Irregular Migration in Senegal: Faith, Dreams and Human Smuggling through the Desert and Sea (WP67) [PDF 725.99KB]
March 2020
Doudou Gueye and Priya Deshingkar
Abstract
The paper provides a bottom up view on human smuggling facilitation and the rationale behind extremely high-risk and complex irregular migration journeys from the Kolda region of Senegal across the Sahara and through the Atlantic sea. Interviews with aspiring, returned and deported migrants as well as smugglers and their associates provide insights into the organization of migration facilitation and how this is sustained in the current policy context. The research highlights the role of religious beliefs in preparing for and interpreting the experiences of harrowing journeys with a high risk of harm and death. The study also sheds light on hitherto under-recognised gendered aspects of the infrastructure of migration facilitation in Kolda: while migration is male dominated, women play a critical role in enabling migration by mobilising religious and financial support. The paper also discusses the differences in the social constructions of male and female migration and the differences in their social relations with smugglers and other actors involved in facilitating irregular migration. In conclusion the authors suggest that there is a need to revisit migration policies that are based on dissuading migrants through risk-awareness campaigns and heightened controls towards policies that address global structural inequalities that drive migration; develop a more accurate understanding of personal and family aspirations for change; create more opportunities for legal migration; initiate discourses on culturally sensitive topics such as female migration and failed migration, and the role of Islamic spiritual leaders (Marabouts).
Irregular Migration
Human Smuggling
Human Trafficking
Migration Industry
Migration Facilitation
The effects of return migration on household welfare: Evidence from Ethiopia (WP66) [PDF 2.68MB]
January 2020
Marta Schoch, Julie Litchfield and Asmelash Haile Tsegay
Abstract
This paper analyses the impact that return migration has on the welfare of households to which migrants return. We use panel data from a bespoke longitudinal survey of rural households in Ethiopia in 2014 and 2018. We outline the evaluation methods available to researchers investigating the causal impact effect of migration on household welfare, focussing our discussion on impacts on the household at origin. We show using a combination of difference-in-difference in methods with matching that households with a return migrant over the period experience increases in non-food household consumption and that return is also associated with large increases in remittances prior to return.
Regional migration
International migration
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Migration data
Connection men, pushers and migrant trajectories: Examining the dynamics of the migration industry in Ghana and along routes into Europe and the Gulf States (WP65) [PDF 1.20MB]
December 2019
Mariama Awumbila, Joseph Kofi Teye, Leander Kandilige, Ebenezer Nikoi, and Priya Deshingkar
Abstract
This paper examines the inner workings and operational logic of the array of individuals, agencies, state and non-state actors, institutions and social networks that collectively make up the migration industry in Ghana. It sheds light on how actors in the migration industry facilitate and condition migrant mobility, focusing on workers moving from Ghana along two migration corridors towards Europe and the Gulf States for work in the domestic and construction sectors. The study draws on a broad and nuanced conceptualisation of the “migration industry” which goes beyond a narrow focus on actors operating mainly for financial gain. Instead, it focuses on migration not just as a movement from point of departure to arrival, but as a changing journey over both space and time. This allows not only empirical insights into the processes through which people move, but it also provides an analytical lens to better unpack the complexities of migration processes. We extend the analysis of migration industries by incorporating risk theory into the analysis of the migration decision. The decision takes place in a context where migrants’ high level of knowledge about the dangers of migration has not translated into a reduction in migration flows on these two corridors. We analyse migrants’ rationale for choosing to embark on highly risky journeys, even in the face of increasing knowledge about these risks, and to develop appropriate policy responses.
Regional migration
International migration
Migration industry
Incomes, remittances and implications for the welfare of migrant-sending households in Zimbabwe (WP64) [PDF 1.22MB]
December 2019
Kefasi Nyikahadzoi, Vupenyu Dzingirai, Byron Zamasiya, Providence Warinda and Emmanuel Quarshie
Abstract
Zimbabwe has witnessed an increase in both internal and international migration over the years. However, the economic and non-economic costs and benefits of migration have not been ascertained. The purpose of this paper is to assess the experiences of migrants, risks associated with migration, the methods of remitting money and the welfare of sending households. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data was collected in 2015 and 2018. Qualitative data was collected in 2019, to explain emerging trends and patterns in quantitative data. Results show that there is an increase in internal migration over the years. Worsening economic hardships are forcing more people to take risks of migrating to unfamiliar destinations and without prior contacts. The majority of the migrants are not gainfully employed, with less than 10% of them employed in technical professions. There has been an increase in the amount of remittances over time, as migrants seek to cushion their households from economic crisis. Migrants face huge transaction costs when sending money home. Over 50% of the migrants sending households which were interviewed think that their household’s welfare has improved as a result of sending a migrant away. Results also show that some households’ welfare remained stagnant or even worsened after sending a member away. The paper concludes that migration has a huge potential for improving the welfare of migrant sending households. In order to reduce the risks associated with migration, we propose that governments must formally recognise migration and provide them with support, such as soft loans. To increase the chances of migrants being employed in skilled jobs, we propose that government should promote vocational training in secondary schools, and particularly for districts along border lying areas, to increase migrants’ prospects of getting better jobs. In order to improve the efficient transfer of remittances, we propose that governments should liaise with other countries to reduce or subsidise taxes charged for sending remittances, so as to increase the frequency of remitting.
Regional migration
International migration
Internal migration
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Gender
Migration data
Follow the money: Tactics, dependencies, and shifting relations in migration financing on the Ethiopia - South Africa migration corridor (WP63) [PDF 845.31KB]
December 2019
Yordanos S. Estifanos and Tanya Zack
Abstract
The high cost of irregular migration between Ethiopia and South Africa is prohibitive for many low-income but aspiring migrants. The complex infrastructures of brokers, social networks, border controls and state processes that aspiring Ethiopian migrants must navigate to reach South Africa is resourced by an equally complex set of financial transactions. This paper describes a number of key tactics involved in the financing of irregular migration from Ethiopia to South Africa, as revealed in interviews conducted with 40 migrants. The benevolence available in a sharing economy is the source of survival for many migrants. At the same time, financial dependency can hamper migrant agency en route and in the host country. A particular focus of this paper is the tactic of sponsorship that derives from the host country. A culture of reciprocity frames the repayment of debt, which may be extracted through sweat equity. The nature of relations exists along a spectrum of benevolence and exploitation. Structural, social and personal factors conspire to raise the risk of exploitation of newcomers who are bound by migration debt. One tactic within the realm of sponsorship from the host country is marriage migration. This offers a case of complex connections between migration financing and personal and community relations. It offers an extreme example of how migration facilitation through social networks, even in the most intimate of connections, cannot be assumed to be non- economic.
Regional migration
Migration industry
Southern Africa
Eastern Africa
The impact of migration on the welfare of households left behind in rural Ghana: a quasi-experimental impact evaluation (WP62) [PDF 1.10MB]
November 2019
Joseph Kofi Teye, Louis Boakye-Yiadom, Edward Asiedu, Julie Litchfield, Johnson Wilson Appiah Kubi, and Mariama Awumbila
Abstract
Using panel data collected in 2015 and 2018, this paper employs econometric techniques to evaluate the impact of migration on the welfare of households left behind in rural Ghana. We find that poverty is an important driver of migration. Households with lower baseline food and nonfood consumption are more likely to have a member migrating over the three-year period of the study. Specifically, households with migrants had a lower level of consumption at baseline compared to non-migrant households. Using both propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences (DID) estimation approaches to explore migration’s welfare impact, we find no significant differences between treated and control households once initial baseline differences in consumption are accounted for. Our results suggest that migration has helped to bridge the gap in welfare between disadvantaged (low consumption) and advantaged (higher consumption) households in rural Ghana.
Regional migration
Counterfactuals
Rural-urban migration
Income and remittances
Migration data
Good for parents but bad for wives: Migration as a contested model of success in contemporary Ghana (WP61) [PDF 917.38KB]
November 2019
Akosua K. Darkwah, Dorte Thorsen, Doris A. Boateng, and Joseph K. Teye
Abstract
This paper contributes to the literature that critiques the New Economics of Labour Migrations’ perspectives on the motivations for migration. It uses both a gender and generation lens to explore the multiple meanings that parents and wives make of the migration of Ghanaian young men to Libya and beyond. The paper draws on a range of qualitative methods – interviews, focus group discussions, river of life approaches and ethnography – conducted in three phases (April 2018, July/August 2018 and January 2019) of research to make its arguments. It argues that parents share a view of migration which is more in line with the New Economics of Labour Migration perspective. This view is exemplified in the traditional Akan conception of an Opanyin, a successful adult (Miescher, 2005), which focuses on economic success (taking good care of one’s family, providing one’s family with a home). Wives, however, hold an alternative view, one that the New Economics of Labour Migration perspective fails to capture. For wives, their conception of a successful male adult is informed by the changing socio-cultural context and focuses on affective ties (physical proximity, day to day care and sexual ties). Thus, while parents are generally supportive of young male migration, wives generally disapprove of migration.
