Global Economy and Business

MOBILITY AND MIGRATION

Prof.ssa Luisa Natale
2012/13
Monday and Tuesday 10-12 (A.0.0.5)

http://www.docente.unicas.it/luisa_n
atale/
Email oli59@mclink.it

India: Kolkata (ex Calcutta) about 16 million inhabitants Source: National Geographic, gennaio 2011

MOBILITY AND
MIGRATION
April 2012
First lesson

DEFINITION
Migration is a fuzzy concept with
many definitional problems
WILLEKENS (1984)

How to define
mobility? How to
define migration?
What is the relation
between mobility
and migration?

What do we mean for

territorial mobility?
Any move from one place to
another place, including
temporarily, comprised
moves between adjacent
territories.

Moves for sanitary reasons,

Moves for city consumers

MIGRATION

Mobility includes
migration, commuting,
amenity migration,
movement for sanitary
reasons, for shopping or
for city-consumer (disco,
restaurant, etc)

Commuting

In short:
every journey taken to
reach a destination.
The displacements
under 5 minutes are
excluded
(by Istituto superiore
di formazione e ricerca
per i trasporti ISFORT)

HOW TO DEFINE
MIGRATION?
It is not easy to define
migration, we must consider
a lot of dimensions. Migration
is a multidimensional
phenomenon, that it is not
possible to identify and define
through a single variable

The propensity to migrate

depends on a very complex,
often interacting set of
individual and collective
economic, political social,
cultural, ecological,
psychological, and others
factors that vary in time and
space

 While births and deaths can be defined

biologically and marriages and divorces
legally, migration is more difficult to define.
Migration entails not only the crossing of
international borders but also entails the
intention of staying in the country or area of
arrival.
Although international migration may in
many cases legal procedures, it remains the
most difficult of demographic phenomenon
to define and measure correctly (United
Nations, Demographic Yearbook 1991)

 According to Treccani, Italian

Encyclopedic Dictionary
migration is every move, either
permanently or temporarily, of
groups of living beings (men or
animals) from one territory to
another, from one location to
another, caused by various
reasons, but mainly for necessities
of life"

 Its trivial to say that migration

involves the movement of a person
from a place of departure to a place
of arrival, but the possible types of
movement vary widely according to
how the investigator defines the
place of arrival and of departure, the
length of absence from the place of
departure, the duration of stay in the
place of arrival and the reasons for
the move. All of these characteristics
interact with one another (G. Caselli,
J. Vallin, G. Wunsch, 2005)

Golini (2000) developed a

typology to account for
modern migration. To do so,
means referring to criteriadistance, recurrence,
duration, causes, and legality
that are prevalent in the
literature, but generally taken
discretely, when they should
be combined.

According to the
distance
There is no minimun distance for migration,
and any change of house, region, country, etc.
is a geographic migration that lends itself to
analysis, but it will vary in the nature of its
determinants and consequences
Example: in the International migration we
consider the distance between the country of
origin and the country of arrival. In this case
the area of origin and the destination belong to
different national territories.

According to recurrence
and duration
Two inseparable aspect, may also vary widely.
Daily, weekly, seasonal migrations tend to be of
short duration.
The recommendations of the United Nations
(1998) contain the definition of migrant:
any person who changes his or her place of
usual residence
short-term (staying or intending to stay less
than 12 months)
long-term (staying or intending to stay at least
12 months).

What for usual residence does

mean?

the country in which a person lives,

that is to say, the country in which he
or she has a place to live where he or
she normally spends the daily period
of rest
Note. Temporary travel abroad for
purposes of recreation, holiday, visits
to friends and relatives, business,
medical treatment or religious
pilgrimage does not change a
person's country of usual residence.

 Is migration an event spot or a process

during the individuals life ?
We use an example to explain this concept:
if you live for several months abroad you
can stay there as a traveller, as a student
or as a migrant. In this continuum you can
observe a difference of kind and you can
draw the line at the moment when student
changes his/her usual residence and
becomes migrant
traveller ----------------- student
-------------change usual residence --------migrant

 Births and deaths

Migration

process
repeatable
A person : no
migration, one
migration, more
migrations

events
not repeatable
A birth, a person
A death, a person

Spot event

Period of time
(months,years

According to cause of the

move
The migrant is someone who undergoes:

Displacements due to job search.

Displacements due to the family changes.
Displacements due to reasons of education
Displacements due to a desire or need to live
closer to the place of work
Displacements due to the change of house
Displacements due to catastrophes and others
acts of nature
Displacements due to war, repression, climate
changes

According to the legality

Migration is
more or less
controlled by law
(refugees)
A distinction may
therefore be
drawn between
legal and illegal
migration.

