LIVING WITH MIGRATION

In the Philippines, large-scale overseas migration has raised concerns about left-behind children, who are perceived to be most affected by the absence of fathers, mothers or both. Without their ‘real’ parents (especially mothers) to rear and guide them, left-behind children are perceived to bear the brunt of the social costs of migration. Based on data collected from a 2003 nationwide study, this article examines how left-behind children (specifically those aged 10–12 years old and adolescents) cope without their migrant parents. Three questions are explored: (1) how children are raised in the absence of one or both migrant parents; (2) how children (re)configure family, family life and family practices; and (3) what roles children have, if any, in how the family unit copes with the migration of one or both parents. Although migration creates emotional displacement for migrants and their children, it also opens up possibilities for children's agency and independence.     

MIGRATION,SKILL FORMATION,AND THE WAGE STRUCTURE*

ABSTRACT We analyze the impacts of migration and of labor market integration on the distribution of skills and the wage structure in both the short and the long run. To do so, we develop a framework where workers have heterogeneous skills and where in‐migration expands the range of available skills in the economy. In the short run, this expansion leads to productivity gains, which may more than offset the negative endowment effects of a larger labor supply so that all workers may be better off. In the long run, in‐migration impacts wages further by altering the workers' incentives to acquire skills, thereby affecting the wage structure indirectly by changing the economy's skill composition. Since the short and the long‐run effects of in‐migration on wages may differ, compositional changes may be an important element to take into consideration. A numerical illustration calibrated on U.S. data suggests that the immigration of skilled workers negatively affects the incentives for domestic skill formation, thereby suggesting that endowment effects dominate externalities. We finally extend the model to cope with the simultaneous impacts that migration and skill formation have on the host and the source region, and we show that more migration increases wage disparities and the skill gap across regions.     

MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES

This paper examines patterns of remittances among migrants from Guizhou province of China. Our research is motivated by three lines of theoretical arguments, namely the new economics of migration, a translocal perspective linking remittances and development, and the culture of remittances. Taking individual, household, and village-level characteristics into account, we estimated multilevel logistic models of the decision to remit and multilevel models of the amount of remittances. Our results show that migrant remittance behaviour is responsive to family needs as well as household economic position in the village. Migrants who come from entrepreneurial households are more likely to remit a large amount than other types of households. We find some evidence of ‘culture of remittances’ in these villages. Consistent with our expectations, migrants who are from villages with higher amounts of average remittances are likely to remit a larger amount than otherwise.     

INTERREGIONAL MIGRATION ANALYSIS

A formula for migration rate, proposed by Bogue, Shryock and Hoermann (1957), is modified to yield a simple coefficient of migration intensity for the analysis of the intensity of interregional streams of migration among the 72 oblasts, krays and autonomous republics of the RSFSR, the principal republic of the Soviet Union. The coefficient, which eliminates the impact of the populations of both region of origin and region of destination on the value of the coefficient, is obtained by dividing the shares of all regions of origin in the migration to each region of destination by the shares of the regions of destination in the total population of all regions. The 5112 coefficients of migration intensity are arrayed in a table and subjected to some preliminary analysis of migration patterns. The basic pattern is determined by 171 coefficients with values of 5 or higher, accounting for 3.4 percent of the total number of coefficients.     

THE BAM: LABOR,MIGRATION AND PROSPECTS FOR SETTLEMENT

The construction of the showcase Baikal-Amur Mainline (the BAM), which spans over 2,000 miles of unsettled, desolate territory, provides an excellent opportunity to study labor management and organization in a centrally planned economy, and illustrates the interplay of central planning with the relatively unhindered migration of workers. Significantly, in the face of a shrinking labor force, the USSR attracted thousands of young people to Siberia to work on the BAM. Now that the rail line is in place, the more difficult task will be to entice workers to settle in the BAM zone. Until the Soviet Government makes a firm commitment to improving the quality of life in Siberia, prospects for settling the BAM region remain uncertain. (The author wishes to thank Holland Hunter, Gilbert Rozman and Theodore Shabad for their generous help and encouragement.)     

MIGRATION AND TRANSITION TO ADULTHOOD

This paper examines the relative education and employment outcomes among young migrants and non-migrants in Greater Jakarta in 2009/2011. Using data from the 2010 Greater Jakarta Transition to Adulthood Survey that includes 3006 respondents aged 20 to 34 years old, the paper highlights the importance of the age at migration in influencing the patterns of schooling and employment among young people. Patterns of schooling and employment are investigated for four groups of young people: those who migrated to Greater Jakarta between ages 0 and 10, between ages 10 and 17, after age 17, and non-migrants. We found that young people who migrated to Greater Jakarta at 10–17 years of age are over-represented in the lower spectrum of occupational rankings, even though they are more likely to be employed than non-migrants and those who came to Jakarta at other ages.     

MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA

Malaysia is one of the countries most influenced by international migration, not only in Asia, but globally. Most attention is focused on its role as a major immigration country, but it also experiences significant emigration, having an estimated diaspora of 1.5 million people. This paper demonstrates the scale and composition of the contemporary Malaysian diaspora, and discusses its potential impacts on economic development. In undertaking this task, it is necessary to rely mostly on data from destinations of emigrants from Malaysia because of an inherent bias in migration data collection towards immigrants and destinations. In order to gain deeper insights into the composition of the diaspora and the linkages which it maintains with Malaysia, there is a focus on a single destination country—Australia, which has the second largest community of Malaysian expatriates after Singapore. The potential role that the diaspora could play in Malaysian development is discussed.     

MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE WITHIN METROPOLITAN TORONTO, 1966–71

Although net natural increase accounts for slightly more than half of the over-all growth in the population of Metropolitan Toronto between 1966 and 1971, the redistribution of the 1966 population and the addition of people from outside the metropolitan area are more important in understanding spatial variations in population change. Longer-term residents have tended to move away from the inner municipalities, but the pattern of a suburbanizing population has been obscured by the tendency of recent immigrants to reside in the inner areas.     

EMPLOYMENT,INCOME, AND MIGRATION IN APPALACHIA: A SPATIAL SIMULTANEOUS EQUATIONS APPROACH*

ABSTRACT Appalachia remains a symbol of poverty in the midst of prosperity. During the 1990s it fell further behind the rest of the nation. Persistent poverty during a period of strong growth is a serious as well as an interesting subject to study. We examine determinants of growth in Appalachia between 1990 and 2000. We show that employment, migration, and median household income were jointly determined by regional covariates and that county economic conditions were conditional on the performance in neighboring counties. One conclusion is that regional cooperation and geographically focused programs may yield the greatest returns to policy investments.