necessary

appliance, and other way it is not possible. While

sometimes we are talking about appliances the penetrate

the developing market making people eager to own the

same things as the ones in the developed countries (TV,

stereo, refrigerator, stove), others we talk about the most

necessary investment, and that is buying a home.

Developed countries offer possibilities beginning with

the smallest down payment of 10% and than having a

long term contract in which they continue paying the

instalments of a mortgage. Developing countries not able

to provide the same service sometimes can offer evidence

of houses that are started building but never finished or

finished year by year as the person who is building it has

returned to the foreign country to accumulate more

capital so that he can cover the expenses of building a

home.

Relative deprivation – As shown in the previous

cases we are alleged to think that the new economics of

migration only serve to explain deficiency in capital and

credit and as such provide us with the motivation for

26

international immigration. But not to be mistaken, these

theories not only argue that, but also maintain a possible

other variant aiming at the enrichment of people, in order

to increase and improve their status compared to the

others in the reference group, as well as to reduce their

relative deprivation in eyes with the same reference

group (Spark et al. 1986, 1988; Stark and Yitzhaki 1988;

Stark and Taylor 1989; 1991a; Stark 1991 in Massey,

1998).

Segmented labour market theory – The two

previously described theoretical approaches take either

the individual or the collective household as the ones

who bring the decision towards indulging in international

migration, while there exists a utterly different approach

pushed most forcefully by Piore (1979) who argues that

international migration is caused by the undying need for

immigrant labour intrinsically represented in the

developed countries. Piore maintains that immigration is

not caused by the push factors that exist in the

developing countries but by the pull factors that develop

in the receiving countries depicted through the ‘chronic

27

and unavoidable need for foreign workers’ (Massey,

1998 p.28). The segmented (dual) labour market theory

offers a wider range of factors into economic research

and as Piore (1979) shows a division into primary and

secondary labour markets emerges. Sassen (1991)

supporting Piore’s theory makes a clear distinction

between the two markets that is, on one side we have ‘the

highly paid core workers in finance, management and

research, and the poorly paid workers who service their

needs’. Predisposition to the primary labour market is

given to the ones belonging to the majority ethnic group

in particular the ones who are considered to be worthy as

human capital (highly skilled and educated), male gender

and in connection to migration, the ones who have a legal

status when applying for a position. Opposite of this

practice is the recruitment of the workers for the

secondary labour market, offering candidates that lack

education and vocational training, sometimes overseeing

the gender, race, minority status and irregular legal status

(Castles, 2009). The importance of the segmented labour

theory for international migration can be found in

showing us the important role that the employers and

28

governments play even when the wage differentials

decline, a migration factor supported by the neoclassical

economic theory (Massey et al. 1998: 28-34) The

European migration system, as it will be shown below,

applies the segmented labour theory as the basic

economical theory and has its ups and downs in

maintaining a complex system as this is.

Historical-structural theory and world systems

Even though the historical-structural theory has

been developed since the 1950s it reaches its ‘peak of

influence’ in the 1960s and 1970s, and it argues that due

to the unequal distribution of economic and political

power among states, a consecutive uneven development

resulted in which the poor countries were ‘trapped by

their disadvantaged position within an unequal

geopolitical structure, which perpetuated their poverty’

(Massey et al., 1998: 34-41). The historical-structural

theory drawing its roots out of the dependency theory, a

concept based on the ideas of Marx and Lenin, ‘showed

that the underdevelopment of Third world countries was

a result of exploiting their resources, (including labour)’

29

through colonialism, and followed in the post-colonial

period by enforcing harsh and unfair trading terms with

the mighty and developed countries. Progress in line of

applying the historical-structural theory was made with

the appearance of Emmannuel Wallerstein’s (1974, 1980)

analysis of the global expansion of the capitalist system.

