International Migration最新文献

Do negative perceptions of droughts increase individual's preparedness to migrate across national borders and if so, does institutional trust mediate such relationship? Only a small number of studies suggest that drought perceptions increase international migration. Yet, these insights remain to be empirically tested in Africa using a large-N study. We examine this claim and explore if trust in institutions can mediate this relationship. To explore this, we distinguish between trust in partial institutions that enact laws and policies, trust in impartial institutions that enforce policies and generalised in all institutions designed to create and enforce laws on the intent to emigrate. We aim to fill both gaps within the literature by using survey data across Africa between 2016 and 2018. Our results suggest that perceived intensification of drought severity over time is a motivating factor for emigration; albeit we also find robust evidence that trust in partial institutions can mediate this relationship.

This article analyses the interactions between inequalities and reintegration assistance, looking at the examples of Serbia and Kosovo. It proposes an approach for examining the reintegration assistance practices of frontline providers by (a) viewing them through the lens of street-level bureaucracy acting mainly on behalf of the returning state and (b) as locally situated agents within the networks of their own distributive relations and embodying their own social positioning. Street-level implementers play an active role in shaping outreach, effectiveness, and sustainability of reintegration assistance, not always in the intended ways. This article traces their navigation of institutional, organisational, and relational contexts, internalised social norms, and perceptions of social divisions, as well as the micro-dynamics of asymmetrical interactions during service delivery. It finds that strategies applied by street-level assistance providers have ambivalent but rather minor effects on pre-existing inequalities. Even though they often naturalise prevalent social divisions, the interactions and allocation of assistance are determined more by their practical experiences, availability and type of support, as well as general programme design and working conditions. The inability to bridge the mismatch between available support and needs can even endorse inequality-normalising perceptions.

Whilst the mainstream literature on return migration focuses on issues of the reintegration of younger returnees, their families and linkages to development, attention to older returnees remains scarce. In this Special Issue, we shift focus to the diversifying realities of return in older age by extending debates on the theory and practice of return and non-return in older age. We argue that research on return migration and ageing needs to be examined in various contexts across the globe. Such research is needed both theoretically and empirically to illuminate the potential of human wellbeing in increasingly larger populations of ageing migrants who decide to return or not, or live their lives in-between, with considerable consequences for themselves, their relatives, and the states and places where they live (trans)locally. The Special Issue contributions push forward this debate by critically interrogating the concepts of preparedness, aspirations and capabilities. We examine these established concepts in return migration theory in a new light through wider questions of identity, the relevance of narrativity, emotions, active agency, and complex processes of transnational return and decisions not to return.

This study examines Qatar's NGO-driven humanitarian aid framework for Syrian refugees in Türkiye, focusing on structural, cultural and strategic challenges in delivering sustainable support. Through thematic analysis of interviews with Qatari NGO and Syrian civil society stakeholders, key issues such as resource constraints, administrative fragmentation, cultural barriers and the need for tailored strategies are identified. Findings show that while Qatar's aid efforts effectively address immediate needs, bureaucratic complexities, regulatory challenges and inconsistent funding impact project sustainability and efficiency. Additionally, cultural norms within Syrian refugee communities highlight the importance of culturally sensitive operations. Integrating insights from foreign aid and Islamic social financing, notably zakat – a form of Islamic almsgiving – the study proposes a framework for overcoming these challenges. In aligning humanitarian relief with resilience-building initiatives and culturally attuned approaches, Qatar's NGOs can enhance their impact on Syrian refugees' empowerment. This research contributes to discussions on foreign aid frameworks, stressing the need for cohesive, culturally informed strategies to achieve sustainable humanitarian outcomes.

Demographic and economic consequences of international migration in high-income countries depend on the patterns of flows, which have changed profoundly since WWII. We investigate how the increase in highly skilled migrants shaped the geography of flows, the age, sex and family composition and the international mobility of immigrants in Switzerland between 1966 and 2019. The large-scale circulation of predominantly male migrants from neighbouring countries in the 1960s transformed into a more permanent inflow alongside a dominance of women and families originating from all over the world in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, the turn of the new Century was marked by a renewed regionalization, ageing and masculinization of immigration, which is focusing on urban agglomeration centres and again characterised by high levels of international mobility. These changes were associated with the rise in highly skilled migration and call for a re-interpretation of the societal consequences of recent flows.

In the Nordic countries, older migrants experience higher poverty rates compared with the majority population. Research on this issue highlights a gap in understanding the complex interplay of ageing, migration and poverty risks. Using the General Unary Hypotheses Automaton (GUHA) data mining approach, we identified various factor combinations that contribute to subjective poverty experiences. We analysed data from the 2019 Care, Health, and Ageing of the Russian-Speaking Minority (CHARM) study in Finland (N = 1082, 57% men), which covers migration-related, socio-demographic, health and behavioural domains. Our findings reveal 37 distinct paths to subjective poverty involving 13 factors, including health limitations, multi-morbidity, receipt of housing benefit, religious affiliation, poor self-rated health, immigration age of 36–55, discrimination and living alone. While health-related factors predominated, our results highlight the intersection of multiple disadvantages in shaping subjective poverty, providing new insights on the dynamics of migrant poverty.