Migration

Migration

• As well as natural changes to the population size, such as births and deaths, migration also has a big impact on a population.
• Migration refers to the movement of people from place to place. It can be internal, within a society, or international.
• Immigration refers to movement into a society.
• Emigration refers to movement out.
• Net migration is the differences between the numbers of immigrants and the numbers of emigrants, and is expressed as a net increase or a net decrease due to migration.
• 

A Timeline of Migration

• Before the 1990s, immigration to the UK came from a fairly narrow range of former British colonies. Most of these migrants had the right to settle and become citizens. They formed a small number of stable, concentrated ethnic communities.
• In the UK, for most of the 20th century until the 1980s, there were fewer immigrants than emigrants.
• From 1900 until the Second World War (1939-45), the largest immigrant group were the Irish, mainly for economic reasons, followed by European Jews, who were often refugees fleeing persecution, and people of British descent from Canada and the USA. Very few immigrants were non-white.
• By contrast, during the 1950s, black immigrants from the Caribbean began to arrive in the UK, followed during the 1960s and 1970s by South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and by East African Asians from Kenya and Uganda.
• 

Results of Immigration

• One consequence is a more ethnically diverse society. By 2011, ethnic minority groups accounted for 14% of the population.
• There has also been a greater diversity of family patterns.
• However, as previously, more people left the UK than entered and most immigrants were white.
• Despite this, however, a series of immigration and nationality acts from 1962 to 1990 placed severe restrictions on non-white immigration.
• By the 1980's, non-whites accounted for little more than a quarter of all immigrants, while the mainly white countries of the European Union became the main source of settlers in the UK.
• 

The Impact of Migration

• Recent years have seen an increase in both immigration and emigration. These trends affect the size of the UK population, its age structure and the dependency ratio.
• Population Size
• The UK population is currently growing, partly as a result of immigration.
• Net migration is high (for example, 260,000 in 2014), with more immigrants (583,000) than emigrants (323,000).
• 47% of the immigrants were non-EU citizens, 38% were EU citizens (mainly from Eastern Europe) and 14% were British citizens returning to the UK.
• There is also a natural increase, with births exceeding deaths. However, births to UK born mothers remain low. Births to non-UK born mothers are higher and account for about 25% of all births, but even with these, births remain below the replacement level of 2.1 per woman (the number needed to keep population size stable). If not for net migration, therefore, the UK’s population would be shrinking.
• Age Structure
• Immigrants are generally younger. For example, in 2011, the average age of UK passport holders was 41, whereas that of non-UK passport holders living in Britain was 31.
• Being younger, immigrants are more fertile and thus produce more babies.

The Impact of Migration cont'd

• The dependency ratio
• Immigrants are more likely to be of working age and this helps to lower the dependency ratio.
• Many older migrants return to their country of origin to retire.
• Because they are younger, immigrants have more children, thereby increasing the ratio. Over time, however, these children will join the labour force and help to lower the ratio once again.
• The longer a group is settled in the country, the closer their fertility rate comes to the national average, reducing their overall impact on the dependency ratio.
• 

Globalisation

• ‘Globalisation’ is the idea that barriers between societies are disappearing and people are becoming increasingly interconnected across national boundaries.
• This is the result of many processes, including the growth of communication systems and global media, the creation of global markets, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the expansion of the European Union.
• Many see globalisation as producing rapid social changes. One such change is increased international migration – the movement of people across borders. We can identify several trends in global migration.
• 

Emigration

• From as early as the mid-16th century until the 1980s, the UK was almost always a net exporter of people: more emigrated to live elsewhere than came to settle in the UK.
• Since 1900, emigrants have gone to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
• The main reasons for emigration have been economic:
• ‘push’ factors such as economic recession and unemployment at home
• ‘pull’ factors such as higher wages or better opportunities abroad.
• These economic reasons for migration contrast with those of some other groups, who have been driven to migrate by religious, political or racial persecution.
• 
• Bildunterschrift: http://cdn2.independent.ie/incoming/article29538756.ece/41649/ALTERNATES/w620/SOCIAL-emmigration.png

Acceleration of migration

• There has been a speeding up of the rate of migration.
• For example, according to the United Nations (2013), between 2000 and 2013 international migration increased by 33%, to reach 232 million or 3.2% of the world’s population. In the same year, 862,000 people either entered or left the UK.
• 

Differentiation

• There are many different types of migrant. These include;
• permanent settlers
• temporary workers
• spouses
• forced migrants such as refugees and asylum seekers
• mail order brides
• Some immigrants may have legal entitlement to migrate while others enter without permission.
• Globalisation is increasing the diversity of types of migrant. For example, students are now a major group of migrants; in the UK in 2014, there were more Chinese-born (26%) than UK-born (23%) postgraduate students.
• However, since the 1990's globalisation has led to what Steven Vertovec (2007) calls ‘super-diversity’. Migrants now come from a much wider range of countries, rather than just being of British descent. Despite being united in nationality, immigrants may still be divided in legal status; (citizens or spouses), culture or religion.

