DEMIG
Determinants of International Migration

Research objectives

Duration: 2010-2014

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The effectiveness of migration policies has been widely contested in the face of their hypothesised failure to steer migration and their unintended effects on the volume, timing, direction and composition of migration. Due to serious methodological flaws and significant data gaps, most evidence has remained largely descriptive, biased and partial until recently, omitting crucial sending country and policy variables.

 

More fundamentally, the controversy around the effectiveness of migration policies reveals a limited theoretical understanding of the forces driving international migration. Although there is consensus that macro-contextual factors in sending and receiving countries, policies, as well as ‘internal dynamics’ such as networks all play some role, there is no agreement on their relative weight and mutual interaction.

DEMIG aims to answer the following questions:

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• What has been the nature, structure and evolution of global migration in the 1950-2010 period?

• What has been the nature and evolution of immigration and emigration policies in the 1950-2010 period?

• How do states and migration policies affect the (i) volume; (ii) timing; (iii) duration; (iv) direction; and (v) composition of international migration?

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Methodology

DEMIG aims to generate new insights into the way states and policies shape migration processes in their interaction with other receiving and sending country migration determinants. This is achieved by embedding the empirical analysis of policy effects on migration flows into a new theoretical framework on the processes and determinants of migration.

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DEMIG is built around four theoretical and empirical components:

1. Elaboration of a new, theoretical framework on migration as intrinsic part of development and social transformation

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2. Conceptualisation of the effectiveness and effects of migration policies and the role of states in origin and destination countries in migration process

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3. Creation of longitudinal databases compiling bilateral migration flow, visa and migration policy data

• DEMIG TOTAL reports total immigration, emigration and net migration for 163 countries extending back to over one century

• DEMIG C2C (‘country-to-country’) covers bilateral migration flow data for 34 reporting countries mainly covering the 1946-2011 period

• DEMIG POLICY tracks over 6,500 migration policy changes in 45 countries over the 1946-2013 period

• DEMIG VISA is a global panel of bilateral entry and exit travel visa requirements covering the 1973-2013 period

 

4. Empirical studies on the role of states and policies in migration processes

• Quantitative tests on the effects of migration policies applying a double comparative, longitudinal design

• Qualitative case studies and comparisons to gain a deeper understanding of the role of states and border regimes in migration processes

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Data

Get the data.

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Funding

DEMIG is core-funded through an ERC Starting Grant awarded to Hein de Haas. The European Research Council Starting Grants aim to support the creation of excellent new research teams to conduct pioneering frontier research in any field of science, engineering and scholarship.

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Additional funds were provided through an Oxford Martin School matching grant, enabling a significant expansion of research capacity and the coverage of DEMIG databases.

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Partners

EUMAGINE involves more than thirty researchers from a consortium of eight institutions and lead by the University of Antwerp.

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• Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CEMIS), University of Antwerp, Belgium

• Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK

• International Migration Institute (IMI), University of Oxford, UK

• International Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo, Norway

• MiReKoc, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey

• Equipe de Recherche sur la Région et la Régionalisation (E3R), Université Mohamed V Agdal, Rabat, Morocco

• Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal

• Centre for Sociological Research (CSR), Ternopil, Ukraine

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DEMIG Conference

23–25 September 2014
Wolfson College, University of Oxford

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What are the different factors that shape migration patterns across the world and how do they interact with each other? How do changing levels of socioeconomic development affect shifting migration practices and directions? Do migration policies have a significant impact on people’s migration decisions – or are trade, labour market or welfare policies in origin and destination countries more important? What theoretical approaches can help us to make sense of this complex array of determinants operating across different social, spatial and temporal scales?

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This conference was organised as the culmination of the DEMIG project – Determinants of International Migration: A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment of Policy, Origin and Destination Effects. The aim of this interdisciplinary conference were to advance evidence-based and theoretical understanding of such determinants of migration processes. While there is a plethora of research on the social, cultural and economic impacts of migration, research on the determinants of migration has remained relatively under-researched and under-theorized. Although there is consensus that various contextual factors in origin and destination countries, policies and social networks all play some role in driving migration, there are conflicting views on their effects, relative importance and interaction.

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In the absence of any general theory of migration that can tie together all these different elements, significant progress can be achieved by integrating theoretical insights from different disciplines and fields of empirical research that specialise on particular themes and migrant categories. To advance this agenda, this conference brought together migration scholars to discuss theoretical and empirical avenues for advancing the understanding of the drivers of migration processes.

 

Conference themes

The role of development in migration processes

How do economic and demographic transitions, as well as human development in origin and destination countries, affect patterns of immigration and emigration? Is Zelinsky’s (1971) model of the ‘mobility transition’ still useful for explaining contemporary and future migration? How do processes of development and social transformation affect people’s aspirations and capabilities and their decisions in terms of whether, when, how, where and for how long to migrate?

 

The role of states and policies in migration processes

How do states and their migration and non-migration (e.g., trade, labour market, welfare) policies in origin and destination countries affect the size, timing, duration, direction and composition of international migration? Are borders largely ‘beyond control’ or are migration policies relatively effective? How large is the effect of policies when taking into account other migration determinants?

 

Migration theories

Advancing migration theory is essential in building a shared body of generalised knowledge that can also serve as a guide for further research. How can different theories on the causes of migration be combined? To what extent do their conflicting underlying assumptions present an obstacle to such integration? How can we better connect migration theory to general theories of social change and development?

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