Out of Africa: measuring the pressure to emigrate
Great expectations of a better life combined with poor developments at home drive people in Africa to emigrate. Expectations that are out of touch with actual living conditions elsewhere can be a serious impediment to both sending and host countries as too many people with insufficient human capital will make the journey. A drawback of data on intentions is that they can differ substantially from actual behaviour. However, one can also view the relatively strong emigration intentions as a vote of no-confidence in the future of the home country compared with the countries of destination. In that respect the relatively high intention to emigrate in Ghana and Senegal are serious signs of what is to come.
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By far the largest share of the global population growth in the next 30 years is likely to take place in geographically disadvantaged regions of the world, notably Africa. High fertility rates and low life expectancies tend to be associated with lower rates of saving and investment and therefore slower economic growth. The lack of economic growth prospects in developing regions can trigger emigration and some development experts predict large numbers of people flowing out of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. But Africa has not always been in its present dismal state. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Africa's future looked bright, but during the 1970s the economic and political conditions in Africa deteriorated. Since 1980, aggregate per capita GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by almost one percent a year, and today, Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest income region in the world. To many African citizens, emigrating 'out of Africa' seems to be the only way to substantially improve their standard of living.
Unfortunately, little is known about the micro-economic causes and incentives that trigger migration in Africa, but the pressure to emigrate is real. This lack of knowledge is a cause for concern, because governments of host countries are increasingly focusing on how to keep migrants out without considering the actual cause of the emigration pressure. Migration and development policies might have a better chance of succeeding if both sides of the migration story - the circumstances in both the countries of origin and of destination - were taken into account.
The central problem when analysing emigration trends is therefore who intends to leave and who intends to stay behind? For both the country of destination and the country of origin it matters who leaves, as emigration will affect the age and sex structure of the population and the educational and skill composition of the labour force. This research question has been dealt with extensively in the Eurostat project on 'Push and Pull Factors of International Migration', a project coordinated by NIDI and carried out in collaboration with research teams in seven countries (Spain, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal and Ghana).
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Using international migration survey data from four African countries (Ghana, Senegal, Morocco and Egypt), NIDI examined how high the pressure to emigrate is and which forces are at work when people form emigration intentions. The four countries differ quite distinctly in terms of geographical position, state of economic development and cultural setting.
The intention to emigrate is quite high in Ghana and Senegal. We also see that in Ghana the migration intentions are firmer as quite a number of potential migrants have actual plans to emigrate.
In order to understand what is behind these emigration intentions we examined various structural characteristics that trigger self-selection and 'push' potential migrants from the country of origin, and the variables that 'pull' potential migrants towards the country of destination.
It is known that potential migrants (i.e. someone with the intention to emigrate) tend to be young and male, and our survey confirms this 'stylised fact'. However, more stylised facts that apply to citizens in each and every country can not be found. The level of education, for example, has an ambiguous effect on emigration intentions. Whereas potential migrants in Ghana and Egypt, for example, are positively self-selected in terms of education (i.e. respondents with higher education are more set on emigrating than those with lower levels of education), weak signs of positive self-selection are present in Senegal, and finally there are some signs of negative self-selection (especially among men) in Morocco. The same ambiguity surrounds the effect of the perceived income position of households: in three out of four cases insufficient income tends to be a stimulus to emigrate. The absence of an effect of poverty in Senegal, however, makes one question whether poverty, measured in terms of an insufficient household income, is such a robust push factor. The absence of a clear profile of a typical potential migrant may perhaps be the result of a migrant culture that took root in certain countries or regions: if you are old enough as a man you will go abroad. Poverty, education and marital status do not appear to matter. Field studies have shown that there are clear signs of the existence of such cultures in Morocco and Ghana, where migration is often seen as a rite of passage.
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However, the most notable finding is that individual-specific expectations about the net benefits of emigration out of Africa are the prime driving force behind emigration intentions. The predicted probabilities show which answer category one can expect given that respondents have certain characteristics. For instance, Ghanaian men who are young and expect gains from migration (typified as male optimists) will express in approximately 70 percent of those cases an intention to move. Whether expectations about the gains from migration are realistic is unclear as only emigration intentions have been examined: how these potential migrants would fare compared to their status quo if they had carried out their plans will remain an open question. The figure does show, however, how age and positive expectations of net financial gains play a prominent role in expressing intentions to emigrate and these expectations point to a potentially simple explanation why it is so hard to redress South-North migration flows. The income gap between South and North is large and converges at a slow pace and hence expectations will probably change concomitantly.
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Publications
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- Dalen, H.P. van, G. Groenewold & T. Fokkema (2005),
- The effect of remittances on emigration intentions in Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey. Population Studies 59 (3): 375-392. [pdf]
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- Dalen, H.P. van, G. Groenewold & T. Fokkema (2005),
- Remittances and their effect on emigration intentions in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper TI 2005-030/1.
Amsterdam etc.: Tinbergen Institute, 38 p. [pdf]
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- Heering, L., R. van der Erf & L. van Wissen (2004),
- The role of family networks and migration culture in the continuation of Moroccan emigration: a gender perspective. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30 (2): 323-338. [pdf]
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- Dalen, H.P. van & I. Esveldt (2003),
- Migratie 'out of Africa': krachten en tegenkrachten. Maandschrift Economie 67 (3): 254-265. [pdf]
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- Dalen, H.P. van, G. Groenewold & J.J. Schoorl (2003),
- Out of Africa: what drives the pressure to emigrate? Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper TI 2003-059/3, Amsterdam/Rotterdam: Tinbergen Institute. 37 p. [pdf]
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- Erf, R. van der & L. Heering (2002),
- Moroccan migration dynamics: prospects for the future. Migration research series 10. Geneva: IOM, 105 p. [pdf]
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- Heering, L. (2002),
- Erste Erkenntnisse aus einem Mehrländerprojekt zu den Determinanten der Migration. Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft 26 (3-4): 367-375.
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- Heering, L. & R. van der Erf (2001),
- Why do people migrate? Statistics in Focus; theme 3: population and social conditions (1), 7 p. [pdf]
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- Schoorl, J., L. Heering, I. Esveldt, G. Groenewold, R. van der Erf, A. Bosch, H. de Valk & B. de Bruijn (2000),
- Facteurs d'attraction et de r��pulsion �� l'origine des flux migratoires internationaux: rapport comparatif. Th��me 3 - Population et conditions sociales, Working Paper 3/2000/E/no. 14. Luxembourg: Eurostat. [pdf]
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- Schoorl, J., L. Heering, I. Esveldt, G. Groenewold, R. van der Erf, A. Bosch, H. de Valk & B. de Bruijn (2000),
- Push and pull factors of international migration: a comparative report. Theme 1- General Statistics. Luxembourg: Eurostat. [pdf]
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