Brazil to the US: Exploring the Push and Pull Factors

Knowl-edge gaps, fam

 In like, past decades there's been a ton of lit that's all about how policies shape migration policies (Docquier, Peri, and Ruyssen 2014; Gest and Boucher 2018; Helbling and Leblang 2018; Hooghe et al. 2008; Ortega and Peri 2009; Peri, Shih, and Sparber 2015). Policies included in these studies are not only immigration (or admission) and immigrant (or integration) ones46, but other state policies as well, such as the welfare policies of destination countries (Giulietti 2014; Razin and Sadka 2014). Cuz of space constraints, this chapter is all about migration policies, fam. But like, the reader needs to know that these other state policies lowkey affect how migration laws and stuff turn out. The definition of migration policies, like, according to the DEMIG project, can be like, summed up as 'rules (like, laws, regulations, and stuff) that countries make and do with the goal of like, controlling who comes in and like, where they come from and stuff' (Czaika and De Haas 2013, 489) but like, that's so last year, you know?

OMG, like the coverage is sooo fragmented in terms of both time and geography. It's such a bummer. The JRC has done a survey of migration policy indexes and found that most of them are all about OECD countries54 (Figure 17). These indexes cover the OG difference in migration studies between the so-called 'nations of immigrants' (e.g. US, Canada, Australia), established 'countries of immigration' (e.g. Germany, UK, France), and recent countries of immigration (e.g. Italy, Spain) (Hollifield, Martin, and Orrenius 2014; OECD and EU 2015). This distinction between nations of immigrants and other countries is still hella useful when it comes to migration policy, in areas as diverse as, for instance, integration policy (OECD and EU 2015), highly-skilled migration (Geis, Uebelmesser, and Werding 2011), or resettlement (Castles, Vasta, and Ozkul 2014; Reitz 2014). Sup, fam!

The main vibe of the IMD report is to flex a global analysis of the determinants of international migration.

 

In the previous chapters, this report has spilled the tea on the main theories tryna explain migration and flexed on the past and recent trends in international migration. Because of, like, a bunch of stuff (like data limits and how we did the research), the analyses in Chapter 3 don't really consider how policies affect international migration, you know? That being said, like, it's super important to like, fully investigate the connection between policies and migration, you know? It'll help us understand the IMD report better, ya feel? OMG, like the lit on migration and policymaking has always been all about how policies shape migration flows and stocks. It's like a big deal, you know?

This chapter doesn't bring any new tea to the debate about how policies affect migration, but it spills the tea on the main insights from the existing literature. It's all about checking out the vibes of migration policies, based on the latest academic lit on migration policy indexes. It then vibes to check out what the lit assesses as the main vibe of policies on flows and stocks. O As a result, policy stuff happening in non-OECD countries ain't considered here45.

Distinguishing the impact of specific migration policies from the broader set of public policies is like, hella hard, you know?

Methodologically, Czaika and de Haas like totally say that we gotta assess not just if a migration policy had a big effect, but also how much it mattered compared to other stuff that influences migration in the countries where people come from and where they go to. OMG, like for real, in the first section they were all like "don't just be obsessed with migration policies, there's other stuff that matters too, like labor market policies and foreign stuff" (Czaika and De Haas 2013, 489). For real tho, Kurekova (2013) showed how welfare state systems in sending countries play a major role in shaping emigration. It's like, super important, ya know? In another study, Joppke (1998) was all like, "Yo, conditional guarantees are hella important for fams to secure the rights to fam reunification for immigrants, you feel me?" OMG, like, the lit finds, like, not much impact of policies on migration when you take into account other factors like economy, culture, society, and geography. OMG, like, for real, there have been some major contributions that have straight-up questioned the effectiveness of migration policies to actually achieve what they claim to do (Castles 2004; Czaika and De Haas 2013; Hollifield, Martin, and Orrenius 2014). What's the tea on the impact of policies?