He maintains that all the countries are somewhat

dependent seen from different perspective. The

‘peripheral’ nations as he names them are the ones which

are the most dependent, than come the ‘semi-peripheral’

nations that are to a small extent independent in the

global market, moving to the top of the hierarchy where

the ‘core’ capitalist nations are situated, thus presenting

the expanding global capitalism, a line of thought that

later will become known as ‘world systems theory’. In its

beginnings the structural-historical theory cared more

about the internal migration, especially the rural-to-urban

migration applying the concept on ‘the displacement of

agrarian workers by the penetration of market forces, the

spatial concentration of population in cities, the rapid

growth of large urban agglomerations, and the rise of

informal economy’ (Massey et al., 1998 p. 35). But by

30

the time when the economic recession in the mid-1970s

ended (period crucial for the development of the

European migration as it will be shown below)

international migration took its turn and was not only

observed as a ‘temporary’ aberration. As Castles (2009)

points out, ‘world systems theories began to analyse

international labour migration as one of the ways in

which relations of domination were forged between the

core economies of capitalism and its underdeveloped

periphery’(p.26). The brain drain phenomenon that we

particularly are familiarized nowadays, draws its roots

back in the 1960s and 1970s in the work of many

historical-structural theorists (see Khoshkish, 1966;

Kannappan 1968; Adams 1969; Watanabe 1969; Glaser

1978) and it plays a big role in the discourse for the

creation of the European migration policy. Even at this

stage brain drain was defined as the process of selecting

talented and educated people for the purposes of

migration from poor to rich nations. The main difference

at that time was that it was still not recognized as such a

big problem due to the fact of not maintaining a high

number of such migration, but even at this point the

31

dependency theorist saw that the emigration of such

people robs poor countries of essential human capital,

thus supporting the notion of unfair trade between

developed and developing countries again proving that

global capitalism ‘developed underdevelopment’ as it did

only within the Third World itself (Massey et al., 1998:

35-41). To all intents and purposes world systems theory

stands on the pillar that penetrating capitalism in non-

capital or pre-capitalist nations presupposes mobile

population with the inclination to migration.

Social capital theory: migration networks and

systems

Migration networks are sets of interpersonal ties

that connect migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants

in origin or destination areas through ties of kinship,

friendship, and shared community origin (Massey et al.,

1998 p. 42). So according to the definition on migrant

networks offered by Massey, migrant networks can act as

an accelerator for future migration because they can

serve the potential migrants by reducing the costs and

risks of the perspective movement and increase the

32

expected net returns to migration. Before we take of with

the effects that migration networks are causing for the

perpetuation of migration, we must look back at a term

that has preceded the term network migration. Speaking

of chain migration, MacDonald and MacDonald defined

it as “that movement in which prospective migrants learn

of opportunities, are provided with transportation, and

have initial accommodation and employment arranged by

means of primary social relationships with previous

migrants” (MacDonald and MacDonald 1964: p.82).

But as such, migration networks are not sufficient

condition for migration to occur or to perpetuate,

although if access to migration networks is based on

kinship ties or ethnicity, according to de Haas (2009)

they can act as “bridgeheads” for perspective migrants

within the same group, they may also act as

“gatekeepers”, who are unwilling to assist outsiders.

A migrant network can be interpreted as a

location-specific form of social capital. Bourdieu

(1979, translated and reprinted in Bordieu 1985)

defined social capital as “the aggregate of the actual

or potential resources which are linked to the

33

possession of a durable network of more or less

institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance

and recognition – or in other words, to membership in

a group” (Bourdieu 1985: p. 248). Most theorists

have taken the social capital in its positive turn

towards migration networks thus emphasizing the

role that it has on them because it seen as ‘capital’

that can be converted into other forms of cultural,

human and economic capital (Bourdieu 1985;

Coleman 1988, Portes 1998, de Haas 2009). The

convertibility is important because it helps the

members of networks and social institutions to

improve or maintain their position in society

(Bourdieu 1986; Coleman 1990; Massey 1998). The

established network connections establish a form of

social capital that people can draw upon to gain

access to various kinds of financial capital: foreign

employment, high wages, and the possibility of

accumulating savings and sending remittances. Even

though it presents a significant gain for the

sustainability of migrant networks it does not ad hoc

enable migration. Massey and his associates

34

following the definition given by Coleman (1990) on

social capital being formed when the relations among

individuals change in ways that ease action, have

pointed to the catalyst role that migration has in

shaping the social relations (1998: p.43) continuing to

state that:

Once someone in a personal network has migrated,

however, the ties are transformed into a resource that

can be used to gain access to foreign employment and

all that it brings. Each act of migration creates social

capital among people to whom the new migrant is

related, thereby raising the odds of their migration

(Massey et al. 1987, 1994).

