Using georeferenced data to map the dramatic flood that hit Bangladesh in August–September 2014, we evaluate how rural households coped with this natural shock. Employing survey data on panel ...households for the period before and after the shock, we estimate a difference-in-difference model with fixed effects of the impact of flooding on income, expenditure, nutrition, and migration outcomes along the wealth distribution. Our results show that the most affected households experienced significant drops in income and expenditure and an increase in the probability of migrating as a coping strategy to compensate for this loss. Internal migration increased by 7 percentage points for low-wealth households, while international migration increased by 3 percentage points for high-wealth households. Remittances received by poorer households from established international migrants represented significant monetary support after the shock, amounting to approximately 40% of the decline in income from self-employment in farm activities and half the decline in food expenditure.
Many animal species have populations in which some individuals migrate and others remain on the breeding grounds. This phenomenon is called partial migration. Despite substantial theoretical work, ...empirical data on causes and consequences of partial migration remain scarce, mainly because of difficulties associated with tracking individuals over large spatial scales. We used stable hydrogen isotopes in claw material to determine whether skylarks Alauda arvensis from a single breeding population in the Netherlands had migrated or remained resident in the previous winter and investigated whether there were causes or consequences of either strategy. Age and sex had no influence on the propensity to migrate, but larger individuals were more likely to be residents. The wintering strategy was not fixed within individuals. Up to 45% of individuals measured in multiple years switched strategies. Reproductive parameters were not related to the wintering strategy, but individuals that wintered locally experienced lower future return rates, and this was directly correlated with two independent measures of immune function. Our results suggest that partial migration in skylarks is based neither on genetic dimorphism nor on an age- and sex-dependent condition. Instead, the wintering strategy is related to structural size and immune function. These new insights on causes and consequences of partial migration advance our understanding of the ecology, evolution, and coexistence of different life-history strategies.
•Rural development aid deters emigration from aid-recipient countries.•Rural aid appears to affect emigration through its impacts on rural labor markets.•Urban development aid does not appear to ...affect emigration from aid-recipient countries.
In recent years, interest has emerged in policy circles and among academics about the use of foreign aid to reduce international migration. Scholars have investigated this aid-migration nexus, but results have been mixed and questions remain. This paper contributes to the literature by comparing the effects of rural and urban development aid on international migration. Specifically, we hypothesize that while increases in rural development aid to developing countries reduce emigration from those countries, greater urban aid produces the opposite effect – higher rates of emigration. These hypotheses are informed by two theoretical mechanisms. The first mechanism focuses on the divergent preferences of rural and urban populations regarding emigration. Aid targeting these respective populations provides each with resources to follow through on their migratory ambitions, or lack thereof. The second mechanism focuses on contrasting impacts of rural and urban aid on agricultural sector development and the effects of this sort of development on emigration. We analyze cross-national time series data to test our hypotheses regarding rural and urban development aid, finding that countries that receive larger amounts of rural development aid have lower emigration rates. Then we turn to survey data from the Arab Barometer to assess whether the attitudes of survey respondents match our theorized mechanisms. Results from survey data suggest that investments in agricultural sector capacity building will lead to reductions in emigration from developing countries; however, these findings do not indicate that rural and urban populations differ in terms of their desire to emigrate.
We study how slow-onset environmental changes impact the adaptive capacity of rural women living in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco. Given the immobility of many women in rural regions, we ...especially focus upon the internal migration aspirations of rural woman. In this way our study aims to shed light on the interrelationships between environmental change, gender relations and social and migration aspirations in a gradually environmentally degrading region. Based on Carling's aspiration/ability model, we analyse how slow-onset environmental changes influence the internal migration aspirations and trajectories of rural women, taking into account important background factors such as household characteristics, land heritage systems and migration networks. Our study is based on 38 interviews with inhabitants of the Souss-Massa region of Morocco that (used to) work in the agricultural sector, of which 15 interviews were conducted with rural women. Our findings show the ambiguous role of slow-onset environmental changes in the development of migration aspirations of rural women in a Moroccan rural context and underscores that environmental changes should be taken into account in migration decision making processes, both for internal and international migration.
