International Migration Institute

Hein de Haas presents his paper 'Migration system dynamics: evidence from global data' co-authored by Mathias Czaika in Parallel session III(D) of the conference Examining Migration Dynamics: Networks and Beyond held in Oxford from 24-26 Sept 2013 This paper provides a critical assessment of migration systems theory based on an analysis of global migration patterns between 1960 and 2000. Migration systems theory pioneered by Mabogunje (1970), predicts that migration that one form of exchange between countries or places, such as trade, is likely to engender other forms of exchange such as people, in both directions. This echoes earlier arguments by Ravenstein (1885; 1889) and Lee (1966) that migration in one direction is likely to engender a counterflow in the opposite direction. In this functionalist perspective, migrant networks fulfil a vital role in the process of ‘migration diffusion' and in facilitating return migration and counter-migration (of natives of the destination country to the origin), and this