Regional migration
International migration
Gender and generation
Gender
'Bringing time' into migration and critical border studies: Theoretical and methodological implications for African research (WP60) [PDF 978.23KB]
October 2019
Kudakwashe P. Vanyoro
Abstract
This paper brings together insights from scholarship on time, migration and critical border studies to propose a research thematic framework for a temporal approach on African migration. Through a case study of Zimbabwe-South Africa migration, it builds on previous studies of time, migration and borders to demonstrate how a temporalised approach to migration and critical border studies can contribute to a comprehensive understanding of migrant subjectivities and their constitution in Africa. The theoretical and literature review adopted in the paper suggests that critical border studies in Africa have not sufficiently temporalised. These studies often focus more on ‘spatiality’ and migration as a temporal and social process is marginalised in these debates. In this literature, there is a greater focus on ‘stasis’ and ‘borderlanders’ that goes together with a widely held belief among postcolonial African scholars that a spatial focus is the most suitable way to politicise and decolonise Africa’s colonial borders. This paper demonstrates how a temporalised (space-time) approach to South-South migration and critical border studies in Africa allows us to engage with similar debates by politicising time. It concludes that in an era of ‘containment development’, a critical understanding of time is a politically enabling exercise.
Regional migration
International migration
Migration industry
Changing patterns of migration and remittances in Ethiopia 2014-2018 (WP59) [PDF 1.97MB]
September 2019
Asmelash Haile Tsegay and Julie Litchfield
Abstract
This paper reports on the changing patterns of migration and remittances in Ethiopia using a bespoke longitudinal survey of 1200 rural households. We shed light on changes in migration destinations, revealing the large scale of return migration between waves, prompted by increasing intra-ethnic conflict internally and restrictions of migration internationally to the Middle East. We highlight a decline in remittance receipt for households in our sample, but higher remittances on average for those households that continue to receive remittances. Finally, we explore descriptively changes in measures of household welfare revealing that on average living standards have fallen among all types of households, notably those with migrants in the second wave of our survey, despite a strongly held perception among all types of households that migration leads to improved incomes and to an improvement in the overall quality of life.
Regional migration
Internal migration
International migration
Income and remittances
Gender
Migration data
Counterfactuals
Changing patterns of migration and remittances: A case study of rural Ghana (WP58) [PDF 1.48MB]
September 2019
Joseph Kofi Teye, Louis Boakye-Yiadom, Edward Asiedu, Mariama Awumbila, and Johnson Wilson Appiah Kubi
Abstract
Using a migration dataset on Ghana, this paper examines the changes in migration and remittance patterns of households interviewed in 2015 and 2018. Our findings indicate that migration statuses of a majority of household members have not changed in the last three years. While political narratives suggest exodus of Africans to Europe, our data shows that a majority of migrants moved to destinations within Ghana and Africa. Although a larger proportion of emigrants in Ghana is made up of males, migration streams are being feminized. Our multivariate analysis shows that social networks are strong determinants of migration. We also observe gender differences in the reliance on social networks to facilitate migration, with women being more likely to have contacts at destination prior to migrating. A majority of migrants in both waves depended on their personal savings for migration. The proportion of migrants funding their trips through loans from family and friends have increased between 2015 and 2018, while the proportion that financed migration through borrowing outside the family and sale of assets declined. Our data shows that annual real cash remittance received by households over the three-year period have increased by about 27% in 2018 and that many of the migrant households left behind have reportedly depended on remittances to enhance wellbeing. The findings suggest the need for policy makers to develop programmes to leverage remittances for development.
Regional migration
Internal migration
Income and remittances
Gender
Migration data
Counterfactuals
My Way? The circumstances and intermediaries that influence the migration decision-making of female Zimbabwean domestic workers in Johannesburg (WP57) [PDF 1.84MB]
August 2019
Tanya Zack, Sarah Matshaka, Khangelani Moyo, Kudakwashe P Vanyoro
Abstract
The migration of migrant domestic workers, who are mainly female, from Zimbabwe to South Africa is shaped by a number of agents and processes, even though the women exercise substantial individualism and agency in their migration decisions. It is influenced by generational, gendered and economic circumstances, as well as by intermediaries who facilitate the stages of migration. Those intermediaries include brokers with whom the migrant women are socially connected and those who are primarily service providers, even if they also share social connections with the migrants. This study of the migration experience of 40 women found the ease of passage for women once they have made the decision rests in a well-defined mobility pathway. Owing to restrictive immigration controls, the majority of women in the sample fell into irregular migration even if their first arrival in South Africa was regular. Their continued stay in South Africa has been made possible through similarly individualised tactics that tap into social networks and brokers. Furthermore, while domestic workers are legally protected, irregular migrants are at high risk of labour exploitation. The poor oversight of labour conditions in the workplace despite the existence of sound regulation protecting domestic workers in South Africa adds a particular local dimension to precarity of migrant domestic workers. There is a need to stabilise the mobility of these labour migrants through the implementation of a rational, facilitated migration regime.
Regional migration
International migration
Migration industry
Domestic work
Gender
Brokers, migrants and the state: Berri Kefach “door openers” in Ethiopian clandestine migration to South Africa (WP56) [PDF 1.12MB ]
August 2019
Fekadu Adugna, Priya Deshingkar and Tekalign Ayalew
Abstract
This paper examines the crucial role that migration brokers play in organizing and sustaining irregular migration from Ethiopia to South Africa. Brokers and smugglers assist migrants in circumventing layers of migration control and navigate the complex, risky mobility landscape in the context of the governments’ organized campaign to stop ‘illegal migration’. The existing bodies of literature pertaining to irregular migration in Ethiopia suffer from major limitations. First, they tend to reduce the complex processes of overland migratory exits from Ethiopia to narratives of human trafficking. Secondly, they are devoid of the perspectives of migrants and brokers about the role of migration intermediaries even though their roles are indispensable where official migration channels are inaccessible. Thirdly, there is also a tendency to ignore the ambiguity of the boundaries between migration facilitation and the domain of migration control. Based on our research in major migrant sending locations— Hadya in Southern Ethiopia and the transit town of Moyale on the Ethiopia-Kenya border— this paper examines the multifaceted actors, their roles and infrastructures that facilitate and condition the migration process. More specifically, we examine the interplay between the complex web of migration facilitation, migrants’ agency and the control regimes to show how Ethiopian migration facilitation functions and how migrants navigate this complex landscape.
Regional migration
International migration
Migration industry
Policy processes
Southern Africa
East Africa
Zimbabwean migrant domestic worker activism in South Africa (WP55) [PDF 909.29KB]
January 2019
Kudakwashe P. Vanyoro
Abstract
There is a longstanding ‘mobilisation structure’ for domestic workers which begins from the view that African women in South Africa are oppressed in three ways: oppressed as blacks, oppressed as women, and oppressed as workers. However, women do not constitute a homogenous category politically or otherwise and do not necessarily share or perceive ‘objective’ gender interests as they are both united and divided by ethnicity and nationality. Yet, the social relations of domestic work employment in South Africa’s post-colonial context are deeply implicated with class, gender and racial structures so much that nationality is rarely invoked in the equation by the state or reflected in the work of South Africa’s CSOs. In this paper, I seek to understand how CSOs facilitate the stay and protection of Zimbabwean migrant domestic workers (MDWs) through their activism. The paper uses a case study of activism in Johannesburg, South Africa mediated by CSOs as well as a municipal unit. It draws on two forms of research. The first is a thematic literature review and an ‘intersectional review’ of multi-level migration policies and discourses. The second is 16 in-depth qualitative interviews with a wide range of activists, state and non-state actors to understand their experiences in providing assistance to Zimbabwean MDWs in Johannesburg. I argue that activism for MDWs is mediated by specific local labour movement politics that create tensions in which, on the one hand, CSOs advocate for the regulation of the labour market, while on the other, they have to serve the interests of a body of workers that has no legal rights to work in this labour market.
Regional migration
Domestic work
Migration industry
Policy processes
Encouraging 'returns', obstructing departures and constructing causal links - The new creed of Euro-African migration management (WP54) [PDF 996.24KB]
June 2018
Marie-Dominique Aguillon
Abstract
This paper explores whether the policy level constitutes a new element in what Hernández-León coined as “the migration industry” in 2005. The paper unravels the impact of semantic and legal shifts at different scales over the past two decades on the framing of irregular migration. Several key moments have marked Euro-African relations in the field migration. Through the decoding of political exchanges between African and European actors, this article shows the predominant objectives of migration policies. The first aims to encourage "returns" of migrants from Europe to Africa. The second seeks to dissuade potential African candidates from leaving (implied towards Europe), and the third presupposes that the returns of some migrants will make potential migrants renounce the journey. In order to prevent departures and to justify returns, new causal links appear in speeches. There is here an idea of an archetypal model linking returns and deterrents. This binary justification of a presupposed causality between returns and departures is questionable however because evidence shows that returns will not necessarily have the expected deterrent effect. Nevertheless, the migration and development nexus has gradually come to complement the migration and security nexus. At different scales and through semantic and legal shifts, emigration has been framed as a “problem” then as a “crime” in the dominant policy discourse. Through the design and implementation of departure deterrence programmes, actors from NGOs, international organisations, political institutions and the media are strengthening the controversial notion of "illegal emigration" which, gradually, has become a new resource in the field of migration management.
International migration
Migration industry
Policy processes
Drivers of intra-regional and inter-regional migration in Africa: a synthesis from the Migrating out of Poverty surveys (WP53) [PDF 1.37MB]
May 2018
Julie Litchfield
Abstract
This paper explores the drivers of African migration drawing on micro data from comparable household surveys of rural households conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe between 2013 and 2015, including a short longitudinal data set for Ghana, which tracks households over time. We compare characteristics of migrants with non-migrants and identify the importance of youth, gender and education as drivers of migration. We reveal a complex and gendered pattern of migrant decision-making and an equally complex and gendered pattern of remittance sending of diverse items via varied channels.
