Comparative Migration Studies最新文献

This study examines the deskilling experiences of skilled, racialized immigrants who immigrated to Canada through the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) program and resided in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Skilled immigrants, particularly racialized immigrants, continue to face barriers in the Canadian labour market, resulting in significant deskilling, which has negative implications for the country's economy and skilled immigrants. This mixed-methods study drew on a quantitative survey (n = 111) and qualitative focus group discussions (n = 18) to examine the complex dynamics contributing to deskilling. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data. The quantitative results revealed that deskilling was significantly associated with the non-recognition of foreign credentials, upgrading education in Canada, bridging social capital, and having a master's degree as their academic qualification. The qualitative findings revealed three overarching themes: (a) the illusory nature of meritocracy in employment, (b) deficiencies in social and community resources, and (c) gendered pathways to deskilling. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the systemic and gendered barriers faced by skilled racialized immigrants in British Columbia's labour market. It emphasizes the importance of revisiting current immigration policies to better align with labour market realities and address these inequalities.

Rising migration out of Africa is attracting great attention among scholars, policy makers and pundits. In terms of past African mobility, forced emigration through the slave trade, with its nefarious characteristics and long-lasting legacies, has also received much publicity. But what happened to African mobility in the long century between the demise of the trans-oceanic slave trades after 1850 and the gradual resurgence of African extra-continental migration since 1960? This paper adopts the concept of the "Age of Intra-African Migration" to analyze a distinct epoch of widespread and large-scale African mobility, characterized by a succession of overlapping transitions in continent-wide migration patterns. We identify five of these transitions and explain their drivers. Overall, we show that the inward shift of African migration patterns was a consequence of intensified state formation, the demise of the transoceanic slave trades, and export-oriented commercialization. These processes were in turn shaped by trade integration, industrialization and imperialism on a global scale. As such, the Age of Intra-African Migration did not signify a retreat of Africans from global migration altogether, but rather the growing importance of migration destinations across the continent itself. We contend that the ongoing globalization of African diasporas cannot be fully understood without accounting for the dynamics of regional mobility between 1850 and 1960, and that, contrary to popular belief, Africans today are not any more mobile than they were a century ago.

This article seeks to position Istanbul through the practices of everyday life of middle-class, skilled migrants from both the Global North and South and their perceptions of urban safety and precarity. It examines individuals' processes of migration to Turkey, revealing their initial impressions of Istanbul as a safe city of opportunities, and then analyses their everyday urban lives, highlighting hidden forms of precarity and discrimination. Through in-depth interviews with 45 women and 34 men-more than half of whom are North American and European-and participant observation in people's living environments and at various social events, I argue that Istanbul, while perceived as a 'safe haven' at first, becomes a 'zone of precarity' where most of the participants have experienced intersectional forms of precarity, latent patterns of discrimination, and insecurities that belie the common perception that skilled migrants are privileged. To substantiate this argument, this ethno-spatial study presents an analysis of qualitative data as well as an online subjective mapping of Istanbul, where perceptions of urban safety and spatial precarity are displayed through socio-spatial experiences encountered in neighbourhoods, workplaces, and public spaces.

With a burgeoning literature on migration, taking stock of what is known about a topic, pattern, or process is challenging. In many scientific fields, systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a widespread response to this need. In migration research, SLRs are relatively rare. Most existing literature reviews are non-systematic and often geographically specific. The rarity of comprehensive SLRs might partly reflect migration researchers' sensitivity to context-specificity and variation, and their well-founded scepticism towards empirical generalizations. In this article, we make a case for the value of SLRs for synthesizing quantitative findings on migration across diverse contexts. However, we foreground the interpretative nature of quantitative research in migration studies and explore approaches to synthesis that recognize exceptions and diversity as much as the search for unifying answers. Our discussion seeks to increase comparability in syntheses across contexts, all the while allowing reviews to convey disparity of findings. In contrast to common advice to narrow down research topics in SLRs, we demonstrate the feasibility of broader review questions. We exemplify our approach with reference to an extensive review of determinants of migration aspirations, drawn from survey-based research, in which determinants were differentiated in terms of the relative consistency and certainty of results.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40878-025-00502-7.

