433 lock in

Neoclassical / Functionalist theory

• Goal: Explain migration as a result of wage gaps. People move from low-wage places to high-wage places. In the individual version, each person weighs costs and benefits.

• Case: Mexico to the U.S. The wage gap pulled workers toward higher incomes.

• Limit: It can’t explain why people stopped moving after 2007 while the wage gap stayed.

People move to get higher pay. Workers leave low-wage places and go where wages are high. Each person asks, “Is moving worth it?”

Dual labor market theory

• Goal: Explain migration as driven by demand. Rich economies have stable jobs and unstable jobs. Natives avoid the bad ones, so employers recruit immigrants.

• Case: The Bracero Program (1942–64). The U.S. recruited Mexican farm workers because American men had left for WWII.

• Limit: It ignores the supply side in Mexico, like falling birth rates and rising education. It also doesn’t explain why migration didn’t rise again once the U.S. economy recovered.

Rich countries have good jobs and bad jobs. Locals don’t want the bad ones. So employers go find immigrants to fill them. The jobs pull people in.

Network theory

• Goal: Explain why migration continues once it starts. Earlier migrants lower the cost and risk of moving for people they know.

• Case: After the Bracero Program ended, Mexican families kept migrating north because they depended on that income and had the routes and contacts; they established networks!

• Limit: Not all migration keeps feeding itself. Networks can also act as gatekeepers instead of helpers. The theory also says little about why migration systems fade or why many people choose to stay.

Once a few people move, it gets easier for others. They help friends and family with money, info, and a place to stay. So migration keeps going. —> CHAIN MIGRATION; employers like hiring this way too

New economics for labor migration (NELM)

• Goal: Explain migration as a household decision. Families send members away to spread risk and earn income from different sources. Remittances (sum of money sent by one party to another) act as insurance and investment money. Relative deprivation (feeling poorer than your neighbors) can also push people to move.

• Case: A family sends one member abroad and gets remittances back, even without a wage gap.

• Limit: Your notes don’t name a limit for this one. The general gap they point out applies: like most migration theory, it focuses on why people leave, not why they stay. It also doesn’t cover people who want to leave but can’t (the aspiration/capability point).

Families decide together, not just one person. They send someone away so the family doesn’t depend on one income. The money sent home acts like insurance. Feeling poorer than your neighbors can push families to do this too.

World systems theory

• Goal: Explain migration as a result of capitalism spreading. Rich-country firms enter poor countries for land, labor, and markets. This disrupts local life and creates migrants.

• Case: NAFTA and U.S. agribusiness hurt small Mexican farms and pushed rural workers to migrate.

• Limit: It’s weak on timing. It can’t explain why the drop in migration lined up so closely with the U.S. recession.

Rich countries’ companies go into poor countries to get land, workers, and customers. This shakes up local life and pushes people out of their homes. Migration is a side effect of global capitalism.

Migration transition theory

• Goal: Explain the link between development and migration. As a poor country develops, emigration rises first. Later, when it’s wealthier, emigration falls and immigration rises.

• Case: Mexico. Rising incomes and better schooling gave more people the means to leave. As the economy grew and birth rates fell, emigration was expected to decline.

• Limit: It’s the least precise on timing. It says a slowdown is coming, but not why it happened in 2007, or how U.S. policy and enforcement affect the trend.

As a poor country gets richer, more people leave at first, because they can now afford to. Later, when the country is richer, fewer people leave and more people move in.

Push factors

few services, lack of job opportunities, unhappy life, poor transportation links, wars, natural disasters, shortage of food

Pull factors

access to services, better job opportunities, better transport links, improved living conditions, family links, hope for a better life

Bracero Program

(1942–64) was a U.S.–Mexico deal to bring Mexican farm workers to the U.S. during WWII, when American men had left for the war.

• Treatment: Recruitment was rough and humiliating. Pay, housing, and food were worse than promised.

• No power: Workers who protested were fired, sent back, or blacklisted.

• Legacy: It created migration routes and habits. After it ended, families kept migrating north without papers, which grew undocumented migration.

Refugee

a person who is outside their home country and can’t or won’t go back for protection because of a well-founded fear of persecution. The persecution must be based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

economic migrant

the movement of people for the purpose of employment.

survival migrant (betts)

a person who is outside their country of origin because of an existential threat that they can’t fix through any domestic remedy.

Outside their country because of a serious threat with no domestic fix. Missing basic rights: liberty

temporary migrant

• differs on how states protect their sovereignty

• Temporary workers, guest workers, expats are listed as examples of categories that are “not neutral.”

• TPS is a temporary status, not a type of migrant. It protects people from removal and gives work authorization, but has no path to permanent residence.

permanent migrant

a migrant who settles in the destination country long-term, usually with rights to stay and a path to citizenship.

regular migrant

• Origin: the country they leave. They follow its exit rules.

• Transit: any countries they pass through on the way. They follow those entry rules too.

• Destination: the country they end up in. They have the right permission to enter and stay.

irregular migration

If they break the rules at any step, such as crossing a border without papers or staying after a visa ends, it becomes irregular.

IDPs

Internally displaced people. Fled home but stayed inside their country. UNHCR has no general mandate for them.

Non-refoulement

A country can't send someone back to a place where they'd be in danger.

Regime stretching

The refugee system bends to cover new situations (regional treaties

Liberal paradox (Hollifield)

Economics pushes states to be open (need workers,trade). Politics pushes them to be closed (sovereignty, citizenship). Rights and courts push back from within.

Immigration trilemma (de Haas)

States want to (1) cut immigration, (2) serve business, (3) respect human rights. They can't have all three, so policy looks messy. —> explains why there is a liberal paradox

Exit revolution (Zolberg)

States shifted from stopping people leaving to stopping people entering.

• CASE: the Philippines restricted emigration during Covid (Ortiga 2024), which was a revival of exit restrictions.

migration in 1950s-2010s

labor moves to rich economies (word systems theory)

Asylum seeker

Asked for protection and is still waiting for a decision.