Douglas S. Massey

Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal

The configuration of developed countries has become today diverse and multiethnic due to international migration. A single coherent theoretical explanation for international migration is lacking. The aim of this discussion was the generation and integration of current theories that clarify basic assumptions and hypotheses of the various models. Theories were differentiated as explaining the initiation of migration and the perpetuation of international movement. Initiation theories discussed were 1) macro theories of neoclassical economics; 2) micro theories of neoclassical economics; 3) the new economics with examples for crop insurance markets futures markets unemployment insurance and capital markets; 4) dual labor market theory and structural inflation motivational problems economic dualism and the demography of labor supply; and 5) world systems theory and the impacts of land raw materials labor material links ideological links and global cities. Perpetuation theories were indicated as network theories of declining risks and costs; institutional theory cumulative causation through distribution of income and land organization of agrarian production culture of migration regional distribution of human capital and social labeling factors; and migration systems theory. The assumptions and propositions of these theories although divergent were not inherently contradictory but had very different implications for policy formulation. The policy decisions over the next decades will be very important and carry with them the potential for misunderstanding and conflict. Policy options based on the explicated models range from regulation by changing wages and employment conditions in destination countries or promoting development in countries of origin to changing structural market economic relations.

Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico

This book examines Mexican migration to the US. Chapter 1 introduces the study. Chapter 2 presents the rationale for the ethnographic survey and chapter 3 undertakes a comparative demographic social and economic profile of the 4 sample communities--2 rural and 2 urban Mexican communities. Interviews took place in 1982-1983. Chapter 4 examines the historical origins of US migration within each of the 4 communities under study explaining how and why migration grew from very modest beginnings to become the mass phenomenon it is today. Chapter 5 contains a detailed analysis of current migration patterns within each sample community. Chapter 6 shows how migrants social networks develop and grow over time and how they gradually support migration on a continuously widening scale. Chapter 7 analyzes the role that US migration plays in the household economy studying how it is manipulated as part of a larger strategy of survival. Chapter 8 considers the impact of US migration on the socioeconomic organization of Mexican communities. Chapter 9 shifts attention north of the border to analyze the process of US settlement in some detail. Finally chapter 10 summarizes the insights of the prior chapters by estimating 4 statistical models that measure how different factors determine key events in the migrant career. Chapter 11 briefly capitulates the findings and makes some concluding remarks.

Social structure, household strategies, and the cumulative causation of migration.

This review culls disparate elements from the theoretical and research literature on human migration to argue for the construction of a theory of migration that simultaneously incorporates multiple levels of analysis within a longitudinal perspective. A detailed review of interconnections among individual behavior, household strategies, community structures, and national political economies indicates that inter-level and inter-temporal dependencies are inherent to the migration process and give it a strong internal momentum. The dynamic interplay between network growth and individual migration labor, migration remittances, and local income distributions all create powerful feedback mechanisms that lead to the cumulative causation of migration. These mechanisms are reinforced and shaped by macrolevel relationships within the larger political economy.

What's Driving Mexico-U.S. Migration? A Theoretical, Empirical, and Policy Analysis

Using data gathered in 25 Mexican communities, the authors link individual acts of migration to 41 theoretically defined individual-, household-, community-, and macroeconomic-level predictors. The indicators vary through time to yield a discrete-time event-history analysis. Over the past 25 years, probabilities of first, repeat, and return migration have been linked more to the forces identified by social capital theory and the new economics of migration than to the cost-benefit calculations assumed by the neoclassical model. The authors find that Mexico-U.S. migration stems from three mutually reinforcing processes: social capital formation, human capital formation, and market consolidation.

Hypersegregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation Along Five Dimensions

Residential segregation has traditionally been measured by using the index of dissimilarity and, more recently, the P* exposure index. These indices, however, measure only two of five potential dimensions of segregation and, by themselves, understate the degree of black segregation in U.S. society. Compared with Hispanics, not only are blacks more segregated on any single dimension of residential segregation, they are also likely to be segregated on all five dimensions simultaneously, which never occurs for Hispanics. Moreover, in a significant subset of large urban areas, blacks experience extreme segregation on all dimensions, a pattern we call hypersegregation. This finding is upheld and reinforced by a multivariate analysis. We conclude that blacks occupy a unique and distinctly disadvantaged position in the U.S. urban environment.

The age of extremes: concentrated affluence and poverty in the twenty-first century.

Urbanization, rising income inequality, and increasing class segregation have produced a geographic concentration of affluence and poverty throughout the world, creating a radical change in the geographic basis of human society. As the density of poverty rises in the environment of the world’s poor, so will their exposure to crime, disease, violence. and family disruption. Meanwhile the spatial concentration of affluence will enhance the benefits and privileges of the rich. In the twenty-first century the advantages and disadvantages of one’s class position will be compounded and reinforced through ecological mechanisms made possible by the geographic concentration of affluence and poverty, creating a deeply divided and increasingly violent social world.

Trends in the Residential Segregation of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians: 1970-1980.

This paper examines trends in residential segregation for blacks Hispanics and Asians in 60 [U.S.] SMSAs between 1970 and 1980 using data taken from the 1970 Fourth Count Summary tapes and the 1980 Summary Tape File 4. Segregation was measured using dissimilarity and exposure indices. Black segregation from Anglos declined in some smaller SMSAs in the south and west but in large urban areas in the northeastern and north central states there was little change; in these areas blacks remained spatially isolated and highly segregated....Hispanic segregation was markedly below that of blacks but increased substantially in some urban areas that experienced Hispanic immigration and population growth over the decade....Asian segregation was everywhere quite low. (EXCERPT)

The Ecology of Inequality: Minorities and the Concentration of Poverty, 1970-1980

This article examines trends in the geographic concentration of poverty among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in 60 U.S. mentropolitan areas from 1970 to 1980. It describes changes in the distributional structure of income, the extent of income inequality, and the degree of spatial segretation by income. These factors are then related to levels and trends in poverty concentration. Concentrated urban poverty is confined principally to blacks outside the West and to Hispanics in the Northeast. Poverty concentration among these groups does not reflect a tendency for upper-status minority members to live apart from the poor but an interaction between changes in the distributional structure ov income and patterns of racial/ethnic segregation. The occurence of rising poverty under conditions of high racial/ethnic segregation explains the growing spatial isolation of poor blacks and hispanic in U.S. urban society.

Continuities in Transnational Migration: An Analysis of Nineteen Mexican Communities

Researchers working in Mexican communities have observed both regularities and inconsistencies in the way that transnational migration develops over time. This article presents a theory that accounts for these uniformities and discrepancies and proposes a method to compara the process of migration across communities. It also argues that studies must report and control for the prevalence of migration within communities. Data from 19 Mexican communities show that predicable demographic, social, and economic changes accompany increases in migratory prevalence. Although international migration begins within a narrow range of each communitys socioeconomic structure, over time it broadens to incorporate other social groups.

International Migration and Development in Mexican Communities

The theoretical and empirical literature generally regards international migration as producing a cycle of dependency and stunted development in sending communities. Most migrants’ earnings are spent on consumption; few funds are channeled into productive investment. We argue that this view is misleading because it ignores the conditions under which productive investment is likely to be possible and profitable. We analyze the determinants of migrants’ savings and remittance decisions, using variables defined at the individual, household, community, and macroeconomic levels. We identify the conditions under which U.S. earnings are repatriated to Mexico as remittances and savings, and indicate the factors leading to their productive investment.