Counterfactuals
Income and remittances
Internal migration
Regional migration
Migration data
East Africa
Southern Africa
West Africa
Ethiopia
Ghana
South Africa
Zimbabwe
We have the research but where is the influence? Constraints and opportunities for evidence-based policy impact in South Africa (WP52) [PDF 727.58KB]
April 2018
Kudakwashe P. Vanyoro
Abstract
Research can generate evidence that can make a vital difference if utilised in decision-making, and policy or civil society practice. However, despite a considerable amount of optimism about research uptake in the Global South, little is known about the interface between research and policy in these settings. While campaigns or resistance on populist or popular causes in developing, post-colonial countries have frequently been recorded and investigated, neglible investigation has been done on how change on marginalised, ‘unpopular’ or contentious policy issues is effected using research evidence. This paper explores the research uptake and advocacy experiences of researchers and activists working on three unpopular and politically contentious causes; immigration, human trafficking and sex work - in a post-colonial context of South Africa. It finds little evidence that the communication of concerted empirical research has resulted in much uptake of the research or in sustained practical improvements for citizens and residents. The paper argues that notions of capacity building, knowledge brokering and building trust by bridging the science-policy gap that are gaining prominence in the recent literature are all important, but these alone may generate narrowness that corresponds poorly to the political complexity of the policy processes on these three issues. Technocratic policy and decision-making on these issues is currently the exception, not the norm because there is a lack of political will, which ties into the potential of an issue’s unpopularity to antagonise and fragment different constituencies and ethnic groups that politicians and policy makers represent. The paper concludes with a call for a two tier research methodology that complements a research project and advocacy campaign’s substantive research or activities with a parallel study of the particular issue’s policy processes bearing into mind environmental incentives that are driving certain kinds of exclusion, obstacles and who can be mobilised.
Policy processes
Migration data
Following in their footsteps: An analysis of the impact of successive migration on rural household welfare in Ghana (WP51) [PDF 1.23MB]
December 2017
Eva-Maria Egger and Julie Litchfield
Abstract
In this paper, we explore repeated migration within a household and consequent welfare outcomes. Specifically, we use a household panel survey collected in 2013 and again in 2015 in rural areas of Ghana. We exploit the rich information about migration experience to understand the diverse patterns of migration within Ghanaian households. We provide evidence that households often have more than one migrant member and that they have different characteristics depending on who moved first. New migrants are more likely to be from a younger generation, they face lower migration costs, and only a few of them remit. We find no effect of sending a new migrant on household welfare, measured with an asset index. We conclude that the different nature of migration of new migrants implies neither an economic gain for the household nor a loss. The reason for the former is that the migrants remit less or not at all and the reason for the latter is that migration becomes less costly with prior experience.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
MoVE (methods: visual: explore) Examining the use of participatory visual and narrative methods to explore the lived experience of migrants in Southern Africa (WP50) [PDF 1.40MB]
July 2017
Elsa Oliveira and Jo Vearey
Abstract
In this paper, we explore the opportunities – and challenges – associated with visual research methodologies. Drawing on the MoVE (methods: visual: explore) project that explores the lived experiences of migrant groups in southern Africa, we reflect on our experiences in exploring the visual in research. We argue that including visual and narrative methods- as part of mixed methods studies- offers researchers an important opportunity to engage in the ‘feel’ of events and the lives of the participants of such research projects. Not only do these methods provide a creative platform whereby participants can be included in the production of knowledge, they also highlight the need to consider the subjectivity of knowledge and the power inherent in the production and curation of knowledge. Visual and narrative methodologies offer an opportunity to engage in various theoretical and epistemological frameworks. Importantly, while using these methods are not without logistical and ethical challenges, participants report valuing their involvement in these projects.
Emic perspectives on brokering international migration for construction from Bangladesh to Qatar (WP49) [PDF 624.78KB]
March 2017
C.R. Abrar, Priya Deshingkar, Mirza Taslima Sultana, Kazi Nurmohammad Hossainul Haque, and Md Selim Reza
Abstract
This paper presents an emic perspective on the drivers and outcomes of migration brokerage through a study of low-skilled migrant construction workers from Chapainawabganj – a district in the north-west of Bangladesh – travelling to Qatar. The paper problematises assumptions underlying dominant discourses on the relationship between migrants and brokers by showing the differences in migrants’ own perspectives on brokerage and the way in which the migrant welfare and humanitarian organisation narratives frame the process. The paper draws on interviews with migrants back in Bangladesh who were either on holiday before returning to Qatar again or who had completed a period of migration there and had returned home for good. It also draws on interviews with brokers in Chapainawabganj and Dhaka. The research on which this paper is based sought to understand why Bangladeshi men continued to migrate through brokers for construction work, despite all the efforts to discourage this practice. It also aimed to understand how migrants view the process themselves in terms of exploitation, hardship, success and failure and how closely this corresponds to the way in which it is conceptualised by outsiders. Finally we attempt to convey the long-term view that migrants take on the process in order to provide a different perspective on the costs and risks, as well as the benefits, of migration through brokers.
Migration industry
International migration
Gendered dynamics of remitting and remittance use in Northern Ghana (WP48) [PDF 802.72KB]
March 2017
Joseph Kofi Teye, Mariama Awumbila, and Akosua Darkwah
Abstract
Until recently, the relationship between gender and remittances has received little attention in academic and policy circles. The majority of earlier studies, which largely employed quantitative approaches, suggest clear, gendered patterns of remitting and remittance use in various societies. In recent years, a body of literature has emerged which shows that the relationship between gender and remittances is shaped by social norms of household provisioning. However, most analyses on the relationship between gender and remitting behaviour give too much weight to structure over agency and therefore fail to examine how the relationship between gender and the sending of remittances is mediated by the household context and agency of household members. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Northern Ghana, which is largely a migrant sending region, and one migrant destination (the Greater Accra region), this paper contributes to the emerging body of literature on social norms and the gendered dynamics of remitting and remittance use. In contrast to earlier studies which suggest that there are clear gendered patterns of remitting and remittance use in the different societies, we argue that the relationship between gender and remitting/remittance use is more complex and is shaped by the interaction of social norms on household provisioning, the composition of households and the agency of household members. We demonstrate that, while social norms on gender roles and conjugality tend to produce gendered patterns of remitting, the household context and the agency of the individual household members may sometimes interact to produce remitting behaviours that are not consistent with the general patterns observed in the community.
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Domestic work
Gender
Brokerage in migrant domestic work in Ghana: complex social relations and mixed outcomes (WP47) [PDF 902.46KB]
January 2017
Mariama Awumbila, Priya Deshingkar, Leander Kandilige, Joseph Kofi Teye, and Mary Setrana
Abstract
Rural–urban migration from the poorer regions of Ghana to the south is an important part of the livelihood portfolio of poor families. In the urban areas of the south, domestic work – which is typically low-paid and insecure – is an important avenue of employment for women and girls from such backgrounds. Within this social space, recruitment brokers play a central role and are often portrayed in the migration literature as unscrupulous exploiters of domestic workers for their own profit and gain. Drawing on conceptualisations of migrant agency within the brokerage relationship, this paper challenges portrayals of brokerage purely as a ‘migration business’ and takes an approach that shows how migrants use brokers to further their own agendas. The paper employs in-depth interviews conducted in Accra in 2015 with female migrant domestic workers, employers, brokers, relevant government ministries and unionised labour units, to provide insights into the social relations that underpin the recruitment process in Ghana and how aspiring migrants and brokers build trust to lay the foundations for complex and risky journeys.
We argue that, with an increase in labour migration, recruitment agencies and brokers have become important facilitators of migration. Brokers play a range of multiple and often contradictory roles in facilitating and mediating migration for domestic work. These roles, in some cases, could be said to be reinforcing patriarchal ideologies while, in other cases, brokers aid domestic workers to negotiate better terms and conditions of employment and to meet the latters’ aspirations. Thus brokers are an important part of migrants’ strategies to exercise agency in the context of highly unequal power relationships with the employer. These findings indicate the need for a more nuanced understanding of the mediating role of brokers and intermediaries as they traverse the multi-layered space in the recruitment process.
Migration industry
Domestic work
Gender
Translocal subjectivities within households 'in flux' in Indonesia (WP46) [PDF 663.94KB]
October 2016
Maria Platt, Khoo Choon Yen, Brenda SA Yeoh, Gavin Luymes and Theodora Lam
Abstract
This paper draws upon fieldwork conducted in the migrant-sending area of Ponorogo, Indonesia between 2014 and 2016. It incorporates the concept of ‘global householding’ (Douglass 2014, 314) while also using a translocal perspective to recognise both the mobilities and immobilities associated with migration. A translocal approach as explicated by Brickell and Datta (2011, 10) rejects the privileging of transnational mobility, and is equally as interested in local-local connections. In places such as Ponorogo, where migration and remittances are especially critical to the socioeconomic fabric of the community, immobile actors are often beholden to the same translocal subjectivities experienced by their mobile counterparts. Hence this paper focuses upon the issue of translocality as a means to reconceptualise notions of ‘movers’ and ‘stayers’ as a more fluid continuum that is inherently linked to the ‘in flux’ nature of households in migrant-sending areas such as Ponorogo. Using three cases studies of husband/wife dyads, we contemplate how a translocal perspective elucidates the ways in which men and women’s migration trajectories – both real and imagined, local and overseas – are constantly renegotiated.
