Seasonal trends in fertility are found in several contexts and are affected by societal and environmental factors. This paper documents how birth seasonality in East and West Germany changed over time and, in particular, after 1989 and the onset of Reunification. We use birth counts by month from the Human Fertility Database, broken down into East and West Germany, from 1946 to 2017. We observe similar birth seasonality in East and West Germany in the years from 1946 to the 1970s, with an initial peak occurring in the first months of the year followed by a second peak in September. In the 1970s, West Germany starts to diverge, with the emergence of a single peak in births in late summer. Shortly after Reunification, the seasonal fertility trends found in West Germany are mirrored in East Germany. Consequently, it appears that the socioeconomic, cultural and institutional differences in the two areas have potentially influenced the intra-annual distribution of births, as well as the timing and number of children as described in previous studies.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract As images of international mobility circulate quickly and widely through digital and social media, they form a fundamental part of the discursive formations around border policies and material migration practices. Through a multi-modal visual analysis of the Twitter images accompanying the post of the four major migration institutions in the EU and Canada, this article explores in a comparative perspective how their visual narratives interact with the broader migration narrative across the two contexts. The study findings show that EUAA, FRONTEX, CBSA, and IRCC participate in the border spectacle as leading actors, and their visual communication while allows them to reinforce some of their respective migration governance key messages and display their multiple organizational identities at the same time enables the concealment of some of the critical themes of the EU and Canada migration governance.
Abstract Against the background of remarkable policy liberalization and the subsequent steep increase of forced displacement in Latin America, the literature on immigration and refugee policy in the region has gained momentum. Although largely overlooked, this literature has the potential to provide a corrective to political migration theory from the Global South. In this article we carry out a systematic, critical review of the regional literature along three thematic axes: legal analyses, normative and explanatory studies. Based on the review of 108 journal articles, we describe the characteristics, main contributions and research gaps of each thematic area. By analyzing legal norms and policy implementation gaps, existing studies on Latin America provide an understanding of migration policy over time and offer important empirical evidence for the advancement of political migration theory, challenging some of the main assumptions attributed to policies in the Global South. However, the lack of engagement with the broader literature and the absence of systematic analyses of its determinants and effects significantly limit the potential of this body of work. We close by making concrete suggestions of how future studies could fill existing gaps both in theoretical and empirical terms, and which methodological approach should be employed.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeast Türkiye near the Syrian border on 06 February 2023 at 4:17am local time, with its epicentre near Nurdağı and Gaziantep in Gaziantep Province. [1] A second earthquake of 7.7 magnitude subsequently struck the same region 100 km to the north of the first epicentre later the same day. [2] Over 11,000 aftershocks have since been recorded in the region, and over 191,800 buildings (around 13.8% of those assessed) have collapsed, been heavily damaged, or been otherwise rendered inhabitable and in urgent need of demolition. [3] Tragically, over 1,400 deaths have been reported in the Government-controlled areas of Syria (a substantially larger number is predicted to have been sustained in territories controlled by other actors), [2] and over 45,000 deaths and 115,000 injuries have been reported in Türkiye. [3] An estimated 9.1 million people have been directly affected by the earthquakes, including 3.2–3.8 million who have been displaced due to the resulting loss of suitable shelter, disruption to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities, and deficiencies in food security, along with interruptions to the provision of health services, education and livelihoods. [3] In the context of Türkiye, although 42,000 Syrian refugees have re-entered Syria, [3] the majority of displaced individuals remain within Türkiye as internally-displaced people (IDP). While 1.0–1.3 million have left their original province by their own means, and a further 617,600 IDP now shelter across Türkiye as government-coordinated evacuees, 1.6 million IDP are displaced within their original province and temporarily reside in government-coordinated displacement sites (constituting tent/container cities and emergency shelters in public buildings), informal/makeshift settlements, or private solutions. [3] Some 484 government-coordinated tent/container cities, which collectively house 1.4 million IDP, have been established across 11 affected provinces, while 85,000 IDP reside in government-coordinated community shelters such as universities and dormitories. [3] Substantial attention has rightly been focused on the living conditions within these temporary settlements which, in addition to the stresses exerted by the natural disaster, pose substantial challenges to the physical and mental health, [4] protection and wellbeing of those they contain, [5] particularly children and adolescents. [6] Overcrowded tents, containers and community shelters located within densely populated displacement sites, and inadequate provision of suitable WASH facilities, increase the likelihood of communicable disease outbreaks, [7] while accessible health facilities are often suboptimal, [3] and the need for safe spaces, such as gender-segregated facilities designed to minimise child protection and gender-based violence