Migration multiple

Since independence of the Central Asian states in the aftermath of the end of the of the USSR, their economic situation has markedly deteriorated. As a result, labor migration from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Russia and Kazakhstan has significantly increased during the past two decades. This trend continues notwithstanding the cuts caused by the global economic crisis. Financed by the Gerda-Henkel-Foundation, BICC is conducting a pilot study which investigates mid- and long-term effects of labor migration on the development and stability of Tajik society.

This project begins with the basic premise that refugees are migrants: by legal definition and political conception, they have left their home countries to seek refuge. This project aims to re-assess refugee protection through a lens of mobility and migration, locating the study of refugee law in the context of the refugee regime. It examines the three key aspects of refugee law – access to protection, refugee status determination, and refugee rights – bringing them into conversation with the refugee regime’s norms and practices on responsibility-sharing and solutions. Crucially, the project takes a long and broad view of refugee protection, in order to open up new possibilities and trajectories. It also integrates a legal assessment of the role of non-state actors in refugee protection. Using the broad notion of ‘intermediary’ in the migration process, it will assess the regulatory environment on access to protection, so-called ‘secondary movement’ and onward migration. It will provide an important legal assessment of the role of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the duties of humanitarian actors in refugee protection. It addresses the EU, not as a singularity, but as an actor in the global regime. The project is methodologically ground-breaking. It identifies practices that determine access to and the quality of refugee protection, and how these practices have developed across jurisdictions and over time, thereby historicizing and reframing the practices in question. As well as rigorous doctrinal (‘black letter’) legal analysis, it will use go beyond doctrine, and draw on theoretical conceptions of legality to explore the particular modes of regulating mobility and migration that are now central to refugee protection. It will also develop new inter-disciplinary methods, using comparative legal, historical and political-scientific tools.

We will merge labor market information on German migrants observed working in Austria with their labor market outcomes during any years they were working in Germany (either before or after their time in Austria). Similarly, we will merge labor market information on Austrian migrants observed in Germany with their labor market outcomes for any years they were working in Austria. To illustrate the nature of the resulting data set, consider a German citizen who works for several years in Germany (say, from ages 19 to 24), then moves to Austria for several years, then returns. For this individual we will be able to construct a complete longitudinal history of earnings outcomes in both the home country (Germany) and the destination country (Austria), before, during and after the migration spell. The available data for each worker will include: gender and year of birth; total earnings and total days worked in each job held in either country; all spells of unemployment in either country; geographic location and industry of each job; characteristics of co-workers at each job (e.g., fraction of co-workers who are migrants from Germany or Austria); detailed occupation (for all jobs in Germany) or blue-collar/white collar status (for all jobs in Austria); and education (reported for jobs in Germany). We will supplement these data with corresponding information on samples of native (non-migrant) workers in the two countries. These supplementary data will be used in two ways: (1) to form detailed comparisons in the home country labor market between people who emigrate and people who do not, before and after a migration spell; and (2) to form detailed comparisons in the destination country labor market between immigrants and natives. Our analysis plan includes three main components: (i) Descriptive Analysis of Migration Flows between Austria and Germany (ii) Analysis of outcomes before and after first migration experience (iii) Analysis of return migration and circular (repeat) migration

The provision of reintegration assistance to migrants in their countries of origin is an essential element to ensure sustainability of returns. IOM and partners in countries of origin provide migrants with socio-economic support to promote their self-sufficiency and contributions to their local communities. The sustainability of returns may, however, ultimately only be ensured in tandem with socio-economic development. IOM strives to support sustainable reintegration of migrants returning to a variety of contexts, recognizing, that the factors affecting the reintegration process and subsequently its sustainability are not dissimilar from those that resulted in the decision to migrate in the first place. IOM therefore asserts that reintegration can be considered sustainable when returnees have reached levels of economic self-sufficiency, social stability within their communities, and psychosocial well-being that allow them to cope with (re)migration drivers. Having achieved sustainable reintegration, returnees are able to make further migration decisions a matter of choice, rather than necessity. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to approach migrant reintegration in a comprehensive manner, considering the factors that can affect reintegration and addressing them in a way to respond to the needs of the individual returnees as well as the communities to which they return in a mutually beneficial way, and address the structural factors at play. Assistance to migrants, communities of return, and structural environments in countries of origin is therefore an essential element to ensuring sustainability of reintegration.

"The ExiTT project (in its preparatory phase from January 2018 to December 2019) prepares a large-scale research project that processually traces, documents and analyses processes of migration from origin countries, from the starting point, over the route, until integration in the destination countries and their societies from social, economic, political and cultural aspects. At the same time, it will analyse the political, economic, societal, discursive and legal transformation of the sending, transit and receiving/destination countries as well as political, economic, societal, discursive and legal repercussions by, for example, transnational relationships, re-migration, circular migration or post-migration mobility. To grasp such complex processes, it employs a research approach that is interdisciplinary, multi-local and multi-method. The multidisciplinary research approach is intended to apply research perspectives from sociology, political sciences, psychology, geography, history, cultural sciences and economics in order to design questionnaires, to conceive the regional case studies and to carry out the data analyses. The main task of the project will be the collection and analysis of new data in multiple locations such as origin, transit, and receiving countries that will provide a unique basis to deliver evidence for the above sketched topics. The basic idea and method will follow a combination of the ethnosurvey model (Massey & Zenteno 2000) and regional case studies. On the basis of multiple methodological approaches such as surveys, fieldwork, discourse, media and policy analyses in origin, transit and immigration countries, the ExiTT project is intended to answer questions about the causes and motives of migration decisions, about the negotiations and conditions for successful integration and participation in transit and immigration countries, and about various aspects of social, political, economic and cultural transformations in all countries involved. The results of the data generated though this mixed methods approach is intended to be collated into one comprehensive data set that – based on the model of the Mexican Migration Project – will continue to grow cumulatively over time. In addition to surveys and (qualitative) interviews with individuals (migrants as well as non-migrants) expert interviews with representatives from state and private organisations as well as observations in the field will be conducted and innovative methods like experiments will be deployed. From the data set, there will derive a potential for research into the causes, conditions and negotiations of migration and migration routes as well as the changes in the so-called transit or host/receiving countries and their societies. At the same time, an interdependent approach will be chosen that includes in the analysis the effects of migration in the exit or origin countries. Insights into migration and integration processes from various actors and in multiple sub-systems can be expected on the basis of this data set. Labour market-specific and education-related aspects, cultural and social practices of integration, and obstacles and negative effects of disintegration could be evaluated according to target groups and, e.g., analysed in families and house-holds from the gender perspective or with regard to youths. In parallel, transformations in political structures, cultures or societies can be documented and the analysis of changes empirically grounded. The ExiTT project is a cooperation project of the DeZIM research community."