As a logical threshold to the perpetuation of

migration due to the existence of networks can be seen in

the case of

Expanding networks cause the costs of movement to

fall and the probability of migration to rise; these

trends feed off one another, and over time migration

spreads outward to encompass all segments of

35

society. This feedback occurs because the networks

are created by the act of migration itself … Once the

number of network connections in an origin area

reach a critical level, migration becomes self-

perpetuating because migration itself creates the

social structure to sustain it (Massey 1990: p. 8).

Networks are being build in such a manner that in the

beginning the household or the family (connection with

the new economics of labour migration) brings the

decision on the pioneer migrant thus usually choosing a

young male or recently females are being the ones with

the primate status as they are considered to be more

reliable when it comes to sending remittances, thus

proving the feminization trend in migration and the

increased demand for female labour force (here we see

the connection with segmented labour theory). But the

more the network becomes established and well

developed the household looses its influence and than

even the ones that were considered to be at the very end

of the chain could migrate and can count on the network

to help them, in a way of diminishing or lowering the

36

expanses of migration and to make the migration risk

free.

While in sociology and anthropology scientists

worked with migration networks theory in geography we

can find the roots of migration systems theory. It has

been pioneered by the Nigerian geographer Akin

Mabogunje (1970) focusing on the role of feedback in the

form of flows of information and new ideas (such as the

“good life” and new consumption patterns) in shaping

migration systems. Such feedback mechanisms would

lead to situations of

almost organized migratory flows from particular

villages to particular cities. In other words, the

existence of information in the system encourages

greater deviation from the “most probable or random

state” … [The] state of a system at any give time is

not determined so much by its initial conditions as by

the nature of the process, or the system parameters …

since open systems are basically independent of their

initial conditions (Mabogunje 1970: p. 13-14).

37

The migration systems theory although initially was

developed to explain internal migration it can be applied

to international migration in such a way defining

migration system as a system constituted by two or more

countries which exchange migrants with each other3. In

light of this theory we can research the Western

European migration system as being a unified system

interconnected with different faraway systems, and we

can also observe each country in Europe as part of a

system, for example, Germany and Turkey, or the links

that exist between North and West Africa with France.

This theory suggests that all the linkages at both ends

should be inspected.

Both migration network theory and migration systems

theory are, as already mentioned developed to be

primarily used in researching internal migration and both

will be applied to international migration, but with one

note on the intermediate meso-structures. Institutions that

3 In further research the migration system theory will only be observed in light of international migration theory.

38

are aiming to assist the prospective migrants or to harm

them have developed on this level. And not only

institutions but also individuals and groups are mediating

between the migrants and the economic and political

institutions in the receiving society. This includes travel

agents, lawyers, bankers, labour recruiters, brokers,

interpreters, housing agents as well as human smugglers

and traffickers. For all of these the perpetuation of

migration means economic satisfaction which sometimes

opposes the firm and strict governmental policies and

attempts to control or stop migration.

Cumulative causation

Massey’s (1990) hypothesis of the cumulative

causation of migration argues that over time international

migration tends to sustain itself in ways that make

additional movement progressively more likely. Massey

reintroduced Myrdal’s (1957) old concept of circular and

cumulative causation. Causation is cumulative in the

sense that each act of migration alters the social context

within which subsequent migration decisions are made,

typically in ways that make additional movements more

39

likely (Massey et al. 1998: p. 45-46). Even though this

concept is rather similar to Mabogunje’s (1970)

migration system theory, Massey introduces eight ways

in which migration is affected in cumulative fashion:

- The expansion of networks

- The distribution of income

- The distribution of land

- Organization of farm production

- Culture of migration

- Distribution of human capital

- Social labelling

- Limits to cumulative causation

(When identified that a definition is necessary it

will be provided, otherwise I don’t want to burden the

reader with extensive theory and I don’t want to exceed

the limits of my research.)

