The New Economics of Labor Migration: Beware of Neoclassicals Bearing Gifts

Abreu, Alexandre

doi:10.1007/s12143-010-9077-2

Cited by 70 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 21 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The New Economic and Labour Migration (NELM) literature provides a basis for examining remittances and food security, as it presents the combined interplay of agency and structural factors in migration analysis (Abreu, 2012). The NELM theoretical approach departs from the historical-structural perspective that migration is an outcome of structural shifts in an economy (Wood, 1982) such as development of new sectors.…”

Section: The New Economic and Labour Migration Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Residential Remittances and Food Security in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Atuoye

Kuuire

Kangmennaang

et al. 2017

International Migration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, out migration from the Upper West Region to the southern belt of Ghana for farming has become commonplace. The natural question that has arisen is: what is the potential impact of remittances from this migration pattern on food security in the region? Using multivariate ordered logistic regression this study assesses the linkage between remittances and household food security (derived using the HFIAS) among urban and rural households (n=1,438) in the region. The findings show that urban remittance‐receiving households and rural remittance and non‐remittance receiving households were more likely (OR=2.44, p<0.05; OR=2.46, p<0.001; and OR=1.49, p<0.1, respectively) to report being more severely food‐insecure than urban non‐remittance receiving households. The findings demonstrate that household strategies such as migration and remittances on their own are not sufficient to ameliorate the precarious food insecurity situation of the region. The study calls for development of alternative livelihoods in the region.

show abstract

Section: The New Economic and Labour Migration Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Residential Remittances and Food Security in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Atuoye

Kuuire

Kangmennaang

et al. 2017

International Migration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Un‐ and under‐employment, insufficient social protection, poor working conditions and labour standards, seasonal employment, declining local livelihoods (increasingly also in relation to climate change) and chronic indebtedness all contribute to the need to pursue temporary labour migration as an alternative livelihood. This framework resonates with a resurgent strand of the migration‐development literature that inverts the causal assumption that migration leads to development, instead highlighting underdevelopment as a structural cause of temporary labour migration (Abreu, ; Delgado Wise, ; Phillips, ). Integral to this perspective is an emphasis on uneven development within sending countries, specifically the declining developmental accountability of the state under neoliberalism and the interrelated ‘outsourcing’ of development to private individuals through livelihood strategies such as temporary labour migration (Ferguson and McNally, ).…”

Section: Protracted Precaritymentioning

confidence: 77%

Migrant Precarity in Asia: ‘Networks of Labour Activism’ for a Rights‐based Governance of Migration

Piper¹,

Rosewarne²,

Withers³

2017

Development and Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article uses migrant precarity as a lens through which to analyse the issue of mobilization for migrants' rights by civil society. Such mobilization efforts are vital in light of the emergence of global migration governance, which tends to actively constrain considerations for migrants' human and labour rights. Asia's temporary migrants have been identified as a particularly precarious group of workers due to their specific position within the international division of labour, one that is defined by poorly-or unregulated work with insecure legal and residential status. Moreover, with local employment in countries of origin often characterized by informal employment, poor working conditions and unsustainable livelihoods, migrant workers are caught within a protracted precarity that spans life at home and abroad. Stronger normative and organizational links between global migration governance and migrant rights movements are needed to advance decent work agendas within countries of destination, as well as in countries of origin.

show abstract

“…For mainstream economists, such balance and harmony can only be attained through the usual assumption of the rational, utility maximising individual who can exit a non‐performing city through migration, as Charles Tiebout () argued or exit a depressed rural and peri‐urban location into flourishing cities as maintained in the Harris‐Todaro model (Harris and Todaro ). Either way, it is individualism or in its advanced new economics of labour form (see Abreu ), households that do the cost‐benefit analysis to migrate. According to mainstream economists, individuals can also vote out non‐performing politicians whose policies do not meet their taste.…”

Section: Reframing Urban Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Governance in Africa Today: Reframing, Experiences, and Lessons

Obeng‐Odoom¹

2016

Growth and Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Progress in analysing the instrumental view of governance as an engine for growth, poverty reduction, and inclusive development has been held back by the difficulty in framing governance. This essay seeks to address this problem by 1) reframing urban governance 2) evaluating its aims, processes, and outcomes, and 3) explaining those outcomes on the basis of which some lessons are teased out. Using examples from Africa and an institutional political economy approach (based on institutional economics, Marxist political economics, Georgist political economics, and Polanyian political economy), I show that, overall, while urban economies are growing; both urban poverty and inequality levels have risen substantially. Urban governance has paved the way for new forms of urban development that only benefit the few. Not only are there differences in how urban services and resources are experienced, accessed, and controlled but the varieties are also socially differentiated. I argue that the underlying reasons for this disjuncture between “urban governance” in theory and “actually existing urban governance” are 1) difficulties in implementing urban governance theory consistently in practice, 2) problems arising because urban governance theory has been implemented in practice, 3) tensions that would entangle most policies which do not address historical and structural economic issues, 4) restrictive assumptions, and 5) incoherence among the different dimensions of urban governance. To resolve these contradictions, I put the case for major structural and institutional change involving: 1) the re‐ordering of the roles of the state, market, and society as institutions of change; 2) re‐working the relationships that bind together land, labour, capital, and the state, and 3) re‐organising the channels for keeping the attainment of the ends of urban governance in check.

show abstract

The New Economics of Labor Migration: Beware of Neoclassicals Bearing Gifts

Cited by 70 publications

References 21 publications

Residential Remittances and Food Security in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Residential Remittances and Food Security in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Migrant Precarity in Asia: ‘Networks of Labour Activism’ for a Rights‐based Governance of Migration

Urban Governance in Africa Today: Reframing, Experiences, and Lessons

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About