Why Do People Migrate - Network Connections/economic Incentives?

Paradoxically, there are many cases where incomes are increasing alongside international migration (UNDESA, 2006:3). Social scientists have found that it is not usually the poorest households who send migrants abroad, rather it is the middle or upper middle of the village's income distribution (ibid). Neoclassical theory does not take into account the balancing act of incentives against restraints capable of explaining this migratory dynamic. The poorest households do not have the savings to pay "the labour recruiter, the cost of a voyage, or the human smuggler" (ibid). Neither are they likely to find a bank or informal moneylender happy to lend a large sum. Even if these poor families were able to, they might not be willing to risk losing the potential collateral. This is why, "despite enormous earnings differences across borders, international migrants constitute less than 3 per cent of the world's population" (ibid:4).

Migration networks have been heralded by many as "the most important variable driving international migration" (UNESDA, 2006:4). They may be understood as "webs of social ties that connect individuals in a sending region to others in a receiving context" (Garip and Asad, 2014:1). They include interpersonal ties linking kin, friends and community members in their places of origin and destination" and extend to institutions such as "universities, diaspora organisations, government and nongovernmental organisations, private employment agencies, religious and cultural organisations and so on" (ibid). "Pioneer" migrants send home remittances and information on "how to migrate, where to look for work, what labour recruiters or smugglers to trust, what wages to expect and migration costs and risks and how to overcome them" (UNESDA, 2006:4). They deliver financial assistance, facilitate job-seeking and accommodation and provide support in various other ways (Arango, 2000:291). Reducing costs and uncertainty of migration leads to its facilitation (ibid) via "cumulative causation". Each act of migration leads to changes in the sending community making future migration more likely (Garip and Asad, 2014:1). Every new migrant expands the network connecting individuals in sending and receiving countries and increases the number of individuals relying on the network (ibid). Through this "feedback loop", migration flows become self-perpetuating and become "decoupled from the economic or political conditions that initiated them in the first place" (ibid).