risks, has been frequently identified. [3] However, the formal concentration of IDP into such centralised sites enables the mass provision of urgently needed shelter, food security and heating fuel for hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals, and serves to protect them from the immediate consequences of the disaster, including exposure to severe winter weather conditions. The vast majority of formal displacement sites have been established within urban areas, due to their proximity to and accessibility for large populations of affected people. In contrast, the sparsely populated rural and remote areas of affected provinces, coupled with the precarious and earthquake-damaged transport infrastructure that supplies them, has allowed the construction of very few formal displacement sites within these areas. Concurrently, those residing in the country’s rural and remote areas experience both the highest rates of poverty (estimated to be around 34.6%) [8] and the poorest health outcomes (increasingly those due to non-communicable diseases) [9] across Türkiye. Accordingly, many such people who have been affected by the earthquakes lack the means to relocate to formal displacement sites, and are often unwilling to abandon their damaged property. [3] Consequently, they are denied access to the vital provisions that are exclusively distributed at these centralised points. As such, it is those individuals who reside in rural and remote areas of provinces affected by the earthquakes – particularly those who have been unable to relocate to formal displacement sites in urbanised settlements – that bear the greatest burden of disease and associated health needs, rather than those who inhabit such sites. Paradoxically, it is this same group to which the provision of shelter, food security and healthcare is most challenging and least accessible, thereby creating a variant of the inverse care law in the context of natural disaster. [10] The tragic unfairness of this situation should be considered utterly reprehensible by the public health, humanitarian, and clinical healthcare communities worldwide. The steepness of the existing social gradient in Türkiye, and its powerful influence on fundamental health outcomes, has been markedly steepened by the effects of the earthquakes. Accordingly, urgent, coordinated, multiagency action is required to secure the delivery of essential humanitarian components – including high quality health care – to the people of Türkiye who need it most.
Abstract Since the early years of independence, Africa has witnessed varying degrees of migration-regular and irregular. Scholarships in African regional studies have mainly attributed this phenomenon to factors such as high poverty levels, rising unemployment, and the deplorable economies of most African countries, Nigeria inclusive. However, the post-Covid-19 trend of out-migration of Nigerians to the UK, known as japa to the United Kingdom (UK) and other parts of the world, is concerning with multifaced implications. The study investigates the endogamous and exogamous variables responsible for this Japa syndrome in Nigeria. It contends that beyond the unfavourable economic climate and the lingering security issues among other internal vices in Nigeria, the current trend of out-migration bears a connection with the neo-liberal structure of the UK and the emerging global trend. The study argues further that the mad rush out-migration portends hydra-headed implications for the two countries and Africa at large. The study adopts a qualitative research design, including the utilisation of primary and secondary data. It draws primary data through pre-set standard e-interviews with thirty-six (36) Nigerian University students from seventeen (17) universities in the UK. The thematic analytic framework is applied to this data, with the product being an essay defined by seven sections.
This article assesses the situation of forced migrants from Ukraine in European countries. I use data from the Statistical Bureaux and sociological institutions of Ukraine and recipient countries and from international organisations. Semi-structured interviews with experts were conducted in order to expand the information base of the research and obtain more substantiated analytical results and the trends of forced migration from Ukraine since 24 February 2022 were investigated. An attempt was made to explain the difference between the data from various sources regarding the migration of Ukrainians caused by the Russian war against Ukraine. The hierarchy of problems of forced migrants from Ukraine is determined on the base of in-depth interviews of experts. An attempt was made to estimate the impact of the forced migration of Ukrainians on local markets of goods and services. The recommendations for minimising the irreversible migration losses of the population of Ukraine are developed.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract This article investigates recently imposed restrictions in the asylum regimes in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The purpose of the paper is twofold. First, we aim to identify general changes in asylum policies and asylum legislation. Second, we discuss and compare the policy tools, practices and legislation that have undermined the rights of unaccompanied Afghan minors. We also observe new tools of internal and external deterrence and restrictive asylum policies, combined with tighter border controls. In the case of adult asylum seekers from Afghanistan, high rejection rates and deportations were used for years as an important tool of deterrence. However, these tools were seldom used against unaccompanied Afghan minors before the large influx of asylum seekers in 2015. Since 2015, increased use of rejections, combined with temporary protections, have emerged as the major tools for restriction. We identify similarities and differences in the policy restrictions targeting unaccompanied minors between the countries. Although we identify some recent diverging trends in Scandinavian asylum policies regarding unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan, the general trend of policy restrictions still prevails in all three countries.
