Abstract Grounded in the theory of active aging and considering the dual attributes of mobility and aging, this study systematically assessed the levels of active aging among older urban migrants and uncovered patterns of subgroup heterogeneity within this population. A cross-sectional comparative research design with quantitative methods was employed. Data were collected through a field survey conducted across four cities and 14 urban districts in within Zhejiang Province. A multidimensional evaluation framework was developed, encompassing six dimensions, including individual factors, health-related behaviors, economic conditions, social environments, physical environments, and health and social services. The findings revealed that the overall level of active aging among older urban migrants remained relatively low, with significant deficiencies across core dimensions such as volunteering participation, property ownership, healthcare utilization, and medical insurance accessibility. Moreover, substantial internal heterogeneity was observed, shaped by variations in migration motivation, geographical scale, and length of residence. Quality-of-life-oriented migrants demonstrated higher levels of active aging compared with family-support and economically-driven migrants, while inter-provincial migrants and short-term residents faced greater barriers to accessing health services, social participation, and urban integration. These findings underscore the need to shift public service delivery from a household registration-based model to a residency-oriented approach. Targeted interventions are needed to enhance social inclusion, institutional adaptation, and individual empowerment among older urban migrants. Furthermore, stronger policy coordination and localized support mechanisms are essential for optimizing active aging within urban contexts shaped by migration.
Abstract This paper critically examines Germany’s 2024 citizenship reform, designed to promote integration and pluralism through legal and societal transformations. We argue that the prevailing migration discourse in Germany reinforces a one-dimensional political framework, reducing migrants to single-issue subjects—either threats or victims, economic assets or social burdens. This approach to migration falls short of capturing Germany’s evolving socio-political landscape and its changing actors, including queer, feminist, and anti-racist migrant initiatives and cross-generational and multi-ethnic migrant organizations. Adopting an intersectional and postmigrant framework, we explore the dual narrative of increasing structural integration and simultaneously decreasing affective belonging. Here, we are interested in exploring the overlapping contexts of migration and racism in Germany with a perspective that accounts for the experiences of noncitizen migrants, citizen migrants, and nonmigrant racialized citizens. We center our work on the figure of the migrant, not to oversimplify the legal, social, and categorical complexities of this term, but rather to address the social and political conditions of exclusion and marginalization that intersect with race, belonging, and access to rights in Germany. This approach calls for a shift in policy discourse, one that recognizes the intricate interplay of factors shaping migration debates and embraces a postmigrant perspective, viewing migration as a dynamic, multilinear process that drives broader societal transformation.
Tobias Klöpf, Chiara Scheven, Patricia Vorhold
et al.
Abstract In West Africa, migration is, in various forms, an integral part of people’s everyday lives. Though most migration takes place within the region, the academic focus is laid on intercontinental migration. Today, a growing body of literature takes intra-regional mobility and migration in West Africa into account. However, a systematic review of publications, which provides an overview of focal points and conjunctures of subject areas, has not yet been conducted. By analysing publications that focus on migration within West Africa, this study seeks to fill this gap. Simultaneously, we apply a critical lens drawn from reflexive migration studies, which allows us to shed light on postcolonial structures and international hegemonies reflected in the research on migration in West Africa. Data was collected on March 3, 2022, using Scopus. Included were 656 articles in English, French and German language listed in the database. The analysis shows that while research mainly concentrates on single countries (Ghana and Nigeria), the thematic focus is predominantly on economic (work) and social issues (social relations and family), with a recent increase on environmental topics (climate change). We further identified a disproportionate focus on the outcomes rather than drivers of migration with an emphasis on urban areas, which acknowledges previous findings on an ‘urban trap’ in research. By applying the concept of translocality to data, this study seeks to challenge the rural-urban dichotomy in the field. Additionally, the study addresses a critical gap in migration studies by focusing on underexplored themes like gender and youth migration. While male adult migrants appear as the norm, women and young people are underrepresented. In line with the claim of reflexive migration studies to establish increased (self-)reflection in the field on how knowledge is generated and discussed, we took a closer look at the affiliations of research. Results show a dominant share of affiliations with institutions based in the US and European countries (former colonizers of West African states) and not in West Africa itself. The discussion of these findings provides a fruitful vantage point for drawing attention to the Global North dominance in research. It highlights the importance of a shift towards decolonised knowledge production in order to reduce the hegemonic power imbalances in the field.
