The growing body of literature on migration both internal and international tends to reach a consensus that economic considerations are of primary importance in the decision to migrate, in that people migrate ultimately to improve their economic well-being. If this is the case, then migration can rightly be perceived as a response -- sometimes exaggerated -- to economic incentives arising largely from disequilibria between and within sectors of the economy and between countries and regions.
These postulates raise two questions: What factors account for -- indeed accentuate -- such structural equilibria? How responsive is migration to such imbalances between and within countries? The last question raises the issue not only of the role of information networks in transmitting impulses about the range of available opportunities, but also the ease of migrating in spite of intervening obstacles and barriers: controls and regulation governing migration within and across national frontiers. Here, a subtle distinction has to be drawn between internal and international migration. An international migrant in a regular situation is expected to conform to a set of requirements governing entry into, and residence within, another country. Only a few African countries have well-articulated immigration laws and even fewer enforce such laws rigidly, the notable exception being the Republic of South Africa; and at any rate, these regulations are usually flouted by migrants deliberately or out of ignorance of existing laws (Conde, 1979).
Internal migration takes place in large part in response to imbalances between the regions of a country, the dominant direction of such movement being dictated by the locational bias of employment-generating projects. Thus, where both private and public investment is concentrated in the major (often the capital) city as is the case in most African countries, the dominant migration stream will no doubt be directed towards the capital. However, where plantations, mines and other enterprises are located in rural areas and offer readier employment and other opportunities, a substantial flow of intra-rural migration is to be expected, as is the case in the United Republic of Cameroon, Kenya and others.
In like manner, international migration signifies, to a large extent, inequalities in development, employment opportunities and especially income and living conditions between countries, particularly between the developed and developing countries. In the absence of strict restrictions on entry, and where information flow is both rapid and effective in disseminating the range of available opportunities in different locations, migration is expected to respond (quickly) to such positive, often exaggerated, signals. However, since international migration has political, socioeconomic and demographic consequences for both the sending and receiving countries, perhaps more than does internal migration, a series of regulations has been set up and enforced to screen, and where necessary restrain, the massive flow of immigrants into the affected countries.
It is obvious, then, that both internal and (voluntary) international migration, in general, derive from the same set of fundamental causes: however, the limitations imposed on international migration are greater, or more easily enforced. This in fact explains, for instance, why the volume of internal migration is, according to Zachariah and Conde (1981), twice that of international migration in West Africa. The linkage between both internal and international migration and factors which influence both also imply -- again in the context of West Africa -- that:
in general, internal migration is an extension of external migration. The overall direction was the same: from the interior parts of a country to the coastal areas. There is an overall negative relation between emigration and internal migration and a positive relation between immigration and internal migration. The internal migration rate was low in Upper Volta and Togo where lifetime emigration rates were high; it was high in Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Senegal where the emigration rate of nationals was relatively low ... [Thus] areas with a high in-migration rate had a high immmigration rate.
Conceptually, international and internal migration are complementary and can indeed supplement each other. First, as speculated above, both derive from a complex of interrelated social and economic factors, but are primarily related to the migrants' search for greater well-being. This, of course, does not include those displaced by natural disaster (drought, famine) or those fleeing from war or political oppression (refugees), except for the so-called economic refugees. Again, from a policy perspective, development normally has the effect of initially stimulating migration -- both internal and international -- in the short run. In the long run, however, one viable policy instrument to restrain or retain a large number of (potential) emigrants from poor to rich countries or to attract them back home is sustained development in the labour-exporting countries. This strategy is based on the notion that people migrate in large part when they are unable to satisfy their aspirations within the existing opportunity structure in their locality or country. The policy-relevant question is: How can development be structured to provide local alternatives to international migration? This becomes especially critical for countries like Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland that depend heavily on the export of labour to the mines of South Africa. An obvious example in West Africa is Upper Volta which is also traditionally a labour-exporting country. (This aspect is elaborated below.)
The reasons associated with international migration are not solely economic. As Speare (1974) suggests, 'in international migration, political factors are often more important than economic factors'. Demands for adjustment of boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the colonial administration and which cut across economic and homogeneous ethnic groups, 'to accommodate the socio-cultural realities of the countries concerned and to regroup the populations of ethnic groups arbitrarily assigned to different countries', have led to war (Adepoju, 1982). An obvious example is the case of Somalia and Ethiopia, or less dramatically between Nigeria and the United Republic of Cameteen. The result, in all cases, is hundreds of refugees and displaced persons.
