Migration, Families and Households
Lecture 1 – 14 November
Exam: open questions only, 80%. Group presentation 20%.
All readings can be part of the exam.
Exam questions can be based on either the lectures or the required readings. They will not be about the
methodology of the academic papers you read.
The exam has about 4-6 main topics/sections, some with one question, some with two related questions.
With each topic/section, you will be given the title and author(s) of the reading and/or the title of the lecture
that the exam question is based on.
Paper discussion: presentation 12-15 min, finish with 1 or 2 discussion questions or statements. 1 or 2 students
present, others lead the wrap-up, summary of discussion afterwards. What is their RQ and take-away message?
Check grading rubric on Brightspace!
› Upload your slides on Brightspace by 4 pm the day before.
› Afterwards: self- and peer assessment
➢ Short presentation by student group > see needed elements in course outline PDF!
➢ Student-led discussion: the class splits into 4 groups and each presenting student leads a 15-min discussion
➢ Presenting students (briefly) summarise the discussions
Clara Mulder – A life course approach to migration
Stock = people who are present and migrated at any time in the past.
Flow = people who come in or left in particular time unit, for example in the previous year.
Who do we count as immigrants, who belongs to the stock? Do they consider themselves as immigrants?
Debate about second-generations.
Period in time.
Net migration = inflow subtract outflow (migratiesaldo). Does this make sense? Can be useful to talk about net,
with population growth/dynamics, and projections/ assumptions for future, housing needs.
Gross migration = total migrants, in plus out migration. Explain what people do.
What is a theory?
› (Set of) statement(s) about reality: How do things work, and why; what causes what
• Relations between concepts
• Simplification
Types of theory
› Grand theory: big ideas, hardly or not testable (examples?)
› Middle-range theory: suitable for deriving testable hypotheses > quantitative
› Intermediate/adaptive theory: theory interacting with research problem, shaped by and shapes empirical
research > qualitative
What does theory do / what is it used for?
› Helps understand
› Guides scientific research and brings it further: is important in the research process
› Possibly: helps guide interventions (causality!)
What does a theory look like?
› Piece of text, likely titled ‘A theory of …’
› Possibly summarized in a conceptual model: Concepts, relations between them depicted by arrows
(representing causality) or lines (representing associations)
› …or a piece of mathematics/formula (like Einstein’s E = MC2)
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,Migration as an event happening in the life course.
How migration varies by age, age schedules.
Peak at 18-25, smaller peaks at 0 and retirement (65).
A life-course approach to relocations
› Life course consists of careers/trajectories
› Micro (individual): Parallel careers/trajectories in life course provide triggers and conditions; conditions =
resources and restrictions
› Macro-micro: life courses in context
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,Life-course approach
Assumption: it is possible to decompose human life courses into separate careers.
Theoretical elements:
People co-ordinate their careers
People give priority to some careers over others
Migration = instrumental behaviour
Method: Event history analysis (hazard analysis, hazard regression, intensity regression)
Data:
› Duration data = longitudinal data (rather than cross-sectional)
› Gathered by means of
• Retrospective survey
• Panel survey (follow people over time for example every year)
• Register data (Nordic countries; the Netherlands: System of Social Statistical Datasets; Belgium upcoming)
Theoretical/ conceptual definition = What do you want to study
- What do we mean by ….?
- How do we see / think about …?
- What does our concept stand for?
- What do we want to study?
Good definition: clear, understandable, relevant
Empirical/ operational definition = measurement!
- How is …. measured?
- How do we operationalize our concept?
- How do we study … ?
Good empirical definition: close to theoretical definition BUT ALSO practically feasible (compromise!)
Pseudo migration = measured but not conceptually regarded as migration; compare pseudonym
Crypto migration = not measured but conceptually regarded as migration; ‘hidden’, compare crypt
Lecture 2 – 16 November
Guest Lecture: Helga A.G. de Valk - NIDI
Migration and migrants in Europe: an overview
Why do people move?
- Aspirations (more general, doesn’t mean you do migrate) Desire or preference to migrate: 75%
- Intentions (more complete, where to) Intentions or plans to migrate: one third
- Preparations (prepare for move) Preparations for emigration: 7%
Drivers of migration > also interesting who does not migrate.
Complex interactions of different dimensions > push and pull factors.
Certain threshold and resources needed, the poorest poor do not migrate.
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, Theoretical frameworks to understand/explain migration
➢ Development economic theories
• Ravenstein’s (1885, 1889) laws of migration
• Lee’s (1966) conceptual push-pull framework
• Zelinsky’s (1971) mobility transition
➢ Neoclassical economic
• Ravenstein, 1889 (statistical) laws on migration
• Based on British census analyses 1881 expanded to other census data in a second step
1. Migration and distance: most migrants move across short distances, migration over long distance to trade
and industrial centers
2. Migration by stages
3. Every migration stream has a counterstream
4. Urban-rural differences in propensity to migrate: mostly from rural to urban, cities grow because of migration
5. Predominance of females among short-distance migrants
6. Technology and migration: migration increases with development of industry, trade and transport
7. Dominance of economic motives for migration
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