Abstract Resettlement is a safe pathway to the Global North, but only few refugees in the Global South receive it. This article argues that beyond being a highly selective durable solution, resettlement can also operate as a temporal border intended to delay migration by making elusive promises of a better future to transiting refugees if they abandoned migration and waited for resettlement. This was the case in the major transit country Niger where resettlement was established in 2017 as a part of UNHCR’s Mixed Migration policy to contain EU-bound migration. Based on an ethnography in Niger in 2018–2019, the article identifies three modes of future-making by refugees and officials in response to these resettlement promises: risk assessment, temporal reordering, and experimentation. In acts of risk assessment, refugees weighed the risks associated with waiting for resettlement and its alternatives against each other. In the asylum procedures, state officials foregrounded refugees’ resettlement hopes over their past persecution and present protection risks. This temporal reordering could lead to rejecting their asylum applications. In acts of experimentation, refugees developed alternative futures when their resettlement eschewed. By developing resettlement promises as a temporal border, the article highlights the role of promises and future-making for migrant containment and its subversion.
Gender Revolution Theory offers a compelling hypothesis about the role of gender equality in contemporary fertility dynamics, suggesting that a more egalitarian division of paid and unpaid labour among couples will enhance childbearing. However, the empirical evidence supporting is weak. This study focuses on the division of labour and asks if couples in which the woman works full-time while also doing most of the housework have lower fertility intentions and parity progression. The study is set in Estonia, which experienced an early transition to full-time female employment, but also a prolonged period with a lack of egalitarianism in household work during the state socialist regime and afterwards. We use two family and fertility surveys conducted in the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, both with a register follow-up. Applying ordinal and logistic regression models, we analyse both fertility intentions at the time of and actual childbearing in the five years following the surveys. We find that neither the fertility intentions nor the fertility behaviour of full-time employed women is higher in couples with a more equal division of housework, compared with couples in which the woman does most of the housework This finding applies regardless of parity. The conclusions are robust to a number of sensitivity analyses. The results call into question the relevance of division of labour as a factor in explaining socialist and post-socialist fertility behaviour.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Merve Zayim-Kurtay, Sevgi Kaya-Kasikci, Yasar Kondakci
et al.
Abstract The share of internationally mobile students has risen exponentially for the last two decades until the disruptive COVID-19 period, leading to a more diverse and multipolar network structure. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused restrictions across the globe. This systematic review aims to explore how COVID-19 has affected the magnitude, flows, and direction of internationally mobile students. A total of 57 studies, retrieved from several databases after extensive search, were analyzed regarding the dimensions of size, flow, direction, and pattern in international student mobility during the pandemic. The review suggests that following the pandemic, international student mobility was still dominated by the top-tier countries due to their swift actions and incremental policies, while some other countries gained visibility for international students and attracted more international students owing to students’ safety concerns and revised international student policies of the countries. Further, students’ study abroad decisions from source countries seemed to be shaped by the policies and regulations implemented during the pandemic, the political environment of the destination country, and personal concerns about safety and getting the most out of the study abroad experience. These factors reshaped the directional flow of international student mobility and study modality, particularly concerning regionalization and digital transformation for higher education institutions.