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Gender
How unpopular policies are made: Policy making for migrant women in South Africa, Bangladesh and Singapore (WP45) [PDF 694.08KB]
October 2016
Ingrid Palmary and Thea de Gruchy
Abstract
In this paper we address the question: how and why does policy get made in post-colonial In this paper we address the question: how and why does policy get made in post-colonial contexts? Based on three case studies of policy change; from Bangladesh, South Africa, and Singapore, we trace the drivers of policy change in these contexts. Much research has been done on policy making in Europe and North America, which has led to the development of theories and frameworks which theorise how and why specific policies are made. Examples of these include Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (2014) and more recent work on global norms and how these effect national policy making (Betts & Orchard, 2014; Risse, Ropp, & Sikkink, 1999). Whilst the later have certainly made more of an effort to include examples from contexts other than Europe and North America, there remains a lack of information on how policy is actually made and implemented in these contexts. The three case studies, on which this report are based, were conducted by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore, and the African for Migration & Society (ACMS), at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. All the case studies made use of qualitative methods to map out the various roles played by key actors and organizations in influencing the policy under investigation. All three projects are studies on policy process and engage in process tracing methods. Through a thorough analysis of all three studies, we conclude that there are six factors that shaped the policy making process in the three countries. These are components of policy change that were common across the country case studies even if their impact and nature varied. We propose that by paying attention to these aspects of policy making, we will be able to better understand, influence, and predict policy making in contexts outside of Europe and North America.
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
Bangladesh
Singapore
South Africa
Gains and Losses from Internal Migration: Evidence from Migrant-Sending Households in Ghana (WP44) [PDF 1.08MB]
September 2016
Mariama Awumbila, Louis Boayke-Yiadom, Eva-Maria Egger, Julie Litchfield, Joseph Kofi Teye, and Collins Yeboah
Abstract
Migration is a common strategy adopted to escape poverty and improve living standards, but it is not without risks and there are no guarantees of success. We analyse the impact of migration on the welfare of migrant-sending households in Ghana by exploring what their living standards might have been had their migrant members remained at home. We do this by estimating a counterfactual consumption distribution for households with migrants. We examine the importance of selection bias and compare results obtained with and without selection controls. We illustrate how sensitive conclusions about the welfare gains of migration are to the decision to address selection issues. We present preliminary results which suggest that estimated gains are sensitive to whether and how we address selection bias. While the uncorrected results suggest an average gain from migration for households with migrants, once we control for potential selection bias we find that on average households with migrants are worse off than they might have been had their members stayed at home. Our selection corrected results also suggest that initially better off households are more likely to experience gains from migration and that poorer households lose out. Our results are consistent with qualitative research conducted with a small sample of migrants from our migrant-sending households.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Internal migration
Rural-urban migration
Of Local Places and Local People: Understanding Migration in Peripheral Capitalist Outposts (WP43) [PDF 783.52KB]
September 2016
Akosua K. Darkwah, Mariama Awumbila, and Joseph Kofi Teye
Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which migration and social change intermesh. It focuses on internal migration from Northern to Southern Ghana and through scrutinising changes to livelihoods in Northern Ghana in the long durée, the paper documents how these changes have contributed to women’s ability to migrate southward. Drawing on qualitative data collected in 2015 by pairing adults and youths from twenty-four households in Northern Ghana, the paper also provides insights into recent forms of change wrought by migration. This material is supplemented by data collected in interviews with migrants in Accra. The paper demonstrates that the relationship between migration and social change is not unidirectional. Deep seated social changes in Northern Ghana have precipitated the large scale migration of young women seen today. Migration, in turn, leads to two forms of change; surface level changes relating to the development of new ways of being and changes to deep seated cultural norms relating to the rise of new ways of thinking. By highlighting the different dynamics engendering social change in Northern communities the paper contests the notion of rural communities being sites of social inertia.
Gender
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Gendered Practices of Remittances in Bangladesh: A Poststructuralist Perspective (WP42) [PDF 643.65KB]
September 2016
Syeda Rozana Rashid
Abstract
This paper offers a gendered analysis of remittance behaviour in households that depend on overseas earnings. Applying a post-structuralist conceptualisation of gender as 'performativity' to a migrant community in Bangladesh, it discovers the performances of various subject positions adopted by males and females as remitters, receivers, providers and managers. While these fluid subjectivities are in opposition to prevailing gender norms, which see men as the providers and women as the carers of the household, the paper depicts the multiple ways in which men and women conform to and negotiate with these norms and thus normalise their position.
Gender
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Does Migration Improve Living Standards of Migrant-Sending Households? Evidence from Rural Ethiopia (WP41) [PDF 1.15MB]
September 2016
Yousra Abdelmoneim and Julie Litchfield
Abstract
This paper aims to evaluate the impact of migration on household welfare, in particular the consumption expenditure in Ethiopia, using cross-sectional data collected from 1,200 rural households from four different regions in 2014. We estimate a counterfactual distribution of household consumption per capita, using a Heckman selection model to control and test for selection bias, to analyse to what extent households have gained from having a migrant. Our results suggest that on average, migration has a positive impact on the rural living standards but that gains are not distributed evenly across the consumption distribution. We find that poorer households in fact experience a decline in living standards by having a migrant.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Internal migration
Migration data
Rural-urban migration
Choosing a Life: Remittances and Youth Aspirations in Bangladeshi Villages (WP40) [PDF 581.07KB]
September 2016
Syeda Rozana Rashid and Jalal Uddin Sikder
Abstract
Remittances are special forms of economic exchange which can be transformed into or invested in order to build other forms of tangible and intangible resources. The immediate spending of remittances in smoothing household consumption, education, land and other property has longterm economic, social and generational impacts which impact youths’ aspirations and their opportunities to realise their aspirations. In its effort to establish a causal relationship between youth aspirations and remittances based on in-depth qualitative study, the paper considers the complex ways in which remittances help rural Bangladeshi youths to project their future with regard to education, work and migration whilst continuing to experience constraints and opportunities in terms of their class, gender and generation.
Gender
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Changing Policy: Lessons from the Trafficking in Persons Act (2013) in South Africa (WP39) [PDF 849.82KB]
September 2016
Ingrid Palmary and Thea de Gruchy
Abstract
Concern around human trafficking in South Africa started in the early 2000s, coinciding with the ratification of the Palermo Protocol and passing of the U.S.’s Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act, which mandates the Department of State to annually released a trafficking report which ranks countries’ responses to trafficking. Within this global context, South Africa became known as a ‘source, transit, and destination’ country for victims of trafficking and, under increasing pressure, began to work towards passing national anti-trafficking legislation. The aim of this project was to examine the policy process behind the development and passing of this Act as a way of better understanding how policy is made and influenced in South Africa. As such, the objectives of the research were to document the policy process leading to the Act and map out the key policy actors and mechanisms shaping the policy framework. As little is known about how policy is made in South Africa, this project was exploratory in nature. Using the minutes of parliamentary discussions, stakeholder mapping, and key informant interviews, the data from which was all analyzed using the ‘3-I’ framework and thematic content analysis, we attempted to map out the various roles played by key actors and organizations in influencing the Trafficking in Persons Act. From our findings it is clear that the policy process in South Africa is shaped by a combination of international and local pressures. Whilst research is valued in the policy process, it is not actively sought after as policy makers rely on a combination of popular narrative, local and international pressures, and research when making decisions.
Who's holding the bomb? Debt-financed migration in Singapore's domestic work industry (WP38) [PDF 1015.92KB]
August 2016
Charmian Goh, Kellynn Wee, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh
Abstract
Debt-financed migration in South-East Asia is often criticised as a model that yokes migrant domestic workers to employers with onerous salary deductions. However, more recent conceptualisations of debt-financed migration have recognised how debt can both enable and constrain migratory trajectories, while also acknowledging that brokers are not simply ‘merchants of labour’ who seek to maximise profit at the expense of the worker. Based on our research on Singapore’s placement and recruitment agencies for migrant domestic workers, we argue that debt is not the sole provenance of the worker; instead, brokers distribute the liability for a defaulted debt to various parties within the migration industry, most often between employers and brokers themselves. Secondly, by paying attention to the temporality of debt, we avoid freeze-framing the distribution of debt at a point in time and consider the varied meanings and effects of debt across the repayment period, and the implications these have for the worker, the agent and the employer. Finally, we argue that the relationship between migrant workers and debt is not always absolutely oppressive. While debt-financed migration can compound the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers, the imbrication of employers, agents and other institutions in debt repayment also provides a measure of leverage for the worker.
Domestic work
Migration industry
Policy processes
Public Policy Formation: A Case Study of Domestic Workers in Bangladesh (WP37) [PDF 1.21MB]
July 2016
ASM Ashraf
Abstract
On 21 December 2015, the Bangladesh government approved the Domestic Workers’ Protection and Welfare Policy (DWPWP) 2015, the adoption of which offers an interesting case study through which to understand how public policy is formulated in Bangladesh. This paper employs a process-tracing methodology to explore the evolution of the DWPWP 2015. Drawing on elite interviews and documentary research, it identifies the stakeholders who were involved in formulating the policy and the role they played in support of or in opposition to it. It then employs the 3–i framework to explain which institutions, ideas and interests influenced the stakeholders. Findings from this research generate useful policy lessons pertaining to the strength of national trade unions and NGOs, the dominant role of the Ministry of Labour and Employment (henceforth MLE), incremental policy progress and concerns over international migrant workers.