Migrantisation has become a key concept among scholars attempting to de-naturalise and de-centre the migrant/citizen binary. It has, however, been used in a variety of ways that have not always been clearly delineated. In this paper we tease out the strands of development of the concept, distinguishing different usages of migrantisation, and propose a new terminology to clarify the ways in which the term can serve a variety of purposes at different analytical levels. In particular, we identify two separate strands in the literature: 'demographic migrantisation' and 'categorical migrantisation'. The latter is most consequential for Migration Studies, and so forms the main focus of this article, along with two further contributions developing from the categorical migrantisation approach: 'migrantisation as an analytical perspective', and the recently introduced concept of 'experiential migrantisation'. Our discussion foregrounds the multi-dimensional nature of categorical migrantisation, which takes place across multiple domains, and is intersectional and contextual in character. In creating a more systematic understanding of the concept of migrantisation, we hope to lay clearer foundations for future research.

Low-wage labor migrants experience major human and working rights abuses in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries despite national labor laws and signatures to various human rights conventions. On paper, India has established an institutional framework of transnational social protection for its officially estimated 5.5 million low-wage workers migrating to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, e.g., financial emergency support, repatriation services, and walk-in centers. However, migrants in low-wage employment often cannot access substantive social rights in practice. Indian upper/middle-class migrant civil society groups mediate their access to Indian embassies' services and the destination countries' state institutions. The realization of social rights via informal, third-party representation stems from a representational disjuncture between low-wage labor migrants and the Indian state, which is rooted in their historical socioeconomic marginalization, limitations of the formal political system, and the constitutive role of informality in shaping and structuring citizen-state interactions in India. Through the lens of Piper and von Lieres' (2015) concept of mediated citizenship and based on data from semi-structured interviews and participant observation of migrant support networks in the Gulf countries, this article examines why mediation takes place and how volunteers speak and take action for marginalized migrants in low-wage employment and consequences of mediation. It argues that migrant volunteer organizations and individuals are powerful stakeholders in the migration governance in the GCC region, as they possess leverage over who has (better) access to state institutions and the provision of social and human rights. Their status as intermediaries underlines the disaggregation of Indian citizenship along class and caste lines, which can be (mis)-used by mediators to pursue their interests, resulting in ambiguous effects. The article contributes to perspectives on migration governance in the GCC region, transnational social policies, and migrant volunteering.

This study examines the potential economic and labour market impacts of a hypothetical but plausible migration scenario of 250,000 new migrants inspired by Austria's experience in 2015. Using the agent-based macroeconomic model developed by Poledna et al. (Eur Econ Rev, 151:104306, 2023. 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104306, the study explores the detailed labour market outcomes for different groups in Austria's population and the macroeconomic effects of the migration scenario. The analysis suggests that Austria's economy and labour market have the potential to be resilient to the simulated migration influx. The results indicate a positive impact on GDP due to increased aggregate consumption and investment. The labour market experiences an increase in the unemployment rates of natives and previous migrants. In some industries, the increase in the unemployment rates is more significant, potentially indicating competition among different groups of migrants. This research provides insights for policymakers and stakeholders in Austria and other countries that may face the challenge of managing large-scale migration in the near future.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40878-024-00374-3.

Migration forecasts are crucial for proactive immigration and integration management. While the demand for accurate migration forecasts continues to grow, the current state of migration forecasting is still unsatisfactory, because they tend to lack precision. We introduce an alternative method to forecast migration movements: prediction markets. While prediction markets are mainly unknown in migration studies, they are established in the political economy of forecasting election outcomes. For its application to a complex phenomenon in a more constrained information environment such as migration movements, we argue that prediction markets allow to balance complementarities of current qualitative and quantitative approaches if they provide solutions to avoid thin trading and integrate expert knowledge into the market. We apply the prediction market to forecast immigration in four West European countries in 2020 and find encouraging results. We discuss the strengths and limitations of prediction markets to migration forecasting, including ethical considerations, and guide its future application.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40878-024-00404-0.