Abstract This article examines the integration of migrants in Luxembourg within the framework of small state theory. Within the comparative scholarship on migration, small states are often presented as “success stories.” This research questions this assumption and empirical data presented here indicates that many contradictions exist within Luxembourg’s migrant integration model. The country’s “success” in fact does not reflect the levels of integration of migrants nationally as significant inequalities are present in Luxembourg. However, the analysis of Luxembourg presented here illustrates how small states have coherently embraced many paradoxes that are inherent to integration strategies throughout Europe with the goal of promoting peaceful coexistence.
Abstract The Mediterranean is paradoxically, rarely considered a category of analysis in most Mediterranean migration research. If it were to be taken as a geographical, regional and geo-political area, it could provide migration studies a particular framework of comparison, a much needed structure for the dispersed research currently being carried out. After drawing the main contours of “Mediterranean thinking” in migration studies and defending a postcolonial account against Eurocentric views, I review the main theoretical frameworks for formulating such criticisms. Additionally, I propose how in the coming years we may be able to further develop this Med-Thinking in migration studies. A base from which a Mediterranean migration research agenda could be built with “multiple voices” contributing to Mediterranean regional building. Finally, I place this excursus as main background of the different contributions of this Special Issue.
Abstract This article focuses on the interest and ability to acquire destination country nationality among non-EU-born adults in six European countries. While a sizeable literature has emerged on nationality policies and acquisition rates among immigrants, the ways that policies affect the acquisition process are less well understood. A key question is how laws and procedures affect the interest of immigrants to acquire nationality and their ability to do so in practice. This article argues that both immigrants’ interest and ability to acquire nationality are largely driven by their context, but in very different ways, depending on their individual, origin and destination country characteristics. The analysis finds that interest to acquire nationality is particularly affected by origin country dual nationality laws and destination country nationality procedures, while destination country nationality laws and procedures are the major determinant of immigrants’ ability to acquire nationality. These findings give citizenship policymakers reason to reflect on the potential impact of their laws and procedures on ability and interest, particularly given the fact that promotional measures and targeted integration support are generally weak across Europe.
The collection of papers in this section aims to overcome the territorial bias that shapes democratic thinking and underpins diaspora scholarship (particularly diaspora engagement with democratic processes and its potential and contribution to democratic change) and to propose a deterritorial vision of both these elements. Having the Ukrainian case study at its centre, this section asks how the modern perspective of dispersal offers a useful way to conceptualise diaspora, while examining how the modern diaspora activity enables diasporas to influence the processes of democratisation and high skilled migrants to impact democratic processes in their homeland. In this section we seek to probe how various actors and groups, located across territorial space, can affect political systems and, more specifically, influence democratic processes. In that sense, this section is driven by a post-territorial vision of politics and democratisation processes that privilege networks of affiliation and organising, rather than geographically-bound political movements. It focuses on the nexus between one form of displacement, diaspora, and a particular political system, democracy, to provide insights into how the former might impact democratic processes. Specifically, this section explores that nexus principally in relation to the role of the multifaceted Ukrainian diaspora and their efforts to get involved in the democratic processes and democracy building in contemporary Ukraine.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Abstract After repeated failed attempts to reform its dysfunctional internal architecture, the external dimension has become the real cornerstone of the EU’s migration strategy, with the Mediterranean as its main geographical priority. In spite of routine rhetorical references to its cooperative and partnership-based nature, the EU external migration policy-making remains essentially unilateral and top-down. Civil societies of sending and transit countries, in particular, tend to be excluded; however, better understanding the policy frames and priorities of “partner” countries’ stakeholders vis-à-vis EU migration policies represents a crucial task. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out in the context of the MEDRESET project, this article contributes to fill this gap by focusing on the case of Tunisia. In a context of much lower salience and politicisation compared to the European context, Tunisian civil society actors are critical about the EU’s security-based framing of migration and mobility. However, rather than displaying a radically antagonistic stance, the most influential Tunisian civil society stakeholders show an overall collaborative attitude towards the EU. This may represent a strategic resource for the EU to promote a more participatory governance of migration, which may lead to more balanced, effective and mutually beneficial migration policies in the Mediterranean region.
