New from IMR: Climate Change, Immigrant Integration, and Social Stratification
June 15, 2023
The Spring 2023 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 climate change, environment, and migration. The second section discusses immigrant integration and assimilation. The third section is about migrant human capital and social stratification. The fourth section examines immigrant and refugee populations in diverse contexts. Lastly, this edition includes ten book reviews, which are free to access.
Climate Change, Drought, and Potential Environmental Migration Flows Under Different Policy Scenarios
Oleg Smirnov, Gallya Lahav, John Orbell, Minghua Zhang, and Tingyin Xiao
Unmitigated climate change will likely produce major problems for human populations worldwide. Although many researchers and policy-makers believe that drought may be an important “push” factor underlying migration in the future, the precise relationship between drought and migration remains unclear. This article models the potential scope of such movements for the emissions policy choices facing all nation-states today. Applying insights from climate science and computational modeling to migration research, we examine the likely surge of drought-induced migration and assess the prospects of different policy scenarios to mitigate involuntary displacement. Using an ensemble of 16 climate models in conjunction with high-resolution geospatial population data and different policy scenarios, we generate drought projections worldwide and estimate the potential for internal and international population movement due to extreme droughts through the remainder of the 21st century. Our simulations suggest that a potential for drought-induced migration increases by approximately 200 percent under the current international policy scenario (corresponding to the current Paris Agreement targets). In contrast, total migration increases by almost 500 percent, should current international cooperation fail and should unrestricted policies toward greenhouse gas emissions prevail. We argue that despite the continued growth projections of drought-induced migration in all cases, international cooperation on climate change can substantially reduce the global potential for such migration, in contrast to unilateral policy approaches to energy demands. This article highlights the importance of modeling future environmental migrations, in order to manage the pressures and unprecedented policy challenges which are expected to dramatically increase under conditions of unmitigated climate change.
Multidimensionality in the Integration of First- and Second-Generation Migrants in Europe: A Conceptual and Empirical Investigation
Veronika Fajth and Laurence Lessard-Phillips
Immigrant integration scholarship increasingly discusses integration as a multidimensional process. Yet there is considerable inconsistency in how that multidimensionality is conceptualized. This article posits that there are two different logical approaches by which multidimensional frameworks of integration tend to outline their dimensions: the “thematic” (or conceptually driven) approach and the “empirical” approach. We contend that these two approaches lead to differently structured multidimensional frameworks of immigrant integration. To demonstrate these points, we, first, review different conceptualizations and approaches to multidimensionality in prior immigrant integration research, focusing largely on Europe. Through a synthesis of these prior approaches, we outline eight thematic dimensions of integration prevalent in the existing literature. Second, we conduct an original study with cross-European data on first- and second-generation migrants (ESS7 2014-15, N = 1,066) to outline a multidimensional framework based on empirical patterns of co-variation (or distinction) among integration-related outcomes. Our factor analysis of 18 common indicators of integration reveals five main dimensions of integration, with some items relating strongly to more than one dimension. These five “empirical” dimensions (economic/structural integration; health; subjective well-being; cultural assimilation and civic/political integration; and minority socialization) differ from the eight typical “thematic” dimensions identified in existing scholarship in key respects, which we discuss alongside potential connections between integration aspects as suggested by our findings (e.g., between economic and civic/political or between civic/political and cultural aspects). Overall, our article advances migration studies by helping us think more critically about the multidimensionality of immigrant integration and contributes to an emerging literature on integration’s multidimensionality.
Transnational Social Stratification? Legal Status of Immigrant Parents and the Educational Achievements of Mexican Children
Kyle E. Waldman
Although there is evidence documenting the impacts of Mexican parents’ migration to the United States on the educational attainment of the children they leave behind, the potential role of parents’ legal status in stratifying their children’s educational achievement is poorly understood. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, I estimate the educational effects of parents’ documentation status for the children left behind in Mexico. I utilize coarsened exact matching and entropy balancing, alongside community fixed effects, in a counterfactual regression framework to address the endogeneity of parental migration decisions. I find that parental migration’s effectiveness as a mechanism for securing educational gains among children left in Mexico differs by parents’ legal status. Documentation allows migrant parents to translate their experiences in the United States into relatively greater educational achievement for their children in Mexico. In the post-1986 period, the non-immigrant children of undocumented parents experienced a significant education penalty. These findings elucidate the effect of US immigration policy on social stratification in Mexican society.
CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT, AND MIGRATION
Time to Mainstream the Environment into Migration Theory?
Lori M. Hunter and Daniel H. Simon
Climate Change, Drought, and Potential Environmental Migration Flows Under Different Policy Scenarios
Oleg Smirnov, Gallya Lahav, John Orbell, Minghua Zhang, and Tingyin Xiao
Does Changing the Narrative Improve Host Community Attitudes Toward Climate Migrants? Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh
Ivar Kolstad, Sosina Bezu, Päivi Lujala, Minhaj Mahmud, and Arne Wiig
EXPLORING IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION AND ASSIMILATION
The Labor Force Trajectories of Immigrant Women in the United States: Intersecting Individual and Gendered Cohort Characteristics
Sandra Florian, Chenoa Flippen, and Emilio Parrado
Spatial Incorporation of Multiple Immigrant Groups in Gateway Cities: Comparative Analysis of Sydney, Barcelona, and Prague
Jiří Hasman and Ivana Křížková
How Homeland Experiences Shape Refugee Belonging: Rethinking Exile, Home, and Integration in the Syrian Case
Wendy Pearlman
Multidimensionality in the Integration of First- and Second-Generation Migrants in Europe: A Conceptual and Empirical Investigation
Veronika Fajth and Laurence Lessard-Phillips
MIGRANT HUMAN CAPITAL AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Transnational Social Stratification? Legal Status of Immigrant Parents and the Educational Achievements of Mexican Children
Kyle E. Waldman
Does City Size Affect International Migrants and Native-Born Workers Differently? Exploring Inequalities in Unemployment and Occupations Across Spanish Cities
Jacobo Muñoz-Comet and Fernando Fernández-Monge
Ethnic Wage Penalty and Human Capital Transferability: A Comparative Study of Recent Migrants in 11 European Countries
Stefano Cantalini, Raffaele Guetto, and Nazareno Panichella
Linguistic Barriers to Immigrants’ Labor Market Integration in Italy
Daniela Ghio, Massimiliano Bratti, and Simona Bignami
UNDERSTANDING IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE POPULATIONS IN DIVERSE CONTEXTS
Sick Days: Logical Versus Survey Identification of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States
Claire E. Altman, James D. Bachmeier, Cody Spence, and Christal Hamilton
IMR Country Report – Nigerian Migration to Russia: Accommodation and Discrimination in a Post-Soviet Society
Isaac Olumayowa Oni
Costa Rica as a Destination for Migrants in Need of International Protection: IMR Country Report
Abigail Weitzman, Gilbert Brenes Camacho, Arodys Robles, Matthew Blanton, Jeffrey Swindle, and Katarina Huss
When Bare Life is Bearable: The Life Projects of Rohingya and Hazara Refugees Living in Malaysia
Ramesh Sunam
BOOK REVIEWS
Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees
Lamis Elmy Abdelaaty
Reviewed by Christopher W. Blair
Ethnic Dissent and Empowerment: Economic Migration Between Vietnam and Malaysia
Angie Ngọc Tran
Reviewed by Choo Chin Low
The Rohingya: An Ethnography of ‘Subhuman’ Life
Nasir Uddin
Reviewed by Md. Didarul Islam
Outsiders: Memories of Migration to and from North Korea
Markus Bell
Reviewed by Kris Hyesoo Lee
Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union
Nicholas R. Micinski
Reviewed by Sarah P. Lockhart
Migration and Democracy: How Remittances Undermine Dictatorship
Abel Escribà-Folch, Joseph Wright, and Covadonga Meseguer
Reviewed by Katrina Burgess
Mediated Lives: Waiting and Hope among Iraqi Refugees in Jordan
Mirjam Twigt
Reviewed by Ellie Assaf
Author Conversation: Nora Stel & Kelsey Norman
Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty: Refugee Governance in Lebanon by Nora Stel
Reluctant Reception. Refugees, Migration and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa by Kelsey Norman
Unauthorized Love: Mixed-Citizenship Couples Negotiating Intimacy, Immigration, and the State
Jane Lilly López
Reviewed by Deisy Del Real
The Cost of Belonging: An Ethnography on Solidarity and Mobility in Beijing‘s Koreatown
Sharon J. Yoon
Reviewed by Xiao Ma