Migration & Education

Thematic Focal Person: Nikola Sander

Overall vision

The group's overall vision is to enhance the understanding of the dynamics of international migration and its likely future trajectory in the context of climate change, human capital formation, and the role of education. 

International migration of the educated from developing to developed countries has far-reaching implications for human capital formation and economic development. Previous research on the educational selectivity of international migration flows has been mostly confined to descriptive studies in particular countries of origin and/or destination. Nevertheless, understanding of the educational selectivity, intensity and spatial patterns of migration is important, since migration is driven by spatial variation in education levels across countries and vice versa.

Migration is also an important aspect of societies’ adaptive capacity to climate change. Several studies have addressed the issue of environmental refugees leaving drought- or flood-affected areas (Perch-Nielsen et al., 2008). However, little attention has been given to how climate change affects voluntary forms of population movement (e.g. job- or family-related moves). This is despite the fact that migration has become a more important factor in shaping regional population growth and age structure than fertility and mortality.

 

 

Specific work plans for mid-2011 to mid-2013

The team’s main research objectives are:  

Estimating annual bilateral international migration flows for the globe between 1960 and 2010

International migration flow data provided by national statistical offices are not comparable. Measures and definitions of migration differ between countries. Consequently, any inference about migration levels, directions, policy implications or the cause and consequences of people’s movements at a cross national level is limited. This research aims to fill this data gap through 1) applying statistical missing data methods (see for example Rubin, 2002) and 2) developing mathematical demographic techniques that link place-of-birth population stocks with migration streams (see for example Rogers & von Rabenau, 1971 or Raymer & Rogers, 2005). The basis for these estimates will be the recently released global bilateral migration data from the World Bank (Özden et al, 2011), which contains bilateral place-of-birth population stocks for the last five census rounds.

 

Modelling the age-sex-education structure of international migration flows

These estimated migration flows must be disaggregated by age and sex, so that they can be used in the “WIC science-based world population projections by age, sex and level of educational attainment” (ERC Advanced Grant project “Forecasting societies’ adaptive capacity to climate change). This will be achieved by using model migration schedules for groups of origin and destination countries (see Rogers, Raquillet and Castro, 1977). 

 

Determining the spatial structure of international migration and how it has changed between 1960 and 2010

The literature on international migration is characterised by various conceptual approaches that have rarely been tested empirically, resulting in a lack of conceptual clarity and limited theoretical development. Such development has been hindered by a limited understanding of the spatial structure of international migration, mainly due to the predominance of descriptive analyses for individual countriesusing data for a single time interval. The team’s research aims to address this deficiency by applying methodological concepts originally developed for the study of internal migration (see Rees et al., 2000) to international migration flow data . We will obtain a comprehensive picture of the spatial structure of international migration by analysing mobility along four dimensions: intensity, connectivity, impact and distance.

 

Developing a set of alternative scenarios describing the alternative futures of migration, 2010 to 2050

This research will aim at developing the migration assumptions for the science-based world population projections by age, sex and level of educational attainment (ERC Advanced Grant project “Forecasting societies’ adaptive capacity to climate change). Understanding  how alternative forms of international migration behaviour will impact  future population dynamics at the global level is achieved by developing a set of scenarios that highlight ways in which the intensity and pattern of migration may change until 2050. Although the assumptions about future intensities and spatial patterns of migration will reflect the most likely future, they will also incorporate uncertainty. The migration assumptions will be combined with assumptions about fertility and mortality to produce probabilistic population projections for all countries in the world.

 

Using case studies to determine the impact of climate change on international migration flows in Asia, focusing especially on educational selectivity

The goal of this research is to establish a sound understanding of the determinants of international migration and how these differ by level of education. The potential impacts of climate change on the intensity and spatial patterns of migration will also be investigated. Such understanding will then provide a comprehensive foundation for developing scenarios that describe alternative future trajectories of migration with respect to the intensity of migration and destination choices.

 

 

Possible avenues for future research include:

Determining the spatial structure of internal migration in selected European Countries (e.g. Austria, Germany and Czech Republic) and how it has changed over the last 20 years

This research will aim to provide a comprehensive and systematic profile of migration by age and sex between a country’s regions. The main goals are to identify enduring empirical regularities and changes in the spatial structure of interregional migration, to estimate the spatial interaction between regions, and to determine the rate of distance decay (see Bell et al., 2002 and Rees at al., 2000). 

 

Establishing the relationship between life-course events and migration

Departing from traditional analyses of migration using age-based proxy measures for life¬course events (e.g. retirement), we will analyze migration in a life-course framework to elucidate the connection between the migration career and other parallel careers (e.g. employment, family). Following Rossi (1955) and Willekens (1991), the research aims to identify the relationships between migration and other life-course events and to examine how these alters with changes in household composition, socio-demographic characteristics and distance moved.