International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   The world has been undergoing the process of widening, deepening, and speeding up or, in other words, becoming globalized ( Held et al. 1999 ). In 1885 Ravenstein presented his celebrated paper on the laws of migration before the Royal Statistical Society describing this process. Some consider this era of globalization as “the age of migration” – an age of unprecedented and exploding migration ( Castles and Miller 1998 ). While some criticize theories of globalization connected to migration as a myth ( Haas 2005 ), international migration is widening, deepening, and speeding up as described within a set of theories that have been developed by different disciplines of science. There are sociological, economic, socioeconomic, geographical, and integrative (cross-disciplinary) explanations on the causes of international migration ( Bijak 2006 ). Theories on the causes of international migration can also be categorized as macro or micro. Macro theories cover segmented labor market theory; world systems theory; and the political economy model. Micro theories include neoclassical economic theory; human capital theory; new economics of migration; migration network; and the cumulative causation model ( Morawska 2007 ). The fact that international migrants also do not constitute a single, homogeneous unit of analysis has stimulated further variation in the literature. ... log in or subscribe to read full text