Social Science Research Council

The realization that the amount remitted by migrants to developing countries far exceeds foreign assistance has fueled growing interest in the relationship between migration and development among both scholars and policy makers. In the last few years, a series of reports and review articles have summarized the links between migration and development. Many focus on the impact of remittances, while others consider the impact of circular and return migration, the role of diasporas, and policy. A much smaller literature considers the question of "social remittances" or the impact of migrants on ideas, behaviors and social capital in the sending country.

International migration is now widely seen to have the potential to contribute to development and many governments and development agencies are seeking ways to maximize its benefits. Yet, while the focus of most scholars and policy makers has been on the relationship between international migration and development, for many developing countries, internal migration is a more important phenomenon in terms of both the potential benefits for development and the challenges it presents for governments. This is largely due to the numbers involved: China, for example, has as many as 140 million internal migrants, compared with the UN estimate of 175 million international migrants worldwide and a total flow of only about 450 000 annually from China.

Estimates of the impact of internal migration on development have produced impressive figures: Cai Fang asserts that migration has contributed 16% annually to the growth in China's Gross Domestic Product in recent years. Although initially the government took a negative approach to internal migration, which has eroded the previous boundary between urban and rural populations and policy domains, since the late 1990s perceptions have changed. Largely as the result of research on the nature and impact of internal migration, the Chinese government has come to see migration as making a positive contribution to development by relieving pressure on the land and providing labor for manufacturing and urban growth. As a result, many government agencies are involved in projects that seek to maximize the benefits of migration by providing pre-migration training or assistance to return migrants.

The Chinese government is ahead of many others in the region in recognizing the relationship between internal migration and development. A Regional Conference on Migration and Development in Asia organized by the International Organisation for Migration and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March 2005, found that data regarding internal migration in the region was patchy. The level of attention to the issue by policy makers also varied widely despite the fact that internal migration is widespread throughout the region (For more information about the conference, see http://www.iom.int/chinaconference). The situation is similar in other regions, with international migration, and remittances in particular, the focus of much work on migration and development in Latin America, Africa, and Europe, and a much more limited amount of research on the implications of internal population flows for development.

Linking International and Internal Migration
Although scholars, policy makers and development agencies are starting to recognize that internal migration is as important as international migration in terms of its impact on development, the two fields of inquiry are rarely linked, at least partly because they are studied by scholars from different backgrounds and with different concerns. When they are connected, it is generally in the context of internal migration leading to or presenting an alternative to, international migration, or when return migration or strong transnational ties prompt those studying international migration to follow their subjects back home. Yet beyond these questions, and despite some obvious differences, internal and international migration have many things in common in terms of their causes and origins, the processes involved, and their impact and outcomes. As a result, they also present many similar challenges for research and policy making.

Both international and internal migration raise similar questions about the relationship of migration to development, including the ways in which both poverty and development can serve as stimuli for migration and shape the direction, volume and composition of migration flows. Equally, both call for a complex definition of "development" that takes into consideration not only the benefits of remittances and return migration but also questions of brain drain from sending regions and the impact of migrants on receiving economies. Migrants who settle in the receiving place present similar issues regarding social and civic incorporation and the future of the "second generation."

Beyond the short term economic impact of migration, both internal and international flows also involve what have been termed social remittances. Some of these, including changes in gender norms and fertility patterns or in civic and political participation, may have a long-range impact on development while others may be neutral or even detrimental in their effects.

Many of the methodological challenges that confront scholars researching international and internal migration are also the same. Although one migration takes place across and the other within national borders, both create families that are "translocal," requiring multi-site research and the tracing of links between communities. In both cases, scholars must often work with undocumented, vulnerable, or hard to reach populations, attempt to understand the nature of decisions that are often made within the privacy of households, and estimate flows of money and other resources in situations where many exchanges take place through informal channels.

Internal and international migration also raise similar management and policy challenges at several levels. In immediate terms, governments must decide how to address questions of residency and citizenship rights and access to public services both for temporary migrants and those who seek to settle permanently in the place of reception. In doing so they must often balance concern for migrants' rights with the interests and concerns of urban/receiving country residents. Over the long term, efforts to manage migration and maximize its benefits need to be based on a consideration of its relation both to broader development policies and to the many areas of economic and social policy that affect migrants. These include not only to employment policy but also education, health, and housing.

Even in countries where migration is recognized as an important national policy issue, it is generally not the responsibility of any one government department and often falls outside the scope of policy planning and budget making. Policy development and implementation can be hampered by the lack of coordination between government agencies and by the different interests of sending and receiving communities. In many countries, social norms can also present a barrier to the implementation of programs that would increase the benefits of migration, as when gender norms lead women to be excluded or ethnic and religious differences cause tension between migrants and receiving communities.

To explore the many overlapping questions and concerns surrounding the relationship of international and internal migration and development, this workshop will bring together scholars from both domains and also from development studies to examine the linkages between them and consider what we can learn from comparing the two processes in terms of their relationship to development. Most panels will focus on particular regions in order to maximize the potential for comparison. Our discussions will be organized to highlight useful substantive insights from case studies, provide conceptual and methodological lessons to apply in future research, and draw out implications for policy.