Why Do People Migrate - Network Connections Or Economic Incentives?

Migration is a phenomenon that has always accompanied human evolution. Ever since homo erectus first migrated out of Africa 60,000 years ago (National Geographic, 2014), man has "relentlessly searched for a place to enjoy better living conditions" (Panzaru, 2014:142). However, the factors underlying migration have evolved as time and conceptions of "better" living conditions have progressed. Thus far, economic incentives have dominated theorisation as the primary determinants of migration. Ravenstein expressed this belief that no migratory current caused by any other factor "can compare in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in most men to `better` themselves in material respects" (1889 cited Arango, 2000:284). However, this essay aims to argue that a qualitatively different, new migration system encapsulating "complex, specifically non-economic" migrants has emerged (Luthra et al, 2014:10) since the 1980`s and economic models no longer enjoy key explanatory power. Migrants generally in the present day political world are more likely to migrate due to network connectives.

The neoclassical migration theory forwards "differences in net economic advantages, chiefly differences in wages" as the main causes of migration (Hicks 1963 cited Topel and Lalonde, 1997:805). Geographic variations in labour supply and demand produce consequent wage differentials between labour-rich and capital-rich countries (Kurekova, 2011:7). Here, the economic incentive is to enjoy higher returns to labour across markets (ibid) and therefore migrants will move to where wages are higher. Assuming full employment, the neoclassical model "predicts a linear relationship between wage differentials and migration flows" (ibid). Mansoor and Quillin placed a thirty per cent wage differential as necessary for the gains of migration to outweigh its costs (2006 cited Kurekova 2011:7). Extended neoclassical models expand on this basic version and deem migration to be determined by expected (as opposed to actual) earnings, with the key variable being "earnings weighted by the probability of employment" (Kurekova, 2011:7).

This model developed to explain migration alongside the process of economic development in the third quarter of the twentieth century (Hicks 1932, Lewis 1954, Harris and Todaro 1970). This period involved "rapid and sustained economic growth, the increasing internationalisation of economic activity, decolonisation, and emergent processes of economic development in the Third World" (Arango, 2000:284). Labour migration was indeed a "major component" of migration flows to industrial nations such as Australia, Canada and the United States (Boyd, 1969:638). Migrants were admitted based on their potential for economic contribution. Northern European countries actively encouraged and received labour migrants, although "admittedly ostensibly for short periods of time" (ibid) with guestworker programs. These countries were consciously attempting to attract labour on grounds of economic incentive. However, the economic downturns in the 1970s and 1980s altered migration flows to industrialised nations as more restrictive policies began to set in (ibid:639). The fault in migration theory and politicians concerned with migration policy has been to continue the assumption that economic incentives still remain the most likely motivation for movement.