New from IMR: COVID-19, Symbolic Boundaries, and Integration

The Fall 2021 edition of the International Migration Review (IMR) is now available online and in print through paid or institutional subscription. This edition is thematically sorted into four sections. The first section has articles about COVID-19, mobility, and policies. The second section discusses social contact, values, and symbolic boundaries. The third section is about social outcomes, integration, and European migrations. The fourth section examines migration journeys, migrant desires, and the Middle East. Lastly, this edition includes four book reviews, which are free to access.

(Im)mobility in the Age of COVID-19
Susan Martin and Jonas Bergmann

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global human mobility dynamics. This IMR Dispatch examines the historical, bidirectional links between pandemics and mobility and provides an early analysis of how they unfolded during the first nine months of the COVID-19 emergency. Results show, first, that international travel restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus are not a panacea in and of themselves. Second, our analysis demonstrates that the pandemic, government responses, and resulting economic impacts can lead to the involuntary immobility of at-risk populations, such as aspiring asylum-seekers or survival migrants. In a similar fashion, stay-at-home measures have posed dire challenges for those workers who lack options to work from home, as well as for migrants living in precarious, crowded circumstances. Moreover, global economic contraction has increased involuntary immobility by reducing both people’s resources to move and the demand for labor. Third, we show that people’s attempts to protect themselves from the virus can result in shifting patterns of mobility, such as increases in cross-border return migration and urban-to-rural movements. Drawing on international guidance for measures to combat pandemics and relevant frameworks on mobility, we propose approaches to alleviate the burden of travel restrictions on migrants and people aspiring to move, while still addressing the need to contain the pandemic and lessen its repercussions.

Decline, Revival, Change? Religious Adaptations among Muslim and Non-Muslim Immigrant Origin Youth in Norway
Jon Horgen Friberg and Erika Braanen Sterri

This article explores religious adaptation among immigrant-origin youth in Norway, using the first wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study in Norway (CILS-NOR). To capture different dimensions of religious change, we distinguish between 1) level of religiosity, measured by religious salience and religious practices, and 2) social forms of religious belief, measured as the level of rule orientation and theological exclusivism. We compare immigrant-origin youth in Norway with young people in their parents’ origin countries, using the World Value Survey. We then compare immigrant-origin youth who were born in Norway to those who were born abroad and according to their parents’ length of residence in Norway. As expected, immigrant-origin youth from outside Western Europe—and those originating in Muslim countries in particular—were more religious than native and western-origin youth and more rule oriented and exclusivist in their religious beliefs. However, our results suggest that a process of both religious decline and religious individualization is underway among immigrant origin youth in Norway, although this process appears to unfold slower for Muslims than for non-Muslims. The level and social forms of religiosity among immigrant-origin youth are partially linked to their integration in other fields, particularly inter-ethnic friendships. We argue that comparative studies on how national contexts of reception shape religious adaptations, as well as studies aiming to disentangle the complex relationship between religious adaptation and integration in other fields, are needed.

Understanding the Consequences of Migration for Asset Accumulation: A Multi-Site and Intergenerational Perspective
Şebnem Eroğlu

This article is the first to explore the consequences of migration for asset accumulation from a multi-site and intergenerational perspective that moves beyond the prevailing migrant versus “native” comparisons performed within single destination-country contexts. It specifically investigates the non-financial investments (i.e., house, land, and business-related asset holdings) made in the country of residence by three family generations of migrants with origins in Turkey: those who resided in Europe (i.e., settlers), those who moved to Turkey (i.e., returnees), and those who remained in the origin country (i.e., stayers). The data are drawn from the 2000 Families Survey, which involved personal interviews with 5,980 individuals nested within 1,770 families. The analysis shows that migration’s greatest economic beneficiaries are returnees, who display a significant tendency to accumulate the most assets across all generations and asset types. Across all three groups, intergenerational family transfers are found to make a positive difference to younger generations’ non-financial investments. The chances of reaping the benefits of such transfers, however, is shown to be particularly limited for the descendants of settlers, given this group’s propensity to accumulate the fewest (especially house and land type) non-financial assets in European destinations where they reside. Through these unique multi-site and intergenerational comparisons between migrants and stayers, this article sheds new light upon the little-explored relationship between international migration and asset accumulation, and the economic dis/benefits of migration.

COVID-19, MOBILITY, AND POLICIES

Suppression, Spikes, and Stigma: How COVID-19 Will Shape International Migration and Hostilities toward It
Michelle L. O’Brien and Maureen A. Eger

(Im)mobility in the Age of COVID-19
Susan Martin and Jonas Bergmann

SOCIAL CONTACT, VALUES, AND SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES

Do Gender-role Values Matter? Explaining New Refugee Women’s Social Contact in Germany
Jörg Hartmann and Jan-Philip Steinmann

Decline, Revival, Change? Religious Adaptations among Muslim and Non-Muslim Immigrant Origin Youth in Norway
Jon Horgen Friberg and Erika Braanen Sterri

In the Ear of the Listener: The Role of Foreign Accent in Interethnic Friendships and Partnerships
Irena Kogan, Jörg Dollmann, and Markus Weißmann

SOCIAL OUTCOMES, INTEGRATION, AND EUROPEAN MIGRATIONS

Understanding the Consequences of Migration for Asset Accumulation: A Multi-Site and Intergenerational Perspective
Şebnem Eroğlu

Does Facilitated and Early Access to the Healthcare System Improve Refugees’ Health Outcomes? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Germany
Philipp Jaschke and Yuliya Kosyakova

Party System Polarization, Citizenship, and Immigrant Party Allegiances in Western Europe
Aida Just

MIGRATION JOURNEYS, MIGRANT DESIRES, AND THE MIDDLE EAST

“Maybe One Day I Will also be Almito”: Ethiopian Israelis, Naming, and the Politics of Immigrant Identity
Sophie D Walsh and Liat Yakhnich

Young Gazan Refugees, Sport and Social Media: Understanding Migration as a Process of Becoming
Holly Thorpe and Belinda Wheaton

What Drives Migration to Europe? Survey Experimental Evidence from Lebanon
Anselm Hager

BOOK REVIEWS

Adventure Capital: Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris
Julie Kleinman
Reviewed by Joaquín Villanueva

At Europe’s Edge: Migration and Crisis in the Mediterranean
Cetta Mainwaring
Reviewed by Antoine Pécoud

Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia
Reviewed by Jennifer Breen 

Citizenship 2.0: Dual Nationality as a Global Asset
Yossi Harpaz
Reviewed by Peter J. Spiro