Transnational theory

Drawing roots from the migrant networks theory

and followed consecutively with the globalized

development of technological improvement of the

transport and communication means has brought to the

40

field of migration one more theory to be researched

which unlike the migration networks needs to observed

on macro-level. Thus the newest theory on

transnationalism and transnational communities uses the

technological development to explain the intensified

‘circular or temporary mobility in which people migrate

repeatedly between two or more places where they have

economic, social or cultural linkages’ (Castles and Miller

2009: p.30). Debates on transnationalism have been

supported with Basch et al. (1994) work, who maintained

that ‘deterritorialized nation-states’ were emerging, with

important consequences for national identity and

international politics. Portes defines transnational

activities as

Those that take place on a recurrent basis across

national borders and that require a regular and significant

commitment of time by participants. Such activities may

be conducted by relatively powerful actors, such as

representatives of national governments and

multinational corporations, or may be initiated by more

modest individuals, such as immigrants and their home

country kin and relations. These activities are not limited

41

to economic enterprises, but include political, cultural

and religious initiatives as well. (Portes 1999: p. 464)

As defined, Portes and his collaborators

distinguish between transnationalism from above –

activities ‘conducted by powerful institutional actors,

such as multinational corporations and states’ and

transnationalism from below – activities ‘that are result

of grass-roots initiatives by immigrants and their home

country counterparts’ (Portes et al. 1999: p. 221).

An ancient Greek term grasping the notion of

transnational communities is Diaspora and it meant

‘scattering’ and referred to city-state colonized practices.

Diaspora is often applied to groups of people that have

settled due to different reasons in other countries than

their home country but are still maintaining close

contacts to the home country and in a way assist its

development. The emergence of these groups can be

because of different reasons, namely displaced or

dispersed by force (e.g. Jews; African slaves in the New

World) or open immigration policies for certain nations

(Yugoslavs in Australia and Canada) or intensive labour

42

recruitment (Yugoslavs in Germany after the Second

World War). What is interesting is that the term Diaspora

can evoke strong emotional ties with the home country,

while the notion of transnational community is far more

neutral, possibly explaining the distinction between the

first and second and consecutive generations of migrants.

In particular, small countries maintain close relations to

the Diaspora, seeking for their participation in decision

making processes as even to campaigning with intensity

during election periods in the Diaspora country.

Although firmly criticized the notion of

globalization nowadays exploits the possibility of

creation of transnational communities (Vertovec, 1999)

as they can help in the organization of activities,

relationships and identity for the growing number of

people with affiliations in two or more countries. Levit

and Glick – Schiller (2004: p. 1003) state that ‘the lives

of increasing numbers of individuals can no longer be

understood by looking only at what goes on within

national boundaries’. Having this notion on mind we are

in a way forced to elaborate again some basic

assumptions about social institutions such as the family,

43

citizenship and nation-states, and indeed, as Castles says

it calls for ‘a reformulation of the concept of society’.

Opposing to the regular use in explaining migration

networks as formed transnational communities is

Guarnizo et al. (2003) who argue that concepts such as

‘transmigrant’ or ‘transnational’ is not able to provide a

solid definition and it can not be applied to a group of

migrants. Thus not completely avoiding the use of it, but

seeking for an empirically proven case in which we can

apply them.

Conclusion

The existing theories derive from the initial push-

pull theory and move from the neoclassical economic

theory (Sjaastad 1962, Todaro 1969, Massey 1999) that

suggests that international migration is related to the

global supply and demand for labour. Nations with scarce

labour supply and high demand will have wages that pull

immigrants in from nations with a surplus of labour.

Second, segmented labour-market theory (Pjore 1979,

Massey 1999) argue that First World economies are

structured so as to require a certain level of immigration.

44

This theory suggests that developed economies are

dualistic: they have a primary market of secure, well-

remunerated work and a secondary market of low-wage

work. Segmented labour-market theory argues that

immigrants are recruited to fill these jobs that are

necessary for the overall economy to function but are

avoided by the native-born population because of the

poor working conditions associated with the secondary

labour market. Third, world-systems theory (Sassen 1988,

Massey 1999) argues that international migration is a by-

product of global capitalism. Contemporary patterns of

international migration tend to be from the periphery

(poor nations) to the core (rich nations) because factors

associated with industrial development in the First World

generated structural economic problems, and thus push

factors, in the Third World.

Rather important theories (citizenship theories,

nation state theories, theories on settlement (such as on

the formation of ethnic minorities, ethnicity, racism,

ethnicity, gender and life cycle, and culture, identity and

community) have been deliberately excluded from this

examination due to its vast areas of influence. The paper

45

that has been presented here offers only the beginning of

what should be considered when policy makers and

migration researchers work on making up acts and

policies. Recommendations for in depth analyses of the

theories are constantly advised as they present the

concrete ground on which we can build a sustainable

future perspective.

46

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