Moving upward but not onward? Occupational Mobility and Migration in - PDF document

Moving upward but not onward? Occupational Mobility and Migration in South Africa Becca Wang Population Studies Training Center, Sociology Department, Brown University IPC 2017 Paper October 9, 2017

1 Introduction The vast body of migration literature over the past 3 decades has established a rich understanding of the determinants of and motivations for population mobility. That is, two major lines of inquiry within migration research have focused on demonstrating who moves (versus who stays) and why. Across both developing and developed country contexts, ample evidence points to a strong selection effect: migrants tend to be male, healthier, and better educated (Feliciano 2005; Garip and Curran 2010; Lindstrom and Ramirez 2010; Tong and Piotrowski 2012). While migration is undertaken for a variety of reasons, including forced displacement (Rwamatwara 2005) and major life transitions such as marriage (Bernard et al. 2014), the migration literature in Africa has focused predominantly on labor migration. Motivated by spatial inequalities in employment opportunities (Adepoju 2003), a striking 2.5 million individuals are estimated to engage in labor migration in South Africa alone (Collinson et al. 2006). However, while migrants tend to be positively selected on sociodemographic and economic characteristics, not all migrants are successful in obtaining a better job—or even any job—after migrating to a new locale (Dejong and Legazpi Blair 1994; Cushing and Poot 2004). Limited access to information about the labor market (Nogel 1994); lack of social networks to provide settlement assistance (Korinek et al. 2005); and discrimination against migrants (Zuberi and Sibanda 2004) are all significant challenges that may prevent migrants from securing desirable employment opportunities. Given this potential heterogeneity in migration outcomes, this paper considers whether the occupational outcome from a migration event shapes migrants’ decisions about whether to engage in further residential moves. Particularly in developing countries, it is well documented that most migration events are not one-time residential relocations (Skeldon 2010). Instead, individuals engage in migration multiple times throughout their life (Goldstein 1964; Morrison 1971). Despite this recognition of the re- peated nature of migration, few studies have explicitly considered the dynamic interplay between occupational attainment and migration behavior. Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits some of the highest levels of internal labor migration in the world (Lucas 2015), and repeat migration contributes sub- stantially to the overall totals. In this context, migrants’ decisions to settle in one place or engage in further migration becomes a salient issue for migration scholars and policymakers alike. In this 1

paper, I make use of occupational attainment data, measured both before and after each migra- tion event, to better understand how occupational outcomes might influence the repeat migration process. Using retrospective residence histories from a small but nationally representative survey of black South Africans, I focus specifically on a population for whom migration has represented a critical livelihood strategy both historically and in contemporary periods (Reed 2013). 2 Background Literature 2.1 Migration and Occupational Mobility Labor migration is commonly treated as a response to the uneven geographic distribution of eco- nomic resources and opportunities. The seminal work of Todaro and Harris (1969) and Todaro (1970) established the well-known framing of the rural migrant as a utility-maximizing agent who opts to relocate to an urban destination with the expectation of better employment opportunities and higher wages. While migration theory has evolved a fair amount beyond the simplistic under- standing of a single migrant as a rational actor driven solely by economic factors, the fundamental insight that geographic mobility and social mobility are inextricably linked remains a central theme in the social demography literature. This treatment of labor migration as an avenue for social mobility has generated a large body of literature that investigates the returns to migration. However, the cumulative evidence on so- cioeconomic gains from migration remain mixed (Cushing and Poot 2004). The positive effects of migration documented by classical studies (Blau and Duncan 1967; Wilson 1985) continue to be corroborated (Chattopadhyay 1998; Flippen 2014). At the same time, other studies also find migra- tion is not always socio-economically rewarding and can be associated with downward occupational mobility (DeJong and Legazpi Blair 1994; Ogena and DeJong 1999; Lindstrom 2013). Given the high prevalence of migration undertaken as a livelihood strategy, the occupational consequences of migration, and therefore social mobility of labor migrants, remains an important line of inquiry. Existing scholarship—including research on internal and international migration as well as developed and developing countries—tends to focus on how geographic mobility drives changes in occupational mobility. Relatively less attention has been paid to the reverse relationship. Consequently, it is unclear how the occupational status attained after a move may affect subsequent 2

geographic mobility. My study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating whether occu- pational transitions shape decisions to stay in one location or engage in further migration. I argue inverting this well-studied relationship can enhance our understanding of migration as a social mo- bility strategy. By treating migration as the outcome variable, I can interrogate how individuals dynamically formulate migration decisions in response to their experiences with the labor market. The lack of attention to the dynamic interplay between occupational attainment and migration events is surprising given the long-standing recognition that migration in sub-Saharan Africa often involves multiple moves over time (Goldstein 1964). Early documentation of the ubiquitous pattern of step-wise migration—where individuals make a series of sequential moves up the urban hierarchy, for example, from a village to a small town to a metropolis (White and Lindstrom 2005)—can be traced back to Ravenstein (1889). Additionally, circular migration emerged as a prominent theme in the literature starting in the 1970s to describe the repetitive back-and-forth movement between origin and destination that dwarfed other more permanent forms of migration (Chapman 1978; Hugo 1985; Skeldon 1977). Studies that consider migration as a complex sequence of moves have also shown that those who have migrated at least once are likely to migrate again (Reed et al. 2010; Reed 2013). This is consistent with the longstanding consensus that migration is a highly selective process, and logically the traits (socioeconomic, health characteristics, etc) that would select an individual into migrating once would also affect subsequent migration (Reed et al. 2010). This research further highlights that each migration trip is not an independent event, and migration analyses should therefore distinguish between lower and higher order moves because the process leading up to each of these moves may be different. I hypothesize the occupational outcomes at each migration event may factor into the decision to engage in subsequent migration. More specifically, those who experience upward occupational mobility after a move are more likely to stay in a location while those who experience no or down- ward occupational mobility after a move are more likely to engage in subsequent migration. To date, studies have rarely taken advantage of data that combine migration histories and employ- ment histories. The few exceptions have focused on the domestic U.S. context (DaVanzo 1981) or on international migration to the U.S. (Lindstrom 2013). Relatively little is known about how occupational mobility drives migration decisions in sub-Saharan Africa, where prevalence of repeat migration is high and there is great interest in understanding the socioeconomic returns to migra- 3