 In Italy according to law of immigration,

migrants can be distinguished between:
A. Regular
B. Undocumented foreign
illegal foreign who entered and stay
outside the rules. Illegal entry gives rise
to a clandestine presence
Conversely legal entry gives rise to a
regular presence but the groups passing
from one condition to another
... non regular who at the expiration of
the permit remain in the country
without renewing the authorization

Schematic graph of the composition of the foreign

population
Non regular

Regular whit residence

permit

(expiration of the
residence permit)

Naturalised

Not update
Illegal foreigners
Resident enrolled in population
register
28

Foreigners in Italy according to the legality

Source, Blangiardo 2011 in Comitato per il Progetto Culturale della Conferenza
Episcopale Italiana, Il Cambiamento demografico, 2011, page 75

Categories
Total

2003

2005

2007

2009

2010

2.300 3.183 3.982

4.834

5.334

Residents
(de jure
popul.)

1549

2402

2939

3891

4235

Regular
not
resident

251

338

694

521

645

Irregular

500

443

349

422

454

Numbers in thousands

Summary
Three types of territorial mobility (Golini,
2000)
Migratory mobility : any voluntary change of
residence
Pseudo migratory mobility: compelled by
natural catastrophes and others acts of
nature. Displacements due to war, repression
Non migratory mobility: tourism, and other
moves

Migratory mobility
Displacements due to job search.
Displacements due to the family changes.
Displacements due to reasons of
education.
Displacements due to a desire or need to
live closer to the place of work
Displacements due to the changement of
house

Pseudo-migratory mobility
Displacements due to
catastrophes and others acts
of nature.
Displacements due to war,
repression, climate changes,
earthquakes

Non -migratory mobility

Commuting due to work or study
reasons
Amenity dispacements, more
directed by sanitary reasons, more
for shopping or for city-consumer
(disco, restaurants, etc)
No change of usual residence

This typology is only one

classification among others
advanced by other investigations
In the words of Daniel Courgeau (1988) the
study of spatial mobility involves identifying
the changes occurring over time in the
relations an individual or social group and
space
A theoretical reference model needs to be
constructed as a basis for analyzing and
explaining migration and for identifying the
singular or conjoint linkages between the
migration process and its various factors

The life space (espace

vecu)

all places where the

individual carries out
its activities

The life space (espace vecu)

Place of amenity
(weekend)

Place of
residence
Place of
work

The life space (espace vecu)

Place of amenity
(weekend)

Place of
residence

Displacem
ent

Place of
work

Change of usual residence = migration

(according Golini)
No change of life space = no migration

Problems
The life space is an interesting definition,
but is difficult to applied to the real life
Hence the interest in developing other
definitions based on different aspects of
the mobility, discriminating between
migration and displacements of different
nature
it is a necessary step between
conceptualization of the phenomenon and
statistical practice

Other classification
International migration can
be distinguished according to:
the direction of travel (in
migrated into the country or out
migrated from the country)

rule of identification to the

country of destination

In-migrated into the country

Immigration of nationals or of
individuals originating of the country:
rientri or rimpatri (return migration)

Immigration of foreigners or of
individuals not originating of the
country

Out-migrated from the country

Emigration of nationals or of individuals
originating of the country
Emigration of foreigners or individuals
not originating of the country
40

Which is the rule of

identification to the
country of immigration?
1. Country of birth (UN 2002, 158
Paesi su 210)

2. Citizenship
3. Place of residence
Citizenship seems to be the best
criterion for detecting foreign
immigration (H. Zlotnik, 1987)

1.

42

EXAMPLE
Migration is a multidimensional phenomenon.
Its not so easy to explain this concept
If we look at page 2 the figure gleans
migration biographies of the authors of book
Exploring contemporary migration
Now they work in the same place the
Department of geography in Swansea - but
everyone has experience quite different
migration paths in the past. A variety of factors
have influenced their life-cycle and is difficult
to draw out from this case study the key to
illustrate the migration phenomenon

EXERCISE
Now you should draw a
figure that demonstrates
your migration
biographies

MATERIALS
Determinants of migration.
Introduction (pp. 261-264), in G.
Caselli, J. Vallin, G. Wunch,
Demography, Analysis and Synthesis,
Vol. 2, Elsevier, 2006
P.Boyle, K.Halfacree and V.Robinson,
Exploring Contemporary Migration,
Longman, first edition, 1998: Chapter
1 and 2.