Domestic work
Policy processes
The Dynamics of Policy Formulation and Implementation: A Case Study of Singapore's Mandatory Weekly Day Off Policy for Migrant Domestic Workers (WP36) [PDF 786.89KB]
May 2016
Chiu Yee Koh, Charmian Goh, Kellynn Wee, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh
Abstract
Using the process-tracing methodology, this paper aims to outline the causal mechanisms that led to the formulation of the day off policy for migrant domestic workers in Singapore. Specifically, our analysis will focus on the three “I”s: ideas, interests and institutions. We argue that the day off policy was first brought to the agenda by the campaigning efforts of local migrant rights groups. The government’s commitment to safeguarding Singapore’s international reputation provided further impetus for the improvement of employment conditions for migrant domestic workers by means of the day off policy. Finally, Singaporeans’ dependence on migrant domestic workers provided an economic imperative for the introduction of the day off policy: it was a means to enhance Singapore’s appeal in order to attract a steady supply of migrant domestic workers, especially amidst fears of a supply crunch of these workers.
Domestic work
Policy processes
Migration and Socio-Economic Development in African Cities: The Dual Challenge to the Aerotropolis Project of South Africa's Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (WP35) [PDF 601.46KB]
May 2016
Jean Pierre Misago
Abstract
This paper engages with efforts by cities and municipalities across the developing world to find favourable positions within the global economy. While many aim to attract highly skilled talent, tourists and industry, few adequately consider that economic success is likely to attract and, indeed, requires other migrants. The ‘Ekurhuleni Aerotropolis’ project illustrates this point. Indeed, this paper argues that South Africa’s Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (one of the country's fastest growing cities due to migration) faces an acute dual challenge: negative perceptions towards low and medium skilled migrants and a lack of migration policy that threatens to derail its newly launched aerotropolis project. If not addressed, these challenges mean the city is unlikely to meet the minimum aerotropolis requirements including: a safe and stable environment that is attractive to foreign investment and skilled labour; adequate and modern infrastructure that ensures a successful global competitiveness. For its aerotropolis project to succeed or at least be the catalyst for the mandatory inclusive socio-economic development, the city needs to overcome these popular and institutional cognitive blocks.
New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme: An Object Lesson in Policy Making – But for Whom? (WP34) [PDF 809.79KB]
January 2016
L. Alan Winters
Abstract
Since 2007 New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Scheme has been a very successful temporary migration programme allowing Pacific island residents to work for a season in New Zealand. This paper explores the interests, ideas and institutions behind its creation. The scheme solved the horticulture and viticulture sector’s labour shortages, brought income to the Islands and cemented New Zealand’s influence in the Pacific region. It was underpinned by research quantifying the advantages of migration and the decreasing ability of small isolated economies to generate satisfactory incomes in the global economy. It also benefitted from two built-in formal impact evaluations which reassured politicians that it would not survive if it was not effective. In terms of institutions, the World Bank played a key role in bringing the analysts and the interested parties together and helping to design a scheme that assuaged the fears that were typically expressed about temporary migration schemes. The RSE was enshrined in formal agreements between New Zealand and each participating island, but, for implementation, was embedded within existing administrative arrangements. The RSE represents a high point in the design of evidence-based policy which will be difficult to repeat because the building blocks are so rarely all present at the same time and place.
Moving to greener pastures? Internal migration, land tenure and poverty in mid-Ghana (WP33) [PDF 1.24MB]
January 2016
Jon Sward
Abstract
This working paper uses a multi-level approach to investigate the recent trend of semipermanent migration of tenant farmers from Northern Ghana to Brong Ahafo’s transition zone. Significant numbers of migrants have moved to this ‘agricultural frontier’ since the 1970s, for the purpose of accessing farmland through rental or sharecropping arrangements in order to engage in smallholder commercial agriculture of food crops such as maize, yam and cassava. Using both qualitative data collected at three migrant ‘settler’ communities in Brong Ahafo in 2014 as well as census data, the paper seeks to explore the relationship between migration and shifting conditions at migrant destinations, including evolving local customary tenure norms, changing land use patterns, and the emergence of trans-local migrant social networks. The paper’s key findings include that migration from Northern Ghana to Brong Ahafo’s transition zone reflects discrete mobility corridors, rooted in trans-local kin networks, which have resulted in the movement of migrants from particular northern origin areas to particular destinations. Echoing van der Geest (2011a), the paper suggests that this migration is perceived by migrants themselves to be a migration to ‘greener pastures’, owing to the fact that the transition zone offers access to better agro-ecological conditions than they have access to in Northern Ghana. However, the paper’s qualitative research findings suggest a substantial divergence in migrant livelihood outcomes amongst Northern Ghanaian migrants in Brong Ahafo, showing that there are limits of migration to ‘agricultural frontiers’ in terms of poverty reduction, for both migrants and their northern kin.
Internal migration
Rural-urban migration
Migration Consumption Smoothing and Household Income: Evidence from Thailand (WP32) [PDF 841.42KB]
May 2016
Ju Qiu and Yaping Wu
Abstract
The main argument of this paper is that migration does not necessarily reduce informal risk sharing in the village. We model migration as a kind of storage technology with uncertain payments for a household. Theoretical conditions, under which the “technology” can improve risk sharing in a dynamic limited commitment framework, are provided. Our empirical findings also show positive impacts of migration on risk sharing, in particular, when children migrate for education opportunities. The data are from the Townsend Thai Annual Surveys (1999-2010). The impacts of migration on income and on consumption smoothing are jointly estimated in a simultaneously determined system.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Migration data
Migration and Social Networks: Evidence from Bangladesh (WP31) [PDF 672.74KB]
September 2015
Julie Litchfield, Raisul Mahmood, Tasneem Siddiqui, Eva-Maria Egger, and Shayan Ansari
Abstract
Social networks play a key role in mitigating the risks of migration, with migrants typically making use of network and kinship capital in the decision of whether to migrate and to which destination. This paper adds to the empirical literature on the role of networks in migration decisions in Bangladesh using household survey data collected in Bangladesh in 2013. Our survey captures information on households and their migrant and resident members, migrant destinations and contacts at their destination. We distinguish between internal networks and international networks and analyse the importance of these in affecting the migration decision and destination choice. We also explore the gender dimensions of these decisions, finding that while male migration decisions are very sensitive to the existence and nature (internal or international), and even suggestive of a step-migration patterns of rural to urban to international destinations, women’s migration decisions are much more influenced by household characterises, such as household wealth.
Gender
Internal migration
International migration
Migration data
Rural-urban migration
Pragmatic Pathways: Critical Perspectives on Research Uptake in the Global South (WP30) [PDF 668.96KB]
September 2015
Kudakwashe P. Vanyoro
Abstract
One of social science’s core roles is to inform evidence-based policy making and policy interventions that produce pro-poor outcomes. This paper explores prominent debates on research uptake and policy making by scholars working on several relatively underexplored issues in the ‘Global South.’ Drawing parallels from previous studies and reflecting on working in research uptake activities surrounding domestic and international migration, this paper calls for more nuanced ways of thinking about policy change and impact in questioning normative assumptions underlying the ‘Theory of Change’ approach, as well as for greater awareness of national and sub-national political values, structures, and opportunities. It does this by drawing attention to four important variables. First, the nature of the policy issue, particularly how it is framed in public and political discourse. This bears on the issue’s popular appeal and, ultimately, the policy demand for research and the kind of policy changes that are possible. Second, institutional and political contexts that define and shape what issues are taken up on the policy agenda, who the key policy actors are and, how policy making processes are structured. Third, the issue of voice and audience: who is talking and who is being heard in any approach to research uptake and policy making. Lastly, it surfaces the semistochastic elements of timing: about how opportunity windows are sought, exploited and ideally if occasionally created, and the amount of time it takes to achieve change. It ultimately suggests that research translation demands a broad and non-linear approach to change that capitalises on back routes, solidarities and opportunism. Its conclusions are two-fold. First, that policy impact cannot be universally defined. Second, while the potential power of evidence to transform policy remains strong, we can assume neither that it will influence policy or that policy change will produce real, practical improvements for those about whom we are concerned. Indeed, the very nature of political and policy practice in the Global South questions the importance of laws and institutions as determinants of social outcomes.
Migrating out of Poverty in Zimbabwe (WP29) [PDF 914.05KB]
September 2015
Vupenyu Dzingirai, Eva-Maria Egger, Loren Landau, Julie Litchfield, Patience Mutopo and Kefasi Nyikahadzoi
Abstract
This paper present preliminary results from the MOOP household survey conducted in Zimbabwe in 2015. We provide a profile of migrants and of their households and also explore perceptions of the value of migration. Finally we provide an agenda for further research using our data. Two observations are worthy of further research. First is the finding that male migrants send more money home to their families than female migrants, which we suggest is due to differences in job opportunities available to migrant’s at their destination (skilled construction for men and domestic work for women). However this finding ignores the value of non-cash remittances, which we intend to explore in future work. We also find that households while generally positive about the value of migration to their living standards, are less positive in the context of international migration. We suggest this reflects recent events in South Africa, not least the devaluation of the Rand and an intensification of xenophobia.
