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When Home Is No Longer There : Return Migration in a Time of Crisis

When Home Is No Longer There : Return Migration in a Time of Crisis. Mónica Ibáñez Angulo University of Burgos miban@ubu.es Migratory Processes in Europe Одесса 24-25 09 2010. Return Migration: A decision involving a social group

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When Home Is No Longer There : Return Migration in a Time of Crisis

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  1. When Home Is No Longer There:Return Migration in a Time of Crisis Mónica Ibáñez Angulo University of Burgos miban@ubu.es Migratory Processes in Europe Одесса 24-25 09 2010

  2. Return Migration: • A decision involving a social group 2. Complex, heterogeneous and multifaceted social process: “mix of personal, family, emotional and economic reasons” (Tollefsen 1995; King 2000) • Not an exception: temporary migration is “often the rule rather than the exception” (Dustman 1996; 2001) • Leaving / Returning; home/abroad; being/belonging

  3. Scarce literature: - Outside governmental programmes • Increase in the last years: increasing number of migrants; technologies of mobility; asylum seekers; brain-drain • Push Factors Abroad: - Forced Return Migration: irregular, outlaws; failed asylum seekers • Return of Displaced Peoples: environmental disasters, wars & conflicts; resettlement policies; • Pull Factors Home: • Voluntary Return: McKeown’s free migrants • Always shaped by economic, socio-cultural and individual factors.

  4. Individual Attributes - Sex, age, marital status • Place of residence of relatives and household size - Awareness of being needed at home - Death of family member - Patriotic reasons - Education - Temporal duration of migration Individual attributes do matter but to different degrees

  5. Economic Variables • Wage differentials: Rogers (1984) and Russell (1986) vs. Dustman (2001) • Type of work available and desirable at home and abroad • Cost of living home/abroad • Unemployment

  6. Socio-Cultural Imponderabilia -Integration abroad / Re-integration home • Attachment to cultural values • Side-effects of political emphasis on integration • Achievement of goals: Satisfaction • Success / Failure • Abroad: difficulties in social integration; symbolic distance; political emphasis on integration; • Origin: re-integration & distinctiveness (upward social mobility); time abroad; perceptions of homeland. • Networks abroad / home • Remittance behaviour

  7. Return Migration Policies Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Art. 13 (2): “Everyone has a right to leave any country, including his/her own and return to his/her country”. • Sending / Receiving countries • Failure of guest-worker policies • Policing policies: borders / irregular • Co-development / bilateral agreements • Failure: • Lack of effectiveness • Regarded negatively • Have not transformed the structure of sending countries

  8. Spanish Context • Transposition of EU Directives, especially Directive 2003/110 & Directive 2008/115 (known as Return Directive) - Data: • National Statistic on Immigrants, ‘Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes’ (2007) • Statistic on Residential Variations, ‘Estadística de Variaciones residenciales’ (INE): • Foreigners who leave and remove their names • Foreigners who are registered at one address but not living there (renting/selling) • ‘Expired Registrars’ • Limitations: data do not specify where they move to

  9. Return Migration Policies in Spain • LO4/2000 amended in 2003 & 2009 • Programmes: • Beneficiaries: third country nationals 1) Seasonal Labour Migration 2) Forced Return 3) Assisted Voluntary Return: 3.1 Reintegration purposes 3.2 Humanitarian reasons, PREVIE (2003)

  10. 3.3 Plan for unemployed (RD4/2008 & RD1800/2008): • Payment in advance of accumulated unemployment benefits. • Conditions: • Must be unemployed and have the right to unemployment benefits; • Third country citizens with bilateral agreement: • only agreements with two African countries Morocco and Tunisia • only one agreement with one Asian country, Philippines • does not apply to Romanians & Bulgarians • Must commit not to return to Spain within the following three years; • Must hand over all Spanish documents prior to return. • Payment in two parts: 40% & 60%

  11. Limitations: • the accumulated unemployment benefits may be too small • many immigrants lack benefits accumulated • in Spain the situation is, comparatively, much better than in the countries of origin • they have obtained the Spanish nationality • they will lose social benefits (including family members) Data: • IOM (2009): fewer than 1.400 • Pajares, M. (2009): 3.700

  12. TABLE 2: Nationality of Returnees with the ‘Plan’ in 2009 (Pajares 2010) Andorra 2 Argentina 385 Brasil 177 Canada 1 Chile 168 Colombia 684 Dominican R. 24 Ecuador 1.636 USA 3 Philippines 3 Morocco 20 Mexico 6 Paraguay 62 Peru 284 Russia 14 Ukraine 77 Uruguay 117 Venezuela 36 TOTAL 3.699

  13. TABLE 3: Returnees with the ‘Plan’ 2009-2010 (Pajares; INE, MTAS) 2009 2010 Plan Gen Com Gen Com • Madrid 802 470.222 348.616 506.180 378.091 • Murcia 421150.980 51.826 156.709 54.561 • Barcelona 369492.258 194.877 505.104 219.908 • Valencia 248 101.915 110.988 112.937 125.956 • Alicante 246 108.322 155.199 113.540 170.783 • Málaga 141 65.833 120.685 75.006 126.827 • Las Palmas 106 62.208 66.180 66.142 71.147 • Balearics 106 85.773 102.037 90.251 113.128

  14. Effects of the Economic Crisis: 1) Profile of migrants who apply: - Rise in the number of migrants who apply - Before year 2008: • more women than men. • most were newcomers • most of them have not gone through processes of family reunification 2) Countries of origin: • Less exports of raw materials • Less foreign investment • Less remittances • Less development aid

  15. 3) In Spain: • Unemployment in construction (male) • Domestic employment receding • Housing: problems to face the mortgage payments. Options: - One spouse returns (with children) and the other remains renting rooms and trying to sell the huse - They offer the house to the bank without success - The leave the country and not pay.

  16. Concluding Remarks • RM: never a totally voluntary: resource mobilization • Difficulties defining ‘home’ - RM does not always constitute the end of the ‘migratory cycle’: re-migration & temporary migration • Voluntary return is preferable than forced return and it is more cost effective, YET: • Policies on AVR are not as successful as politicians envisaged: most migrants return outside these policies • Current emphasis on (co)development reifies the core/periphery dichotomy • Other type of programmes should be implemented: e.g. promotion of citizenship-nationality-naturalization

  17. Danger associating return migration policies with economic crisis • RM is not a valid option for most migrants: worse situation in origin Spanish Policies to promote RM: • migrants lost their rights • lack of unemployment benefits or too small • The very requirements of the Plan itself contain barriers that limit the outcomes

  18. Thank you!! благодарность !!

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