How do Origin and Destination Social Capital Influence Migration Between Senegal and Europe?

• In Event: 287 - Regular Session. Immigrants and International Migration

Abstract

Research on international migration research suffers a few weaknesses. It usually adopts a destination bias when examining the influence of social capital on migration. Also, despite critiques (e.g. Boyd 1989), the idea of the household as a unitary decision-making body continues to persist in quantitative migration literature, long after other fields of research have shifted to collective decision-making, conflict or more complex theoretical models. Furthermore, gendered household norms and structures have been found to influence a variety of life course outcomes, but migration is still largely missing from the analysis. For all these reasons, the study of origin-linked social ties and international migration is important, particularly when linked to the migrant networks scholarship. We use data from the MAFE (Migration between Africa and Europe) – Senegal data (2008) to explore how origin and destination social capital influence migration. Given the dearth of relevant quantitative research, we use findings from in-depth qualitative research to develop hypotheses. We show that origin social capital and destination social capital appear to be complementary influences on individuals’ chances of migrating between Senegal and Europe. Results support the idea that the influence of social capital at origin is related to household pooling of resources and gendered household norms. Women’s migration choices are strongly restricted and closely linked to social capital at origin, while male independent and collective migrations appear to be subject to a wider set of constraints.

Author

• Mao-Mei Liu, Brown University