Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Return migration, among both international and domestic migrants, is an important aspect of the migration process. However, the features of the migrant experience that that serve to consolidate settlement or facilitate return remain elusive. We address the question of settlement versus return among a population of rural-to-urban migrants who originate from Nang Rong district in northeastern Thailand. Our central research question is whether social capital influences migrants’ decisions to settle or return. Using a longitudinal design and a multinomial logistic regression technique we compare migrants’ residential status in 1994 and 2000 to determine if they have settled in the urban destination or returned to a rural origin village. Our measurement of social capital is direct, indicating the presence and strength of migrants’ social ties to persons in the destination who can provide assistance in times of need—by lending money or helping to find employment. We find that urban Thai migrants differ markedly in their access to social support. We also find that net of socioeconomic status, household composition, duration of stay, and other migrant characteristics, access to social support in the destination consolidates the settlement of rural migrants in urban areas. These findings suggest that among migrants moving into Thailand’s vast and growing urban centers, those who become strongly connected to others in the destination through ties of social support are more likely to settle and become long-term urban dwellers.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores Mexican migrant parents’ relationships with children they have left behind in Mexico. Although for many years Mexican men have worked abroad to provide for families back home, more recently mothers have begun to do so as well. Examining contemporary patterns in transnational parenting, this paper sheds light on the consequences of new migration patterns for intergenerational relationships. The paper draws on participant-observation and interviews conducted between 2003 and 2006 with 141 members of Mexican transnational families residing in New Jersey and South-central Mexico. It offers a unique analysis in qualifying parental experiences from the perspectives of various family members, including minor children in Mexico.

Three areas of immigrants’ experiences are important to shaping intergenerational relationships. First, social conditions, namely parents’ experiences as low-wage, undocumented workers in the United States, affect their ability to fulfill parental obligations from a distance as well as the length and nature of family separation. Second, life stage events, particularly the birth of U.S.-born children and incidents of marital conflict, may affect immigrants’ subsequent migration decisions. Third, struggles to share parenting with children’s caregivers cause tensions in relationships with children. Taken together, Mexican immigrants’ experiences demonstrate that parenting is dynamic. Parents negotiate the challenges of migration and gender expectations over time. They also do so in response to the changing needs expressed by their children.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: According to the European Parliament’s 2006 statement on integrating third-country nationals into the European Union ‘success of integration will fortify the Union’s economy in the face of global competition: the Union will attract the workers and entrepreneurs EU economies need, as well as the scientists and students who are the bedrock of it’s ability to innovate; EU cities will be safer and communities stronger; xenophobic tendencies will be diminished and respect for the fundamental rights of all will be fortified; Europe’s position in the world will be enhanced’. In member states all over Europe official conceptualisations of citizenship are expanding e.g. shared citizenship and earned citizenship. There is, however, a relative paucity of empirical evidence on everyday understandings of citizenship.

This paper presents findings from the D-MIC study (Dialogues on Migration, Integration & Citizenship). Migrants and non-migrants - were asked in two cities, Stockholm and Edinburgh, to debate European Union policy statements, such as the one above, and give an account of their mobility and sense of citizenship in 25 interviews and 4 focus groups.

Dialogical analysis revealed key relational features of participant conceptions of citizenship and medborgarskap. Concepts such as ‘burgher’ and ‘citoyen/ne’ are called upon to shed light on this. The paper concludes by suggesting that a fuller understanding of the dialogue between the systems of governance and the lifeworlds of citizens would be helped by an appreciation of the multi-voiced rhetorical, creative and polemical capacities of migrants and non-migrants as they participate within the polity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: That married men earn more than single men is well established in the literature. What remains unclear, though, is the cause of this wage gap. I use fixed effects to examine how U.S. wages vary for two groups of married Mexican migrant men in the U.S.: those who are residing with their wives, and those who are not. Results will shed light on the importance of household specialization and employer discrimination in explaining the male wage premium to marriage.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I find that despite the commonality of having parents living abroad, there are differences in experiences that lead some children of migrants to aspire to migrate, while others aspire to stay in their homeland. Non-migrants who have achieved greater social status in their homeland perceive migration to the US as an automatic decrease in status and therefore not desirable. On the other hand, members of transnational families who have been unable to achieve economic stability or upward mobility despite parents’ migration do aspire to migrate.