Guestworker programs: Evidence from Europe and the United States and some implications for U.S. policy

Reichert, Joshua; Massey, Douglas S.

doi:10.1007/bf00125390

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The program re-established the flow through a bi-national agreement between Mexico and the United States, known as the Bracero Accord, which arranged for the importation of Mexican workers for periods not to exceed six months. The workers were recruited by the Mexican government and sent to special camps on the US side of the border where employment, wages, working conditions, and transportation were arranged by agencies of the US Government (Galarza, 1964;Samora, 1971;Reichert and Massey, 1982).…”

Section: Guestworker Programs In Theory and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

The long-term consequences of a temporary worker program: The US Bracero experience

Massey

Liang

1989

Popul Res Policy Rev

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Recent changes enacted by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) create the potential for two large temporary worker programs, one constructed from the existing H-2 program and the other an outgrowth of IRCA's amnesty provisions. Prior experience with guestworker programs in Europe and the United States suggests, however, that temporary labor migration ultimately will engender a flow of immigration substantially in excess of the number of temporary visas originally allocated. In this paper, we outline a theoretical rationale to explain this observation and test it using microdata gathered from former participants in the Bracero Program, a US-sponsored temporary worker program that ran from 1942 to 1964. Our results indicate that bracero migrants were very likely to make repeated trips, both with and without legal documents; that they were quite likely to introduce their sons and daughters into migratory careers; and that they were eventually likely to settle in the United States in substantial numbers, We argue that, in the long run, there is no such thing as a temporary worker program.

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Section: Guestworker Programs In Theory and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

The long-term consequences of a temporary worker program: The US Bracero experience

Massey

Liang

1989

Popul Res Policy Rev

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“…The more someone migrates, the more he or she is likely to continue migrating and the longer he or she will stay abroad, yielding a self-sustaining process of human capital accumulation that produces more trips of longer duration. The operation of such feedback loops explains why migrants recruited under various ''guestworker'' schemes invariably come to overstay their welcome (11).…”

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confidence: 99%

The dynamics of mass migration

Massey¹,

Zenteno²

1999

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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142

127

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We specify a set of equations defining a dynamic model of international migration and estimate its parameters by using data specially collected in Mexico. We then used it to project the a hypothetical Mexican community population forward in time. Beginning with a stable population of 10,000 people, we project ahead 50 years under three different assumptions: no international migration; constant probabilities of in-and out-migration, and dynamic schedules of out-and in-migration that change as migratory experience accumulates. This exercise represents an attempt to model the self-feeding character of international migration noted by prior observers and theorists. Our model quantifies the mechanisms of cumulative causation predicted by social capital theory and illustrates the shortcomings of standard projection methodologies. The failure to model dynamically changing migration schedules yields a 5% overstatement of the projected size of the Mexican population after 50 years, an 11% understatement of the total number of U.S. migrants, a 15% understatement of the prevalence of U.S. migratory experience in the Mexican population, and an 85% understatement of the size of the Mexican population living in the United States.

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“…An analysis of guestworker programs has shown that they falsely assumed that foreign worker immigration would be temporary, despite increasing evidence to the contrary (Reichert and Massey, 1982). Current foreign worker policy has moved away from the idea of a rotating labor force to a dual strategymon the one hand, measures designed to encourage immigrants to return home, and, on the other, measures designed to increase the legal, social, and economic integration of foreign laborers.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gastarbeiter in West Germany and Switzerland: an assessment of host society-immigrant relations

Schmid

1983

Popul Res Policy Rev

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West Germany and Switzerland have in general pursued similar immigration policies with respect to alien labor. In spite of a convergence in official policy and a change from temporary migration to settlement in both countries, immigrant groups in West Germany and Switzerland have displayed different attitudes and rates of integration within the host societies. Even when narrowing our discussion to one national group, the Italians, we find substantial differences persist. These cannot be attributed to the percentage of unskilled workers from Italy, intention to stay, the general social climate of the host societies, or even to political institutions such as trade unions. Rather, the higher integration and assimilation of Italians in Switzerland than in Germany appears to be related to structural and demographic factors. Unless policy-makers are aware of the importance of these factors, it is unlikely that they can adequately respond to the complexity and diversity of the problems generated by foreign workers.

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Guestworker programs: Evidence from Europe and the United States and some implications for U.S. policy

Cited by 32 publications

References 13 publications

The long-term consequences of a temporary worker program: The US Bracero experience

The long-term consequences of a temporary worker program: The US Bracero experience

The dynamics of mass migration

Gastarbeiter in West Germany and Switzerland: an assessment of host society-immigrant relations

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