The Social and Economic Origins of Immigration

Bibliographic Data

ID9765002
AuthorsD S Massey (0000-0002-0109-522X, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume510
Issue1
Pages60-72
Publication date1990-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0002716290510001005
OpenAlexW2086336794
LanguageEN
Citations received152
References cited30

Contemporary immigration patterns represent a sharp break from the past, when international movements were dominated by flows out of Europe to a few key destination areas. Europe has now become a region of immigration, and, like other developed regions, it draws migrants from a variety of Third World countries. The large-scale movement of immigrants from developing to developed regions has both economic and social foundations. Economically, immigration originates not from simple wage differentials between poor and rich countries but from the spread of economic development to rapidly growing Third World populations and from a persistent demand for low-wage workers in developed nations. Immigration has many social foundations, but the formation of migrant networks is probably the most important. Networks build into the migration process a self-perpetuating momentum that leads to its growth over time, in spite of fluctuating wage differentials, recessions, and increasingly restrictive immigration policies in developed countries

Developed country · Developing country · Development economics · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Immigration · Immigration policy · Labour economics · Political science · Population · Recession · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Wage · Employment and Welfare Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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