Trends in African Migration to Europe: Drivers Beyond Economic Motivations

Abstract

The current migration and refugee crisis in Europe requires an understanding of the different migration drivers beyond the well-known economic determinants. In this article, we view migration from a broader human security perspective and analyze the determinants of regular and asylum seeker migration flows from Africa to Europe for the period 1990 to 2014. Our results show that, in addition to economic determinants, a combination of push and pull factors influences migration decisions of individuals. In particular, rising political persecution, human rights violations, ethnic tensions, political instability, and civil conflicts in African source countries are all significantly associated with increased migration flows into European destination countries. Therefore, our results underscore the need for the European Union and European countries to collaborate with the source countries, not only in terms of supporting economic development in the source countries but also in promoting human security: human rights, democracy, peace, and social stability.

The impact of economic hardships on the intent to migrate: Micro‐level evidence from Venezuela

“…The role that environmental shocks, such as storms, cyclones and typhoons, have on emigration have been well documented (Gröger & Zylberberg, 2016;Hanson & Spilimbergo, 1999;Orrenius & Zavodny, 2005). The same can be said for the effect of political violence on migration thanks to, for example studies using data from El Salvador, Guatemala and Syria (Giménez-Gómez et al, 2019;Morrison & May, 1994;Stanley, 1987). However, despite their prevalence, the effect of large economic crises on migration decisions remains under-researched.…”

Migración internacional del pobre: construcción de violencias bidireccionales

“…De hecho, hay consenso político y de cierta forma académico alrededor de la primacía de la motivación económica como principal detonador de la migración en sentido Sur-Norte global (Giménez-Gómez et al, 2017). La migración irregular por motivos económicos a su vez conlleva una mayor tolerancia a poner la vida en riesgo con tal de lograr salir del país de origen y lograr la meta laboral deseada (Cummings, Pacitto, Lauro & Foresti, 2015).…”

Urbanization and International Migration From Africa

“…Following the proposal by Alesina et al (2003), the indexes of fractionalization of population in a countrytypically, we refer to ethnic, language and religious fractionalizationare viewed as important characteristics of the country also in its relationships with the other countries. For instance, Giménez-Gómez et al (2017) show that ethnic fractionalization has a positive impact on migration flows from Africa to Europe for the period 1990-2014. In turn, Shilpi et al (2014) find that language fractionalization and religious fractionalization are also important determinants of migration in Nepal.…”