Internal population migration in China is one of the most dramatic in the world. To understand the geographic dynamics of the Chinese population migration, we present a revised method called the ...migration centerline based on the definition of the geographic mean center of the population. Using data from the population censuses and one-percent sample surveys from 1995 to 2015, this study aims to reveal the spatial dynamics and contributors to population movements in China. The main results are as follows. (1) The directions of the population migration centerlines consistently point southeast, while the in- and out-migration centers for the five-year and non-hukou population migrations move north, especially from 2000 to 2010. After 2010, the west-oriented movements of the in-migration centers become pronounced, and migration distances generally decline. Five-year population migration towards the north increases from 2010 to 2015, whereas the non-hukou populations increased in the south in 2015. (2) The main contributors to in-migration centers are the coastal provinces, whereas out-migration centers are mostly inland provinces. (3) The geographic transformation of population migration centerlines is connected to changes in China's economic and population centers, moving south, leading to stable southeast-oriented migrations. In addition, the locations of migration centerlines are consistently further south compared with those of population centers. The migration centerline provides an intuitive and straightforward means for examining the geographic transformation of China's internal population migration and can be applied to various types of human mobilities based on different definitions or multiple spatial scales.
•A novel method called the migration centerline is proposed to explore the geographical transformation of population migration.•The north-oriented movement of in-migration centers from 2000 to 2010 due to the economic growth in north China.•The west-oriented movement of the in-migration centers was significant after 2010.•The main contributors to in-migration centers are the coastal areas, whereas out-migration centers are mostly inland areas.•The directions of population migration centerlines always pointed to the southeast from 1995 to 2015.
Global talent flows Pekkala, Sari; Kerr, William R; Özden, Çaglar ...
The Journal of economic perspectives,
10/2016, Letnik:
30, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Highly skilled workers play a central and starring role in today's knowledge economy. Talented individuals make exceptional direct contributions--including breakthrough innovations and scientific ...discoveries--and coordinate and guide the actions of many others, propelling the knowledge frontier and spurring economic growth. In this process, the mobility of skilled workers becomes critical to enhancing productivity. Substantial attention has been paid to understanding the worldwide distribution of talent and how global migration flows further tilt the deck. Using newly available data, we first review the landscape of global talent mobility. We next consider the determinants of global talent flows at the individual and firm levels and sketch some important implications. Third, we review the national gatekeepers for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches used to select migrants for admission. Looking forward, the capacity of people, firms, and countries to successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will be critical to their success.
This paper reviews new evidence on the trends and patterns of migration between Africa and Europe since the mid-1970s, and discusses their congruency with the changing context of migration policy. ...Using data from the
Determinants of International Migration
(DEMIG) and the
Migration between Africa and Europe
(MAFE) projects, we compare flows and policies of three African and six European destination countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Senegal, on the one hand; and Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK, on the other). The paper focuses on topics that quantitative studies usually overlook due to the lack of data, namely the propensity to out-migrate, legal status at entry, routes of migration, and propensity to return. We show that times of restrictions in Europe do not correspond to less African out-migration, but rather to more unauthorized migration and fewer returns. We further show that trends in African migration differ greatly between historical and new destination countries in Europe.
The spatial presentation of mechanical information is a key parameter for cell behavior. We have developed a method of polymerization control in which the differential diffusion distance of unreacted ...cross-linker and monomer into a prepolymerized hydrogel sink results in a tunable stiffness gradient at the cell–matrix interface. This simple, low-cost, robust method was used to produce polyacrylamide hydrogels with stiffness gradients of 0.5, 1.7, 2.9, 4.5, 6.8, and 8.2 kPa/mm, spanning the in vivo physiological and pathological mechanical landscape. Importantly, three of these gradients were found to be nondurotactic for human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs), allowing the presentation of a continuous range of stiffnesses in a single well without the confounding effect of differential cell migration. Using these nondurotactic gradient gels, stiffness-dependent hASC morphology, migration, and differentiation were studied. Finally, the mechanosensitive proteins YAP, Lamin A/C, Lamin B, MRTF-A, and MRTF-B were analyzed on these gradients, providing higher-resolution data on stiffness-dependent expression and localization.
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