Gender
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Migration data
Regional migration
Are Migrant Households better off than Non-Migrant Households? Evidence from Ghana (WP28) [PDF 1.01MB]
September 2015
Mariama Awumbila, Joseph Kofi Teye, Julie Litchfield, Louis Boakye-Yiadom, Priya Deshingkar, and Peter Quartey
Abstract
We present preliminary descriptive statistics and analysis on migrants and their families left behind using a new household survey of Ghana. We provide a profile of current migrants and their households and explore the determinants of migration. Our research suggests that poverty and migration are linked, with poverty determining where households migrate to, and that migration is generally held to be of benefit to households, particularly those with male migrants. Future research will model the counterfactual and seek to estimate to what extent households are better off from having a migrant, and why.
Gender
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Migration data
How Migration into Urban Construction Work Impacts on Rural Households in Nepal (WP27) [PDF 1.25MB]
April 2015
Jagannath Adhikari and Priya Deshingkar
Abstract
The research draws on interviews with rural-urban migrant construction workers in Kathmandu as well as with families of construction workers, other migrant labourers and non-migrants in two contrasting villages in the Karve district in Central Nepal and Saptari district in the Terai. Interviews at destination show that migrant construction labourers are poorly educated, not organised and vulnerable to exploitative working conditions at the hands of agents and employers. Despite tough working conditions and high expenses in the city, a majority of migrants remitted money to their families. Remittances were used for a variety of poverty reducing and social status enhancing purposes. Interviews at origin showed how social structure and factors related to class, gender and ethnicity influenced the necessity and ability to participate in migrant construction work. Households with construction migrants and households with other types of migrants (labourers) were better off than non-migrants, and subjective assessments by the migrants, their families and others in the village community suggest that migration had led to positive changes. Expenditure figures also show that there are significant differences between spending on education by migration status and type. In both villages, construction migrants spent more on education than other migrants and non-migrants. Women’s control over remittance spending differed by ethnicity, with Tamang women belonging to indigenous hill communities having more control over household finances compared to Madhesi women in the Terai. The paper explores the reasons for these observed differences and offers lessons for policy in the area of migrant support.
Communities
Gender
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Rural-urban migration
Migration and Precarious Work: Negotiating Debt, Employment, and Livelihood Strategies Amongst Bangladeshi Migrant Men Working in Singapore’s Construction Industry (WP26) [PDF 897.61KB]
February 2015
Grace Baey and Brenda S.A. Yeoh
Abstract
To the extent that circular labour migration in Southeast Asia is increasingly dominated by migrants concentrated amongst the low-wage/-skilled occupational sectors, it may be observed that migration and precarious work are mutually constitutive in significant ways. Inasmuch as migration is frequently espoused as an effective developmental strategy for securing pathways to socioeconomic mobility, less is known about the specific conditions and practices that enable and/or constrain these possibilities. Furthermore, since migrants undertake significant investments (often by means of debt and collateral loans) to finance their migration, the risks and consequences of failed migration are far-reaching.
Taking the case-study of Bangladeshi men migrating to Singapore as low-wage construction workers, this paper draws on findings from a quantitative survey (n=205) and in-depth interviews (n=30) to examine the different processes and practices that mediate men's migration experiences and outcomes, as well as how they view and negotiate issues of debt and risk in their individual migration trajectores. By analysing both ends of the migration stream – i.e. taking into account pre-departure decision-making, conditions of training and recruitment, as well as workers' employment experiences at destination – it sheds light on the specific conditions of precarity that underpin migration and construction work, whilst emphasising men's livelihood strategies in negotiating pathways to upward mobility within this context. The evidence gathered will provide a firm basis for policy and advocacy work to formulate interventions for increasing the developmental outcomes of migration for construction work.
Construction work
Gender
International migration
Migration data
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Structural Conditions and Agency in Migrant Decision Making: A case of domestic and construction workers from Java, Indonesia (WP25) [PDF 651.81KB]
February 2015
Khoo Choon Yen, Maria Platt, Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Theodora Lam
Abstract
This working paper examines the migration drivers into the two low-paid and insecure occupations of domestic work and construction work from rural areas in Indonesia. While the ideas of migration exist in Indonesia’s social imagination, the decision making process on whether to migrate and who should migrate in the household is complicated by the gendered migration regimes, gender roles and responsibilities within the household as well as intergenerational family obligations. Traditional gender ideals see men as the more appropriate labour migrant (both internally and overseas). However, women have greater access to labour migration, especially to international markets, due to the availability of credit offered to facilitate their movement. In this paper, we investigate how migrants and their households exercise their agency in the context of structural gendered constraints. We found that some households reshuffle household roles and responsibilities to maximise economic gains through women’s migration, while men stay behind to take care of the household. Other households are immobilised by the gendered migration regimes where no one in the household migrates because men are unable to afford migration financially, while women are constrained by their household responsibilities. Other households make conscious decisions to work only within Indonesia (both men and women) or reject migration in favour of spending more time with their family members.
Construction work
Domestic work
Gender
Regional migration
Migration and Information Communication Technology Use: A Case Study of Indonesian Domestic Workers in Singapore (WP24) [PDF 562.73KB]
December 2014
Maria Platt, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Kristel Anne Acedera, Khoo Choon Yen, Grace Baey and Theodora Lam
Abstract
This paper explores the use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) among Indonesian Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs) working and living in Singapore. Drawing upon a survey (n=201) with Indonesian domestic workers and follow up in-depth interviews (n=38), the paper points to recent changes in the technological landscape in Singapore which have altered FDWs use of ICT. This includes cheaper mobile devices and increasing access to free internet, either at their place of employment or in public space. In turn, we suggest the utilisation of ICT has shaped the migration experiences of women in three key areas. Firstly, it has allowed FDWs to more readily straddle the transnational divide their migration creates by making communication with friends and family an instantaneous and everyday occurrence. Secondly, we show how this access is contingent upon issues of trust and negotiation with employers, who often possess passwords for home-based internet and can place restrictions on their employees’ use of ICT. Thirdly, we show how the use of ICT can provide FDWs with a degree of social empowerment, by allowing them to connect globally to a range of information.
Domestic work
Gender
Policy processes
Institutional Strengthening of the Office of Labour Attaché: Research Findings from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka (WP23) [PDF 636.86KB]
November 2014
C. R. Abrar, S. Irudaya Rajan, L. K. Ruhunage & Tasneem Siddiqui
Abstract
Although there is increased awareness of the need for effective migration governance in order to safeguard the basic rights and safety of migrant workers in destination countries, little research has focused on how such governance efforts have been mobilised to date. This working paper is based on research on labour attachés for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, and investigates an important component of migration governance as labour attachés serve as the main official point of contact between migrants at destination and their country of origin. They play an important role in mediating employment-related disputes and arranging work visas for their citizens who are abroad. Research was conducted in three destination countries, with labour attachés for India interviewed in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, labour attachés from Sri Lanka interviewed in UAE and Malaysia, and labour attachés from Bangladesh interviewed in Qatar and Malaysia. Drawing on the findings of this research, the paper highlights the growing importance of labour migration in all three countries, and assesses recruitment and training procedures adopted by Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka with respect to labour attachés. It then turns to consider the functions of labour attachés, as defined by both national law and international convention, and examines the challenges faced by labour attaché offices in terms of providing services to migrants, including lack of capacity, limited resources and policy incoherence. The paper also provides insights into migrants’ perceptions of labour attaché offices. It concludes with a set of policy recommendations aimed at improving the services that labour attachés render to migrants in destination countries.
International migration
Migration industry
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Gendered Migration Patterns, Processes and Outcomes: Results from a Household Survey in Ponorogo, Indonesia (WP22) [PDF 1.13MB]
October 2014
Khoo Choon Yen, Maria Platt, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Silvia Mila Arlini, Grace Baey, Theodora Lam, Sukamdi, Julie Litchfield and Endang Sugiyarto
Abstract
This working paper is based on a survey of 1,203 households located in the Sampung subdistrict of Ponorogo, a region in Indonesia’s East Java province. We surveyed both migrant (n=903) and non-migrant households (n=300) to gain a perspective on the challenges and benefits migration presents to households in the community. We found that of the migrant households, 96 per cent of all migrants had migrated for work. This highlights the reliance upon migration as a livelihood strategy.
This working paper also notes a strong gender dimension in the patterns and processes surrounding migration. The gendered division of responsibilities within households affects men and women’s propensity to migrate in different ways. We found that households with a high dependency ratio lower women’s likelihood to migrate. Gender also influences migration destinations. Women are more likely to migrate overseas, rather than internally, and are more likely to migrate to a greater range of destinations compared to their male counterparts. This difference is due to a well-established gendered migration regime, which sees women’s international migration aided by a system of debt-finance migration that requires little, if any, upfront payment before migrating.
In terms of outcomes, migrant households are more likely to report a greater improvement of quality of life, which includes the overall economic, health and educational status of their household members, compared to five years earlier. International migrants send back larger remittances and a higher proportion of households with international migrants said that their overall quality of life was ‘easier’ than five years ago. These findings suggest that migration, especially international migration (to which women have easier access), has the potential to positively influence perceptions of quality of life for households involved in this study, although more in-depth analysis is needed to verify this premise. It is important to note that internal migration may also result in positive change for migrants and their families, although it may be at a slower rate and smaller in scale due to differences in income when compared to international migration.