Abstract Studies demonstrate that both group status and geographic location influence media coverage of immigrants, ethnic groups, and marginalized communities. We examine a systematic sample of headlines about Muslims and Jews from The New York Times and The Guardian between 1985 and 2014 to understand these two factors. We find that headlines about Jews have a more positive tone than those about Muslims, and that headlines about each group situated within the newspaper’s country—such as American Jews or British Muslims—have a more positive tone than those set in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region—such as MENA Jews or MENA Muslims. These findings provide independent confirmation of prevailing research on group status and on the differences between coverage of domestic and foreign events. We expand this research agenda by intersecting these two strands of scholarship to examine the interaction between group status and geographic location, comparing the tone of headlines about lower-status domestic groups—such as Muslims in the United States or Great Britain—to that of the higher-status foreign group of Jews in the MENA region. We find that there is no meaningful difference between the portrayal of American Muslims and MENA Jews in The New York Times, but that Guardian headlines are significantly more positive toward British Muslims compared to MENA Jews. We explore these cross-national differences to show how the relationship between group status and geography is context specific.
The use of welfare support by EU migrants has dominated media coverage and political debates about EU migration in the UK for several years, regularly featuring claims about the negative effects of the presence of EU migrants on the UK social security system. Such claims became particularly prominent in 2013–2015, during the UK government’s campaign to limit EU migrants’ access to UK welfare benefits and in debates prior to the Brexit referendum. This article sheds light on how Polish migrants position themselves concerning the claiming of welfare benefits in the UK and how this affects their welfare strategies. The article is based on 14 qualitative interviews conducted in Liverpool 18 months after the Brexit referendum. Using stigma and benefits stigma as an overall theoretical framework, we find that the informants, in their positioning narratives, 1) put forward similar stigmatising expressions and stereotypes regarding the use of welfare as those featured by politicians and the media, which points to perceived abuse; 2) make a distinction between in-work and out-of-work benefits, the first being more acceptable than the second; 3) prefer living on savings or accepting ‘any job’ over making use of out-of-work benefits, which points to an underuse and/or to possible processes of marginalisation; and 4), a tendency among those who have experience with claiming out-of-work benefits to question the discourses of welfare abuse. Finally, ‘working’ and ‘contributing’ to the system as opposed to relying on welfare support is perceived as a precondition to staying in the UK after Brexit – welfare and work are seen to signal very high stakes indeed.
Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
James Seniela, J. A. Babarinde, Suman Steven Holis
This paper investigates the impact of cultural lineage (wantokism) in Papua New Guinea on public housing affordability and sustainability in the country, using the two largest cities of Port Moresby and Lae as case studies in a country that has maintained strong cultural bonds of families, clans and tribes for centuries to support each other in the Melanesian way. In principle, public housing units are subsidised by government and other public institutions to cushion the harsh effects of inflation and property market externalities on low- and middle-income civil servants who can hardly afford market rentals. However, other factors such as cultural lineage (wantokism) tend to wipe off the intended benefits of the so-called subsidy. A study of eight (four from each city) randomly selected public housing areas in the two cities of Port Moresby and Lae was carried out in 2016witha representative, stratified random sample of 157 sitting tenants. The stratification of the population was based on low, medium and high income groups using the country’s public servants’ performance salary scale 2012-2013, which is a secondary database. Data collection instruments were structured questionnaires, formal and informal interviews combined with simultaneous field observations through transact walk. Based on a theoretical framework gleaned from the General Systems Theory, findings indicate that the “cultural lineage” of the indigenous people of PNG has a significant negative impact on public housing affordability exacerbated by adverse economic factors including low income and low housing allowances paid to public housing tenants by public employers, including the government. The study also reveals that cultural lineage has a significant negative impact on the aggregate income of households due to extended family size, high incidence of family members who are not gainfully employed, high dependency rate in the extended families with expected responsibilities as guardians, marital status of many tenants with many children who attend schools, and the low educational qualifications of some tenants with daunting commitments to the lineage group. The paper makes strategic recommendations including speedy codification of PNG customs, mass empowerment, and improved economic emancipation of the general public for purposes of raising housing affordability levels in PNG in general and in the two cities of Port Moresby and Lae in particular.