Differentiation cont'd

• Robert Cohen (2006) also identified three different types of immigrants.
• Citizens with full citizenship rights (e.g. voting rights and access to benefits). Since the 1970s, the UK state has made it harder for immigrants to acquire these rights.
• Denizens are privileged foreign nationals welcomed by the state, e.g. billionaire ‘oligarchs’ or highly paid employees of multinational companies.
• Helots (literally, slaves) are the most exploited group. States and employers regard them as ‘disposable units of labour power’, a reserve army of labour. They are found in unskilled, poorly paid work and include illegally trafficked workers, and those legally tied to particular employers, such as domestic servants.
• 

Feminisation of Migration

• In the past, most migrants were men.
• Today, however, almost half of all global migrants are female.
• This has been called the globalisation of the gender division of labour, where female migrants find that they are fitted into patriarchal stereotypes about women’s roles as carers or providers of sexual services.
• Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild (2003) observe that care work, domestic work and sex work in western countries like the UK and USA is increasingly done by women from poor countries. This is a result of several trends:
• The expansion of service occupations (which traditionally employ women) in western countries has led to an increasing demand for female labour.
• Western women have joined the labour force and are less willing or able to perform domestic labour.
• Western men remain unwilling to perform domestic labour.
• The failure of the state to provide adequate childcare.

Feminisation of Migration cont'd

• The resulting gap has been partly filled by women from poor countries.
• For example, Isabel Shutes (2011) reports that 40% of adult care nurses in the UK are migrants. Most of these are female.
• There is also a global transfer of women’s emotional labour. For example, migrant nannies provide care and affection for their employers’ children at the expense of their own children left behind in their home country.
• Migrant women also enter western countries as ‘mail order’ brides. This often reflects gendered and racialised stereotypes, for example of oriental women as subservient.
• Women migrants also enter the UK as illegally trafficked sex workers, often kept in conditions amounting to slavery.
• 

Migrant Identities

• For migrants and their descendants, their country of origin may provide an additional or alternative source of identity.
• For example, migrants may develop hybrid identities made up of two or more different sources.
• John Eade (1994) found that second generation Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain created hierarchical identities: they saw themselves as Muslim first, then Bengali, then British.
• Those with hybrid identities may find that others challenge their identity claims (‘you’re not really one of us’) or accuse them of not ‘fitting in’.
• Transnational Identities
• According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen (2007), globalisation has created more diverse migration patterns, with back-and-forth movements of people through networks rather than permanent settlement in another country.
• As a result, migrants are less likely to see themselves as belonging completely to one culture or country.
• Instead, they may develop transnational ‘neither/nor’ identities and loyalties.
• Modern technology also makes it possible to sustain global ties without having to travel.
• Eriksen describes Chinese migrants in Rome who found Mandarin (the main language of China) more useful for everyday life than Italian – simply because Mandarin was important for their global connections with Chinese in other countries around the world. Migrants in a globalised world are thus less likely to desire assimilation into the host culture.

Assimilation and Multiculturalism

• 
• Assimilationism was the first state policy approach to immigration. It aimed to encourage immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of the host culture to make them ‘like us’.
• However, assimilationist policies face the problem that transnational migrants with hybrid identities may not be willing to abandon their culture or to see themselves as belonging to just one nation-state.
• Multiculturalism accepts that migrants may wish to retain a separate cultural identity. However, in practice, this acceptance may be limited to more superficial aspects of cultural diversity.

Folie 15

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHplEJgevqM (Einbetten)
• Britain is becoming a more ethnically diverse society, with ethnic minority groups totalling at 14% of the whole population.
• From 1900 to 1945, the largest immigrant group were Irish, second being the Eastern and Central European Jews, who were fleeing persecution.
• The emigrant groups from the UK travelled to the USA and Canada during this period.
• During the 1950's, black Caribbean immigrants began to arrive in the UK, followed by South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, as well as from East African regions such as Kenya and Uganda in the 1960's and 1970's.

Shallow and Deep Diversity

• Eriksen distinguishes between ‘shallow diversity’ and ‘deep diversity’;
• Shallow diversity, describes the more superficial aspects of multiculturalism, such as regarding chicken tikka masala as Britain’s national dish, is acceptable to the state.
• Deep diversity, such as arranged marriages or the veiling of women, is not acceptable to the state.
• Critics argue that multicultural education policies celebrate shallow diversity – superficial cultural differences, such as ‘samosas, saris and steel bands’ – while failing to address deeper problems facing children from migrant backgrounds, such as racism.
• From the 1960s there was a move towards multiculturalism but since the ‘9/11’ Islamist terror attack in 2001, many politicians have swung back towards demanding that migrants assimilate culturally. For example, in France, veiling of the face in public was made illegal in 2010.
• Castles (2000) argues that assimilationist policies are counter-productive because they mark out minority groups as culturally backward or ‘Other’. This can lead to minorities responding by emphasising their difference, as in the case of Islamic fundamentalism. This increases the hosts’ suspicion of them as an ‘enemy within’ and may promote anti-terrorism policies that target them. This breeds further marginalisation, defeating the goal of assimilation.

An immigrant took my job!

• Assimilationist ideas may also encourage workers to blame migrants for social problems such as unemployment, resulting in racist scapegoating.
• According to Castles and Kosack (1973), this benefits capitalism by creating a racially divided working class and preventing united action in defence of their interests.
•