This paper cites the drivers of migration and explores the ways in which they may be configured. It also highlights different ways to assess the significance or weight or the various drivers and to investigate their relationship with development and poverty reduction. The paper discusses the existing research and highlights research gaps that should be pursued.
The paper explores the concept of migration drivers and contends that they are the factors that “get migration going and keep it going once begun”. It also explores concepts related to the relationship of the determinants of migration, which, the authors argue, are often deeply embedded in the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental context and more immediate factors. The paper suggests that it is useful to distinguish among predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating factors.
According to the authors, predisposing factors contribute to the creation of a context in which migration is more likely. Examples include structural disparities between places of migrant origin and destination shaped by the macro-political economy. Proximate factors are described as having a more direct bearing on migration and derive from the determining of the predisposing or structural features. Examples include a downturn in the economic or business cycle, a turn for the worse in the security or human rights environments or marked environmental degeneration, including the effects of climate change. Precipitating factors are defined as those that actually trigger a person’s departure and may include financial collapse, an increase in unemployment or the disintegration of welfare services. The authors also contend that natural or environmental disasters can be precipitating factors. They note that combinations of these predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating drivers shape the conditions or circumstances in which people make choices about whether to stay at home or migrate. The paper applies this framework to two migration cases: i) within South-East Asia (the migration of Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and Malaysia) and ii) between South Asia and the Middle East (migration from Bangladesh to the Gulf). The paper then discusses other dimensions of drivers which, the authors argue, also need consideration: locality, scale, timeframe and depth.
The research methodology is not explicitly discussed. Migrating Out of Poverty is a research programme consortium funded by the UK Department for International Development, which focuses on the relationship between migration and poverty and is located in six regions across Asia and Africa. It appears that the authors conducted a literature review to understand the migration policy process in the regions studied for the research.
Although the paper focuses mostly on legal migration in its two case studies, it also discusses irregular migration and migrant smuggling. In the first case study, the paper argues that the role of both sending and receiving States in regulating cross-border flows of migrant domestic workers between Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia has been crucial to the emergence of an extensive domestic worker recruitment industry within the region. Consequently, labour recruitment for the domestic worker sector is almost entirely commercialized and managed by official recruitment agencies, along with a range of other intermediaries, including private entrepreneurs (both licensed and unlicensed), labour contractors and village brokers who perform tasks and services related to documentation procedures, transportation, training and accommodation. The authors contend that these networks have assisted in reducing the costs and risks of migration for prospective workers through their various forms of assistance; however, the multiple layers and fees involved also make it easy for unauthorized migration to occur. The authors explain that human trafficking and migrant smuggling have remained problems in the region, particularly for Malaysia.
In the discussion of migration to the Middle East, the authors reason that the high cost of migration in general and limited options to finance short-term movement abroad can act as constraints for poor people who seek to migrate to the Gulf States but are unable to cover the migration costs. The paper contends that a pervasive practice of visa trading in destination countries and the inability of many would-be migrants to directly procure recruitment agency services means that Bangladeshis often accept high levels of risk and will move irregularly to secure even short-term overseas employment in the Gulf States.
The paper concludes that migration drivers do not work in isolation of each other to initiate migration or to influence it once it is under way but, rather, work in combination to shape the specific form and structure of population movements. In any one migration flow, several different ‘driver complexes’ may interconnect in shaping the eventual direction and nature of an individual’s or a group's movement. Additionally, proximate and mediating drivers rather than the structural and precipitating spheres appear to have greater potential for policy intervention to reduce poverty and optimize development.
The strength of the paper is the unique framework used to analyse the various drivers of migration. The application of the framework to two migration case studies enabled insights into the drivers and motivations for regular and irregular migration in South-East Asia and the Middle East.