How is the well-being of returnees when considered from the point of view of the migration experience abroad? To answer this question, the first hypothesis considers that returnees differ in the function of the key activity they had abroad – working, studying or living there without working or studying. Secondly, even if one maintains constant socio-demographic profiles, the country of return counts. Thirdly, it depends also on the facet of subjective well-being (SWB) that is considered – the happiness of living in a certain country of the European Union or a person’s satisfaction with life, country, public services or income. The results of the multivariate analysis indicate that experience of migration, country of current residence and facets of SWB all count. Returnees – through their experience of migration abroad – are compared to non-migrants. The answers come from analysing data from a large Eurobarometer survey in the European Union. Multivariate regression and cluster analysis are the main data-processing procedures. The stability of the results is tested by sensitivity analysis.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract This paper examines how forced migrants integrate individual perception, interpersonal exchange, and extended networks to navigate the naturalization process. By bringing together these three methods of knowledge creation and exchange, we aim to clarify how these strategies interact and overlap to manage uncertainties stemming from naturalization bureaucracy, a complex and often opaque process. Drawing on personal accounts of 30 Syrians in Berlin and analysis of approximately 100 social media posts, our findings illustrate that these methods could be employed concurrently or interchangeably and on the whole in a symbiotic manner, offering migrants multiple pathways to acquire and (in)validate crucial information. Although this synthesis of knowledge production methods is not necessarily conducive to accessing the right in question, in our case naturalization, it becomes necessary to arrive at “informed” decision-making in uncertain environments characterized by low level of trust and asymmetrical power relations. The paper therefore contributes to broader discussions on migrants’ navigation of legal systems and coping mechanisms in the face of bureaucratic hurdles.
Olga E. Akimova, Sergei K. Volkov, Evgeni G. Efimov
The shrinking of cities has become a mass phenomenon, both in foreign countries and in Russia, since the end of the twentieth century. Until now, the question of why some old-industrial cities succeed in the modern global network of comparative advantages and specializations, while others fail and face population decline, seems to be of no small importance. The article attempts to fill the existing gap in the study of the reasons forcing residents of shrinking cities to stay in them. They were defined as “reasons for sedentarism”, which the authors propose to consider as circumstances that keep residents from moving to another city/region/ country in the presence of stable migration intentions. In order to identify the causes of sedentarism, the authors conducted a survey of students of educational institutions in the city of Volgograd and its region using an online questionnaire created on the Google Forms platform. The study used a non-random sample (the “snowball” method). The present study confirms the primacy of the economic causes of sedentarism in shrinking cities and the need to implement an adequate and systematic economic policy that promotes the innovative development of territories. The analysis of the answers shows that the second most important reasons, following material ones, that keep students of shrinking cities from changing their place of residence, are socio-psychological: the desire to preserve social ties (family, friends, relatives) and the fear of changing the situation.
Jhoni Warmansyah, Faiha Azizah, Restu Yuningsih
et al.
The formation of numerical concepts is a critical stage in early childhood development. Understandingnumbers lays the groundwork for future mathematical abilities and academic success. This study aimsto investigate the effect of an open-ended learning strategy on the capacity of 4-5-year-old childrento recognize number concepts. To reach the research goal, a quantitative approach was used, alongwith experimental methodologies. The study participants were children aged 4-5 years old, and datawas collected via total sampling. The experimental group was taught using an open-ended learningtechnique, while the control group followed a traditional structured teaching method. Pre-and post-testswere used to examine the children’s ability to recognize number concepts. Statistical analysis, includingt-tests, was used to compare the performance of the experimental and control groups. The results of thisstudy show that using an open-ended learning strategy improves the capacity of 4-5-year-old children torecognize number concepts. In comparison to traditional structured teaching method, the open-endedapproach stimulates active inquiry, independent thinking, and problem-solving, which improves children’scognitive development with regard to numerical concepts. This study suggests that open-ended learningtechniques are excellent educational strategies for developing number concept identification in youngchildren. This study’s findings have ramifications for early childhood educators and curriculum makers.This study stresses the necessity of implementing such tactics in educational settings by demonstratingthe benefits of an open-ended learning strategy in developing number concept awareness. Open-endedlearning techniques can improve children’s mathematics ability while also contributing to their generalcognitive development. Furthermore, these findings may motivate additional study and inquiry into theuse of open-ended learning approaches in various domains of early childhood education, increasing ourunderstanding of successful teaching strategies for young children.
