Daniele Vignoli - family related migration

Family -Related Migration from a European Perspective

Daniele Vignoli 1,2 – Anna Di Bartolomeo 1

1Migration Policy Centre, EUI2University of Florence

108/02/2016 MPC - www.migrationpolicycentre.eu

• Family migration represents a major entry channel f or newcomers in Europe .

• Unlike labor migration, the admission of family members is a function of the citizenship rights of those already migrated in the destination state.

• States cannot easily select this large group of migrants by skills, education or the other criteria applied to labor migrants.

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Family -Related Migration in Europe


• Family reunification is an expression that refers to those situations in which the first-mover brings in immediate relatives under the legal category of admission defined by the receiving countries.

• There are differences between family reunification and family-forming migration , i.e. someone already living in the destination country who brings in a partner from abroad with the purpose of forming a family.

• The term “family-related migration” embraces all situations in which migration is linked with family dynamics .

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What Is Family -Related Migration?


• The Family Reunification Directive 2003/86 constrains the power of EU countries to restrict family-related migration in the same way as labor and other discretionary flows.

• States do however play a role : they establish who is entitled to sponsor family reunion applications, who is allowed to enter the country, and the conditions under which family members are admitted (Kraler 2010; Wray et al. 2014).

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A Premise: The Legal Context


• Rebalancing of gender at destination : the second wave of migration with partner reunification mitigates the gender unbalance of certain migration flows (e.g., males from South Asia and females from East Europe).

• Previous research have highlighted how those who reunify with their family are the best integrated not only in terms of economic status, but also from cultural and linguistic aspects (Baizán et al. 2014).

�� Family-related migration may constitute amechanism for first movers’ settlement.


Effects of Family-Related Migration on Destination Countries

• Reunified migrants are perceived as mostly dependent individuals : their increase would rise the dependency ratio among immigrants and the burden over active population in general.

• Family migrants may create an excess of labor offer , which is not selected (Gonzales-Ferrer 2012).

• Family reunification is becoming one of the few remaining windows of transnational mobility for people from developing regions .

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Effects of Family-Related Migration on Destination Countries


• To provide new evidence on partners’ migration and family formation adopting a comparative approach between gender and countries (of origin and destination).

– What is the magnitude of couple migration in current EU societies?

– What are the profiles of couples migrating for family reasons?– To what extent does family migration reproduce traditional family

structures?– Are there gender-specific effects related to partners’ educational

qualifications?

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Aim


• 2008 Ad Hoc Module of the European Union Labour Force Survey.

• It is the only dataset allowing today for isolating family migration dynamics in the EU context, and – It includes a wide range of “migration-specific” variables which are likely

to affect migrants’ outcomes such as years of presence;– Its standardized structure permits users to develop cross-country

comparative research;– It allows for working at the couple level (thus to acknowledge gender-

specific effects between partners) – It allows to distinguish between family reunification and family-forming

migration.

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Data


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Descriptive Results (immigrants 20-74 living in couple)


«long-lasting» immigration countries: AT, FR, NL, BE, UK, LU

«recent» immigration countries: GR, IR, ET, PT, ES

JobCouple

reunification

Couple

formationOthers Total

WOMEN

“Long-lasting" immigration countries 11.0 30.5 24.4 34.1 100.0

“Recent" immigration countries 42.0 33.5 10.0 14.5 100.0

Total 27.5 32.1 16.7 23.6 100.0

MEN

“Long-lasting" immigration countries 31.7 8.1 9.2 51.1 100.0

“Recent" immigration countries 77.2 8.2 1.9 12.8 100.0

Total 54.0 8.1 5.6 32.3 100.0

• Family migration has changed not only in quantitative terms but also from a qualitative viewpoint .

• The share of family-forming migrants has gradually increased in its importance everywhere as a consequence of the rise in :

� Mixed marriages ;� Marriages between second (or third) generation migrants

(who reached marriageable ages) and partners born in their parents’ country of origin.

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Descriptive Results


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To what extent does family migration reproduce traditional family arrangements?


• Logistic regression predicting the probability of family-related migration (family reunification or family forming migration)

• Model specification : age (in class); duration of stay in the destination country; partners’ educational qualifications; old vs. new immigration country. Robust st. errors by country of origin.

• Average Marginal Effect : change in the predicted probabilities of reunification, averaged across the values of other covariates (i.e. population-averaged)

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Multivariate Analysis


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Average Marginal Effect of woman’s high education o n the probability

of experiencing family migration, following a man f irst mover


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Average Marginal Effect of man’s high education on the probability

of experiencing family migration, following a woman first mover


• We found “classical” differences in magnitude and characteristics of couples’ migration and family formation:

– between long-lasting and recent immigration countries– according to the length of stay in the destination country .

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Discussion


• We show that higher education represents an inhibitor of women’s family-related migration , following a man first mover:– Is there a wish to reproduce a traditional couple role-set among

men first movers?

• On the contrary, we find no relationship between men’s higher education and couple-related migration , following a woman first mover– Is it a challenge of traditional family roles among family migrants?

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Discussion


• Despite the numerical preponderance of family migration as a corridor of legal entry in Europe, the study of family migration continues to be downgraded theoretically, methodologically and empirically.

• In policy terms it is treated as a secondary form of migration subordinate to labor markets dynamics. BUT family migrants are labour migrantsAND they do have a snowball demographic effect

• Family-related migration deserves much more attention in both the academic and policy debate.

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In all


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Thank you


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Descriptive Results


JobCouple

reunification

Couple

formationOthers Total

Women - recent migrants (arrived between 1998 and 20 08)

"Old" immigration countries 14.5 28.2 23.2 34.2 100.0

"New" immigration countries 41.7 37.6 8.7 12.0 100.0

Total 31.5 34.1 14.1 20.3 100.0

Women - old migrants (arrived before 1998)



Total 21.4 29.1 20.7 28.8 100.0

Job Couple formation Couple

reunificationOthers Total

Men - recent migrants (arrived between 1998 and 2008 )



Total 58.3 10.9 5.9 24.9 100.0

Men - old migrants (arrived before 1998)



Total 49.7 5.3 5.3 39.8 100.0

Presentations & Public Speaking

Daniele Vignoli - family related migration