Gender
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Migration data
Regional migration
Is Migration the Solution to Poverty Alleviation in Kenya? Rural-Urban Migration Experiences of Migrants from Western Kenya to Kisumu and Nairobi (WP21) [PDF 1.20MB]
September 2014
John O. Oucho, Linda A. Oucho and Vollan Ochieng
Abstract
Out-migration from western Kenya to Kenya’s urban areas dates back to the colonial period and remains a reflection of regional inequality, as migrants try to move out of their poorer origins to destinations with promising economic opportunities. Out-migration in Western Kenya, mainly from the Siaya and Vihiga counties, is directed towards the regional city of Kisumu and the national capital of Nairobi city, which for long has been the country’s primate city. Underdevelopment in western Kenya and the desired lifestyle of the cities drive both rural-urban migration and rural-rural migration to the county’s economic hubs that rely on commercial agriculture. Siaya and Vihiga are two contrasting counties. Siaya has vast landscapes wallowing in poverty due to subsistence agriculture whereas Vihiga is unsuitable for agriculture because of large boulders occupying much of the cultivable land. Using mixed qualitative methodology consisting of key informant interviews, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the study found that although Kisumu is closer to the region of origin than Nairobi, the latter has the greater attraction. The migrants fare much better in urban destinations where they maintain strong contacts with their origins, to where they send remittances for relatives left behind. At the end of a migratory life, the vast majority of migrants expect to return to their homes to try and lead better lives than non-migrant folk, and to develop their communities as well as their counties of origin. The findings of the study corroborate findings of previous studies in Kenya that underscore the contribution of rural- urban migration to poverty reduction.
Internal migration
Rural-urban migration
Counting the Cost of Securitising South Africa’s Immigration Regime (WP20) [PDF 594.71KB]
September 2014
Gregory Mthembu-Salter, Roni Amit, Chandre Gould and Loren B. Landau
Abstract
Over the past decade, South Africa’s political leadership has increasingly framed international migration as a threat to national, physical and economic security. This has been accompanied by popular and political calls to strengthen border controls and increase enforcement through detention and deportation. This development will bring potential costs and benefits to the economy and real, direct costs to the taxpayer. At present, there is no publicly available financial information on South Africa’s expenditure on immigration enforcement and no estimates of the potential costs of increasing immigration control. This report constitutes an initial effort to estimate these costs. It finds that the costs to the South African state of enforcing its migration policy are largely unknown to the South African public and the state itself. Through an analysis of public records and budgets on the police, defence force, and other associated public bodies, this report suggests that direct expenditure on enforcing immigration is relatively modest as a percentage of GDP, or when compared with countries in Europe and North America. However, in absolute terms, the figures are high by African standards and not adequate to support a programme of action that can accomplish the government’s stated objectives. In part, this is because significant funds are spent (unsuccessfully) on defending the government for failure to comply with the law.
Managing Migration in Southern Africa: Tools for Evaluating Local Government Responsiveness (WP19) [PDF 712.03KB]
September 2014
Caitlin Blaser and Loren B. Landau
Abstract
Southern African cities are on the move. As elsewhere in the global south, populations are continuing to grow, shrink and transform in response to demographic and economic pressures (Crush et al. 2005; Potts 2009). As the foundation of government, local authorities are on the frontlines of managing the transformations of their communities in ways that provide stability and economic opportunities. Through an examination of six South African municipalities and Gaborone, Botswana’s economic and political capital, this report helps us come to terms with local governments’ responses to population mobility. This research suggests that few authorities across Southern Africa are positioned to capitalise on migration’s counter-poverty potential. This is partly due to general difficulties of grappling with structural poverty and their expanded mandates. Authorities also face specific migration-related challenges: the availability and use of data; patterns of budgeting and popular participation; and political resistance to newcomers. If addressed, these concerns would not only enable local authorities to respond more effectively to migration, but also to plan for economic development in a more strategic and sustained manner. This report provides a tool for assessing municipalities’ ability to respond and to help explain capacity variations. Our work identifies six primary indices for evaluating municipalities’ abilities and practices surrounding the management of human mobility and other population dynamics. Each of these includes a series of sub-measures for calculating aggregate and sub-area scores. While the measures outlined within are more indicative than exhaustive, they nonetheless allow for comparative analysis and point to areas for future interventions to improve local government strategies for poverty alleviation.
Confirmations, Coffins and Corn: Kinship, Social Networks and Remittances from South Africa to Zimbabwe (WP18) [PDF 689.82KB]
September 2014
Vupenyu Dzingirai, Patience Mutopo and Loren B. Landau
Abstract
Despite much optimism about migrant remittances’ power to combat poverty, we know too little about their long-term consequences in sending communities. Through an intensive qualitative study of three districts in Zimbabwe – Chivi, Gwanda, and Hurungwe – this paper explains why significant resource flows from migrants to South Africa have done little to eliminate chronic poverty. Part of the explanation stems from the districts’ political economy: where remittances help generate income, this largely replaces streams lost through the country’s overall economic decline. Further investments are often discouraged by poor physical infrastructure, the shortage of inputs, and market precarity. While other studies identify such material factors, this work draws particular attention to how the moral economy of remittances also directs resources away from income generation and towards ‘social’ and ‘god taxes’: paying for neighbours’ immediate needs, investing in events and infrastructure intended to boost one’s social status, or donating large sums to the church. Underlying this is a paradox: where networks are weak, as in the case of the communities with more recently formed mobility patterns, there are few pressures on migrants to remit. Yet, while social networks are critical for extracting resources from migrants, local expectations within sending communities often mean that moneys are spent on maintaining a social safety net and social status rather than directed into financially productive investments. However, this is not irrational spending but rather an investment in social standing and safety: selfishness and self-enrichment in an environment of generalised poverty can result in social isolation and occasionally threats to property and lives. Such findings have important implications for understanding how remittances are directed and our expectations regarding their potential effects at promoting social protection and poverty alleviation.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Regional migration
Poverty, Youth and Rural-Urban Migration in Ethiopia (WP17) [PDF 672.00KB]
July 2014
Adamnesh Atnafu, Linda Oucho and Benjamin Zeitlyn
Abstract
This paper explores the relationships between poverty and rural-urban migration in Ethiopia. It draws upon research particularly of migration for work in the construction industry and domestic work. The paper describes and analyses migration from a poor rural woreda (district) in northern Ethiopia, to the nearby city of Bahir Dar and the capital, Addis Ababa. Extreme poverty is one of the main driving factors behind these flows of migration. Our research suggests that migration of this type does not lead to immediate flows of remittance income from migrants to their households. We explain why this is, and how migrants and their households nevertheless plan to move out of poverty. We argue that there are important noneconomic factors and long-term strategies that encourage migration even where working conditions are hard and returns are low.
Construction work
Domestic work
Internal migration
Rural-urban migration
International Migration, Trade and Aid: A Survey (WP16) [PDF 1.02MB]
July 2014
Christopher Parsons and L. Alan Winters
Abstract
This paper surveys the voluminous literature on migration affecting trade and the somewhat less developed literature linking aid flows to migration. We aim to guide the reader through the two literatures, highlighting key contributions and identifying important lines of enquiry. Simmering below the surface of both literatures is the issue of causation. Given the macroeconomic nature of the global flows under examination and the numerous direct and indirect links that potentially exist between them, establishing causality proves particularly problematic and is thus an issue that we pay close attention to throughout. The evidence from the trade and migration literature, in which causality has been more concretely established, suggests an almost ubiquitous positive effect of migration on trade, although exceptions exist. This suggests that richer data might be required to delve even deeper into the trade-migration nexus. While policymakers often wish that aid reduces migration, the literature suggests the opposite, namely that aid increases emigration. However, the mechanism has yet to be resolutely established in this literature, which suggests a need for future research.
International migration
Policy processes
Australasia
East Africa
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
Ghana
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Nepal
Nigeria
New Zealand
Singapore
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Rwanda
Uganda
Vietnam
Zimbabwe
Does Migration for Domestic Work Reduce Poverty? A Review of the Literature and an Agenda for Research (WP15) [PDF 653.26KB]
May 2014
Priya Deshingkar and Benjamin Zeitlyn with Bridget Holtom
Abstract
This review of the published academic literature on internal and regional migration for domestic work in Africa and Asia shows a dearth of studies on internal migration for domestic work in South Asia, and both internal and regional migration for domestic work in East Africa and West Africa. The existing literature is heavily dominated by papers on the transnational migration of domestic workers from South East and East Asia which examine in detail the shortcomings of the legal framework for regulating working conditions and recruitment practices resulting in little protection for migrant workers against exploitation. The paper highlights the serious lack of attention paid to the impacts of migration for domestic work on poverty levels within families in source areas. This is a significant gap in the literature given that migration is usually a household decision in which one member migrates to access more remunerative employment and remit money home. The paper offers a number of suggestions for improving the evidence base on this important migration stream.
Domestic work
Internal migration
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Regional migration
East Africa
South Asia
West Africa
Internal and Regional Migration for Construction Work: A Research Agenda (WP14) [PDF 675.01KB]
May 2014
Benjamin Zeitlyn and Priya Deshingkar with Bridget Holtom
Abstract
This working paper reviews evidence from the literature on internal migration for work in construction in developing countries. The literature reviewed was found through a search of academic databases and selected by the authors. The review identifies cases and contexts in which migration for construction work leads to exits from poverty as well as those in which it entrenches poverty. We also focus upon migrant selectivity and discourses within the literature about migration for construction work. The review identifies gaps in the literature and important themes, in particular those issues and phenomena relating to poverty and development. The small and diverse set of literature, identified for the purpose of this paper, focuses mainly on South Asia. Several areas for future research are suggested throughout the paper and in the concluding section.
Construction work
Internal migration
Can Rural-Urban Migration into Slums Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Ghana (WP13) [PDF 1.52MB]
April 2014
Mariama Awumbila, George Owusu, Joseph Kofi Teye
Abstract
Recent evidence indicates that the increasing levels of poverty in urban areas in Ghana are partly attributed to net migration of poor people to cities. However, evidence of the linkages between urbanisation, rural-urban migration and poverty outcome is mixed. In the light of the rapid pace of urbanisation and the resulting pressure on public facilities, policy prescription has largely occupied itself with attempts to curb rural-urban migration. There is a widely held perception – as emphasised in a number of policy documents – that ruralurban migration cannot lead to positive outcomes for migrants, their areas of origin, or destination. Recent poverty reduction strategies and urban policies tend to focus on the negative aspects of migration and little support is provided for rural-urban migrants in Ghana. Yet, the relationship between rural-urban migration and poverty reduction is not adequately understood nor explored. This study examines the livelihoods of poor migrants living and working in two urban informal settlements in Accra: Nima and Old Fadama. The findings suggest that, despite living in a harsh environment with little social protection, an overwhelming majority of the migrants believes that their overall well-being has been enhanced by migrating to Accra. Using their own ingenuity, the migrants build houses and create jobs in the informal sector and beyond in order to survive and live in Accra. The migrants are also contributing to poverty reduction and human capital development back home through remittances and investments. Yet, official assessments and perceptions of urban poverty do not take into account the fact that poor people are attracted to urban areas to utilise the multiple economic opportunities there, but instead only focus on head count measures that do not recognise these dynamics. Our findings show that urban slums are not just places of despair and misery, but places where migrants are optimistically making the most of their capabilities and are trying to move out of poverty, despite the obvious difficulties. Therefore, we urge the need for a more nuanced understanding of the connections between the migration of the poor to urban areas and the impacts that this is having on their long term prospects to exit poverty.
Internal Remittances and Poverty: Further evidence from Africa and Asia (WP12) [PDF 1.68MB]
March 2014
Andy McKay and Priya Deshingkar
Abstract
Despite the fact that the number of internal migrants globally is at least 740 million, nearly four times the number of international migrants, there is hardly any discussion on internal remittances and their potential to reduce poverty. Families that 'send' internal migrants are, on average, poorer than those of international migrants, and the receipt of remittances, even if smaller in amount than international remittances, has the potential to improve standards of living and overall wellbeing with possible multiplier effects for origin areas. Building on earlier work on Ghana and India, this paper examines secondary data from household surveys for six countries in Africa and Asia (Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Bangladesh and Vietnam), to show the significance of internal remittances as well as the characteristics of receiving areas and households. The paper shows that internal migrants outnumber international migrants in most of the countries under study and that internal remittances flow to a larger number of receiving households, mainly in poor rural areas. An examination of the patterns of internal migration and the drivers for migration shows that most migrants originate from poorer regions and go to richer regions. Although it is not possible to establish causality or address endogeneity on the basis of these data and computations alone, the mapping and assessment of internal remittances provides a useful picture of the significance of these monetary flows in poor countries and challenges the notion that internal remittances need not be considered in development planning. While we do not claim to establish that these remittances are reducing poverty, they are received in significant magnitudes by poor households, and complementary evidence shows that migration is usually undertaken to improve living standards and overall wellbeing.
The paper opens with an overview of the state of knowledge on internal remittances and poverty, followed by a brief discussion of the context of the different countries under consideration. It then continues to provide an estimate of the total volume of internal remittances in contrast to the volume of international remittances. Where the necessary data are available, the paper also discusses where internal remittances originate from, where they flow to, the characteristics of the households that send them and receive them, and the uses to which they are put.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Internal migration
International migration
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Nigeria
Rwanda
South Africa
Uganda
Vietnam
Social Polarisation and Migration to Johannesburg (WP11) [PDF 996.56KB]
November 2013
Jacqueline Borel-Saladin
Abstract
The manufacturing sector – once a major source of urban employment and consisting of a large percentage of skilled and semi-skilled, middle-income jobs – has declined, while the service sector – comprising predominantly either high-skill, high-pay or low-skill, low-pay jobs – has grown. Consequently, it has been argued, that the decline of manufacturing and the growth of the service sector are to result in a more polarised occupational structure. Growing numbers of low-wage, low-skill service sector jobs are also said to attract poorly educated, unskilled immigrants from rural areas and/or developing countries. The contention is that these migrants become trapped in the low-skill, low-wage service sector jobs, thereby exacerbating social polarisation. An alternative argument is that there is a trend towards professionalisation, with a general upgrading of skills among the employed workforce and a growth of non-manual clerical, sales, technical, professional and managerial jobs. Consequently, unskilled migrants experience a skills mismatch and are likely to be unemployed rather than employed in low-skilled jobs. Household survey and population census results for the Johannesburg region of South Africa from 1980 to 2007, were used to explore the relationship between migrants and social polarisation. The results show that migrants have a very similar occupation and education profile to natives and that their presence does not cause social polarisation but supports growing professionalisation instead.
Financing Migration, Generating Remittances and the Building of Livelihood Strategies: A Case Study of Indonesian Migrant Women as Domestic Workers in Singapore (WP10) [PDF 1.36MB]
November 2013
Maria Platt, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Grace Baey, Khoo Choon Yen, Theodora Lam, Dhiman Das & Miriam Ee
Domestic work
Gender
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Intra-household dynamics
Gender and generation
Migration data
Regional migration
Rural-Urban and Urban-Rural Migration Flows as Indicators of Economic Opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa: What do the data tell us? (WP09) [PDF 919.38KB]
September 2013
Deborah Potts
Abstract
Migration flows can be sensitive indicators of the geography of economic opportunity and vitality. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) assumptions are too often made about the scale and direction of migration flows between rural and urban areas and about the ubiquity of rapid urbanisation across the region. This can divert attention from the economic realities of the developmental landscape in individual countries and from the increasing differentiation between them. This paper will demonstrate, using census data and other sources, that the rate at which urbanisation levels have recently been increasing in many large mainland SSA countries where the majority of SSA people live has significantly reduced, although some continue to urbanise very rapidly. It will also show that SSA is not, as is often asserted, the world’s fastest urbanising region: many Asian countries (according to UN Habitat data) are urbanising faster. A key reason why SSA urbanisation levels in some countries are rising more slowly is changes in the net rate of in-migration to urban areas in many countries, often because of rising rates of circular migration related to weak urban economies. This paper will discuss the reasons why misleading ideas about SSA urbanisation remain common and reflect upon the need to study in greater depth the ways in which the region’s current natural-resource based GDP growth feeds through into urbanisation and migration flows.
A Review of Internal and Regional Migration Policy in Southeast Asia (WP08) [PDF 797.10KB]
September 2013
Maureen Hickey, Pitra Narendra and Katie Rainwater
Internal migration
Policy processes
Regional migration
Internal Migration, Remittances and Poverty: Evidence from Ghana and India (WP07) [PDF 1.47MB]
2012
Adriana Castaldo, Priya Deshingkar and Andy McKay
Abstract
Drawing on data from population censuses and recent household surveys for India and Ghana, this paper demonstrates the importance of internal migration in comparison to international migration, showing that internal migrants outnumber international migrants by an order of magnitude in both countries. It examines patterns of internal migration and the underlying reasons for migration, noting that people move from relatively poor areas to richer ones. While it is difficult to establish causality, complementary evidence suggests that these moves may allow poor people to access better opportunities in richer regions. The paper then looks more carefully at the association between migration and poverty at the district and state level and to some degree at the household level, which is followed by an examination of internal remittances and their association with poverty. A key finding of this paper is the importance of internal remittances, which in both countries appear to be greater in magnitude than international remittances. In addition, internal remittances appear to be particularly important in relation to international remittances in the poorest regions of Ghana and in the poorest states of India.
Income and remittances
Counterfactuals
Internal migration
Human Mobility and Climate Change adaptation policy: A review of migration in National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) (WP06) [PDF 1.09MB]
March 2012
Jon Sward and Samuel Codjoe
Australasia
East Africa
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
Ghana
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Nepal
Nigeria
New Zealand
Singapore
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Rwanda
Uganda
Vietnam
Zimbabwe
Decent Work Country Programmes And Human Mobility (WP05) [PDF 1.32MB]
March 2012
Priya Deshingkar, Jon Sward and Elisenda Estruch-Puertas
Australasia
East Africa
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
Ghana
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Nepal
Nigeria
New Zealand
Singapore
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Rwanda
Uganda
Vietnam
Zimbabwe
Impact of Migration on Poverty and Development (WP02) [PDF 668.27KB]
September 2012
Tasneem Siddiqui
Internal migration
International migration
Australasia
East Africa
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
Ghana
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Nepal
Nigeria
New Zealand
Singapore
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Rwanda
Uganda
Vietnam
Zimbabwe
Drivers of Migration (WP01) [PDF 702.97KB]
March 2012
Nicholas Van Hear, Oliver Bakewell and Katy Long
Internal migration
International migration
Regional migration
Australasia
East Africa
Middle East
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Southern Africa
West Africa
Bangladesh
Cambodia
Ethiopia
Ghana
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Nepal
Nigeria
New Zealand
Singapore
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Rwanda
Uganda
Vietnam
Zimbabwe