Education, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Migrant integration remains a continuous challenge in many EU countries, as shown by the retreat from multiculturalism and the concerns regarding Muslim migrants. In recent years, the increase in asylum-seekers has added further complexities to the issue. Meanwhile, volunteering is considered to be an important aspect of today’s society and a thermometer of civic well-being. Bringing together the field of migration studies and research on volunteering, we investigate whether volunteering would foster processes of integration and intercultural relations. We do so by presenting an innovative empirical study based on interviews and self-administered questionnaires conducted at two points in time over a period of about a year in a specific setting that brought together EU and third-country nationals in volunteering activities in six European contexts. Thus, we are able to provide an in-depth account of volunteering experiences and their effects on intercultural relations and processes of integration. The research highlights how volunteering fosters social interactions, intersecting with dynamics of inclusion. It is a valuable tool that strengthens the community as well as the process of social integration, helping to overcome the tensions and conflicts that persist in European societies. At the same time, we argue that volunteering cannot make up for all integration challenges since the process of societal integration requires a more comprehensive approach which includes tackling discrimination in structural integration.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
A decade into the Syrian war, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita worldwide, limiting their work to three sectors of the economy. Most of the employed refugees have therefore been active in the informal market under indecent and insecure working conditions. One solution currently being promoted by humanitarian and development organisations and the private sector is that digital work in web-based labour markets can provide an alternative that circumvents these local restrictions, offering refugees a way to make a livelihood online. This field report contests this assumption, based on analysis of the impact and experience of a digital skills training programme that reached some 3000 beneficiaries by 2021. The report critically examines how a context of regulatory restriction and economic crisis in Lebanon undermines the feasibility of digital refugee livelihoods, thereby offering a critique of the idea that web-based income opportunities transcend local markets, policies and regulations. Due to discriminatory policies, ICT-related exclusion, and financial exclusion, the programme’s objective shifted from online work to local work. Ironically, most of those graduates who found work did so in the local informal labour market once more, having failed to secure any form of sustainable online income opportunity.
City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Xiaotian Dai, Gareth J. Williams, Senran Lin
et al.
Introduction The change in Chinese fertility policy brings new challenges and considerations for children’s health outcomes; however, very little is known about the interaction between siblings, family socioeconomic status (SES), and neurodevelopment in the Chinese preschool-age population. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a new explanatory pathway from sibling effect to early childhood development and explored the mediation effect of family SES in the pathway. Methods From April 2018 to December 2019, we conducted a national retrospective cohort study in 551 cities in China, and a total of 115,915 preschool-aged children were selected for the final analysis. Children’s neurodevelopment, including Communication, Gross motor, Fine motor, Problem-solving, and Personal-social, was assessed with the Ages & Stages Questionnaires, Third Edition (ASQ-3). Hypothesis tests and multilevel regression models were used to assess the associations and their strength between sibling effect and neurodevelopmental delay. Pathway analysis was used to verify the mediation effect of SES. Results The results showed that there were significant risk effects of a sibling on preschoolers’ overall neurodevelopment including communication, gross motor, fine motor, and problem-solving delay. The adjustment of family SES, however, brought a reversal of this association. The results of the mediation model illustrated a direct, protective effect of one-sibling status (βASQ-delay = −0.09; βASQ-scores = 0.07; p < 0.001), and an indirect, risk effect from one-sibling status through family SES to neurodevelopment outcomes (βASQ-delay =0.12; βASQ-scores = −0.12; p < 0.001). The total sibling effect was weakened but remained negative (βASQ-delay =0.03; βASQ-scores = −0.05; p < 0.001). Discussion This study concluded that family SES mediated the negative effects of one sibling on early child development. To enhance the positive influence of sibling addition, we suggested providing more resources and instructions to the families with less educated and poorer employed parents under the coming multi-child era.