These postulates raise two questions: What factors account for -- indeed accentuate -- such structural equilibria? How responsive is migration to such imbalances between and within countries? The last question raises the issue not only of the role of information networks in transmitting impulses about the range of available opportunities, but also the ease of migrating in spite of intervening obstacles and barriers: controls and regulation governing migration within and across national frontiers. Here, a subtle distinction has to be drawn between internal and international migration. An international migrant in a regular situation is expected to conform to a set of requirements governing entry into, and residence within, another country. Only a few African countries have well-articulated immigration laws and even fewer enforce such laws rigidly, the notable exception being the Republic of South Africa; and at any rate, these regulations are usually flouted by migrants deliberately or out of ignorance of existing laws (Conde, 1979).
Internal migration takes place in large part in response to imbalances between the regions of a country, the dominant direction of such movement being dictated by the locational bias of employment-generating projects. Thus, where both private and public investment is concentrated in the major (often the capital) city as is the case in most African countries, the dominant migration stream will no doubt be directed towards the capital. However, where plantations, mines and other enterprises are located in rural areas and offer readier employment and other opportunities, a substantial flow of intra-rural migration is to be expected, as is the case in the United Republic of Cameroon, Kenya and others.
In like manner, international migration signifies, to a large extent, inequalities in development, employment opportunities and especially income and living conditions between countries, particularly between the developed and developing countries. In the absence of strict restrictions on entry, and where information flow is both rapid and effective in disseminating the range of available opportunities in different locations, migration is expected to respond (quickly) to such positive, often exaggerated, signals. However, since international migration has political, socioeconomic and demographic consequences for both the sending and receiving countries, perhaps more than does internal migration, a series of regulations has been set up and enforced to screen, and where necessary restrain, the massive flow of immigrants into the affected countries.
It is obvious, then, that both internal and (voluntary) international migration, in general, derive from the same set of fundamental causes: however, the limitations imposed on international migration are greater, or more easily enforced. This in fact explains, for instance, why the volume of internal migration is, according to Zachariah and Conde (1981), twice that of international migration in West Africa. The linkage between both internal and international migration and factors which influence both also imply -- again in the context of West Africa -- that:
in general, internal migration is an extension of external migration. The overall direction was the same: from the interior parts of a country to the coastal areas. There is an overall negative relation between emigration and internal migration and a positive relation between immigration and internal migration. The internal migration rate was low in Upper Volta and Togo where lifetime emigration rates were high; it was high in Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Senegal where the emigration rate of nationals was relatively low ... [Thus] areas with a high in-migration rate had a high immmigration rate.
Conceptually, international and internal migration are complementary and can indeed supplement each other. First, as speculated above, both derive from a complex of interrelated social and economic factors, but are primarily related to the migrants' search for greater well-being. This, of course, does not include those displaced by natural disaster (drought, famine) or those fleeing from war or political oppression (refugees), except for the so-called economic refugees. Again, from a policy perspective, development normally has the effect of initially stimulating migration -- both internal and international -- in the short run. In the long run, however, one viable policy instrument to restrain or retain a large number of (potential) emigrants from poor to rich countries or to attract them back home is sustained development in the labour-exporting countries. This strategy is based on the notion that people migrate in large part when they are unable to satisfy their aspirations within the existing opportunity structure in their locality or country. The policy-relevant question is: How can development be structured to provide local alternatives to international migration? This becomes especially critical for countries like Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland that depend heavily on the export of labour to the mines of South Africa. An obvious example in West Africa is Upper Volta which is also traditionally a labour-exporting country. (This aspect is elaborated below.)
The reasons associated with international migration are not solely economic. As Speare (1974) suggests, 'in international migration, political factors are often more important than economic factors'. Demands for adjustment of boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the colonial administration and which cut across economic and homogeneous ethnic groups, 'to accommodate the socio-cultural realities of the countries concerned and to regroup the populations of ethnic groups arbitrarily assigned to different countries', have led to war (Adepoju, 1982). An obvious example is the case of Somalia and Ethiopia, or less dramatically between Nigeria and the United Republic of Cameteen. The result, in all cases, is hundreds of refugees and displaced persons.