Matthias Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge, Nico Stawarz, Nikola Sander
The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants’ sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract Recent decades have seen a trend toward enfranchising emigrated citizens in home country elections. Political parties have also become increasingly interested in connecting with emigrant voters. That said, we still know little of what voters think of the parties in the home country and how party preferences may change because of migration. On the one hand, research shows that the experience of migration and the context of the host country have a significant impact on the political behavior of migrants. On the other hand, party ties are known to be resistant to change. In this paper, we study how what is generally assumed to be the strongest of party ties, namely ties to an ethnic party, is affected by migration. Utilizing two highly comparable surveys of resident and non-resident citizens, we study how identifying with an ethnic minority party among Finland-Swedes in Finland, where they constitute a linguistic minority, compares with emigrated Finland-Swedes in Sweden, where they speak the majority language. We find that party ties, even with an ethnic party, tend to be weaker for emigrated citizens. However, the difference is relatively small and only materializes after an extended stay abroad.
A temper tantrum is an emotional disorder in children through excessive emotional outbursts such as shouting and crying and is characterized by aggressive body movements caused by parenting. Parenting patterns significantly impact the next child's growth and development. The purpose of the study was to determine how much influence parenting styles have on temper tantrum behavior in children aged 3-7 years. The research was conducted in Garon Village, Kawedanan District, Magetan Regency. The research method uses a descriptive quantitative approach. The number of samples in this study was 40 parents who have children aged 3-7 years. The sampling technique used was a simple random sampling technique. They are collecting data in the study using a questionnaire. The data analysis technique used is multiple linear regression analysis with SPSS. The results showed that authoritarian parenting significantly influences physical, aggressive tantrum behavior in children with a t-count = 1.906, greater than the t table = 1.689. Second, democratic parenting substantially influences children's physical, aggressive tantrum behavior with a t-value = 1.743, which is greater than the t-table value = 1.689. Third, permissive parenting substantially affects children's physical, aggressive tantrum behavior with at count = 3.067, which is greater than the t table = 1.689. Parenting applied by parents has a significant influence on children's behavior, so it is hoped that parents will pay more attention to the parenting used according to the child's development to avoid temper tantrums.
Education, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
This study investigates the political engagement of Vietnamese immigrants in Poland on social media. It employs the typology of online political participation as a theoretical framework to determine the pattern of online involvement in the political sphere staged by the migrant group. Through analysing materials relating to political discussions created daily on an online community of the Polish Vietnamese, collected by doing netnography, this study shows that the political activism on social media of Vietnamese immigrants in Poland exists and varies. Vietnamese-migrant users discuss homeland politics and express views about political issues in the host country as well as other countries by creating non-mobilising posts (Information and Diffusion), while being inclined to produce posts with calls for action (Instruction and Promotion) to criticise social injustice and mobilise equality. This study also found a growing critical attitude towards homeland politics among Vietnamese-origin individuals in the country. The findings have practical implications for associations and state actors in both the host and home countries to account for the evolvement of the migrant community.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Panel data has become the gold standard for causal assessments of complex human behaviour in quantitative social science. The objective of this review is to examine and discuss how panel data and related methods contribute to the identification of causal relationships in spatial mobility research. We illustrate this by providing a succinct overview of recent progress in spatial mobility research, drawing on panel data. The review outlines research from a number of scholarly disciplines that maps patterns, establishes determinants and assesses the impact of spatial mobility for a range of outcomes. Studies presented in this article are used to decipher complex interdependencies over the life course, scrutinise the selectivity of migrants, and shed light on the interplay between individual agency, social embeddedness and socio-structural contexts. The article concludes with a set of critical issues for future research.
* This article belongs to a special issue on "Identification of causal mechanisms in demographic research: The contribution of panel data".
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration