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1 THE IMPASSE IN MIGRATION THEORY:

A SKETCH MAP FOR POTENTIAL ESCAPEES

Wilbur Zelinsk yDepartment of Geography

The Pennsylvania Stale University

INTRODUCTION

Several veers ago, Sidney Goldstein observed, "vvher eas the study of fertility do-minated demographic research in the past several decades, migration may well become themost important branch of demography in the last quarter of the century" (Goldstein,1976: 424l. Questions concerning migration are indeed rapidly coming to the fore, inboth practical and academic terms, in many parts of the world, and they have begun tocompete strongly with fertility and other topics for the ·dominant share of the demo-grapher's attention. Tnis sudden thrust toward the front of the stage has, unfortunately,caught us students of migration mumbling some of our key lines.

The migration script is incomplete for several reasons:

1. Even allowing for the most relaxed definition of a social theory, no complete, coherenttheory of human migration has yet been validated.' Instead I've rely on a collection of,empirical generalizations which, among other f aiiinqs, happens to be ethnocentricand tirnebound.

2. While these generalizations have provided interesting partial descriptions and perhapspseudo-explanations of migrational events in certain places and periods, they have notyielded the deeper explanations or useful predictions that would arise from a robusttheory.

3. Whatever validity this ad hoc set of lawlike formu lae may have had in the past isgreatly vitiated by two large phenomena that show every sign of inducing paradigmshock: the recent turnaround in the net flow of migrants between metropolitan andnonmetropolitan sections in several of the most socioeconomically advanced nations;and the nature of the migrations now going on in the Less Developed Countries (LDCs).

My purpose in this paper is suggested by the subtitle: after diagnosing the basiccauses for the impasse in migration theory, to sketch a possible solution, but only in themost general terms. I am not attempting a definitive review of the literature and its ideas,

Nor has there been much serious effort to find one in •.he area of migratio~ or in demography ingeneral - if we overiook the eversmoldering Malth:Jsian controversy. lnsre ad demographers have beenas empirical as possible, limiting their disputes largely to questions 01 technique and interpretationwithin safely circumscribed zones. This is in sharp contrast to the tneoreticel brawling in virtually211 the other social sciences.

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a difficult project that badly needs doing.2 Instead I have cited the relevant literatureselectively, and I hope fairly: I propose to examine briefly two of the principal crisis-inducing developments, mainly in terms of their theoretical implications. then surveythe currently available theoretical and methodological approaches that have been adopt-ed by migration analysts and show wherein they are wsntinq: and, finally, sketch thespecifications for an adequate theory of migration. The prescription is offered apo 10·getically, in acute awareness of the folly of preaching periection, but with equal coq-nizance of the probabi litv that. without a map of some sort, the traveler may neverreach his destination.

Offering at this point a truncated definition of the ideal migration theory maymake the passages that follow more digestible. I have in mind a logically ordered set ofconcepts - abstractions that withstand testing against reality - that will explain thewhole constellation of migration phenomena at a variety of scales - i.e., to describeand explain past and present events, and anticipate future ones - how many of whatsorts of people will go where, in what patterns of flow, and when, for what reasonsand with what effects upon places of origin and destination, and upon themselves, and,ideally, upon the entire social system of which they form a part. A heroic agenda per-haps, but one that has been attempted with other social theories that are subject toverification through analysis of current or historical datil or the unfolding of futureevents. Examples include the ambitious anthropological work on kinship systems andon language, economic theories conceming market behavior, or various schemes postu-lated by historians and anthropologists concerning the evolution of civilizational systems.The fact that all such schemes have been shown to be defective is beside the point: thehistory of science is that of a procession of noble failures. My complaint, again, is thatthe demographer.; haven't really tried. Indeed much of the migration literature containsno discernible theory at all.

THE TURNAROUND IN METRO-NONMETRO MIGRATION ANDTHE CRISIS IN MIGRATION THEORY

In reviewing the great mass of empirical publications and the much smaller body oftheoretical literature in the field of migration •.the.Jeader can detect a single commonaxiom - almost always unstated - undergirding these efforts. It is the assumption that,subject to the limitations imposed by social, political, physical, or other barriers and thequantity and quality of available infonmation, human beings will tend to gravitate fromplaces having fewer advantages (however they are defined) to those having more. It goesalmost without saying that cities are universally regarded as more privileged places thanare rural areas. Even when migrations are activated by the quest for amenities, as in themovements into Florida, Califomia, Arizona, Colorado, the Riviera or England's southerncoast, the result has been added urbanization.

The general axiom of personal optimization is enfolded within an even deepersubstratum of belief, one so obvious or intuitive few writers have bothered to articulate

2 Perhaps the most seardling critiques to date are Goldscheider, 1971 a and Kubat. 1976, while" brieferreview is available in Kosinski and Prothero, 1973: 1·17. Critical bibliographies covering importantsegments of the migration literature are available in: Campbell and Johnson, 1976; Eiizapa, 1972;Findley, 1977; Jansen, 1969; Mangalam, 1968. Olsson, 1965; Price and Sikes, 1974; Ritchev, 1976;Shaw, 1975; Simmons, et al., 1977; and Thomas, 193&

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it: that the march of modem history has been one toward an ever-increasing concentra-tion, in physical space and other spaces, of people, activities, the means of production,wealth, information, power, and almost all other accoutrements of advanced socialorganization. The implication is that, even after the attainment of a very high level ofurbanization, a net cityward flow of migrants would continue as long as the country-side produces a surplus of births over deaths.

It comes, then, as an especially rude, unwelcome shock to discover in the UnitedStates and in several other kindred countries that the surge of rural and small-townfolk to the great metropolis that had gone on time outof mind everywhere in the worldhas, since 1970 or shortly before, stopped being larger than the reverse movement. It isimportant to note that this abrupt tumaround had not been predicted, being totallyunexpected, and, in fact, was scancely believed at first. Neither can anyone guess howlong the new state of affairs will persist.

Questions have been raised, especially in the United States, about the reliabilityof the data upon which the inference of a tumaround is based. Although these doubtsmay not be fully laid to rest until the Census returns for 1980 or thereabouts becomeavailable for the nations in question, the estimating procedures at issue have provedvalid in the past. Moreover, the doubters are confronted with a coincidence of a turn-around materializing at almost exactly the same historical instant in widely scatteredplaces. These include, in addition to the United States, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Italy,the two Germanies, France, and, with some qualifications, Great Britain (Kontuly,1977; Vining and Kontuly, 1975 and 1978; Vining and Strauss, 19761. I suspect that,when we acquire the necessary data, we will discover parallel trends in Australia, NewZealand, Canada, and perhaps a few other Western European nations.

Another technical explanation to the effect that the turnaround is nothing morethan simple spillover from cities and inner suburbs into outer suburbs and exurbanareas within daily commuting range of a metropolis fails 10 hold up under critical scruti-ny (Beale, 1978; McCarthy and Morrison, 1978)_3 That metropolitan sprawl has extend-ed ever deeper into the countryside, thanks in large part to improvements in transpor-tation and communication, is readily demonstrable and is a fact accounting for some ofthe apparent repopulation of rural areas. But many migrants have headed toward sometruly remote, cityless districts which are now experiencing growth, and even net in-migration, after decades of population decline.

Two other attractive hypotheses also collapse under critical scrutiny. Some of thecountries under consideration have officially adopted policies designed to encourage thedispersion of popu lation and of manufacturing and other enterprises from congestedmetropolitan zones into the more thinly settled, relatively depressed, peripheral tractsof their national space (Sundquist, 1975). But others have not, and even where govern-ments have tried to foster deconcentration, any explicit action has materialized toolate or has been demonstrably too weak in its effects (De Jonq, 1977b) to explain thenew pattern of inter-regional migration. Attributing the apparent reversal in the netdirection of metro-nonmetro flo v.'S to a downward swing in the business cycle is noanswer either. Although business recessions may accelerate a back-to-the-countryside

3 Morrill, 1979, offers a somewhat more sophisticated version of this idea, on~ that certainly meritsfurther investigation. The claim is for a sequence of stapes in the evolution of residential patterns,with metropolitan concentration characterizing the initial period to be followed by dispersion intononrnetro terrirorv when a region, e.q., the Northeastern United Stales, reaches an advanced level ofsocial and economic maturity. What is not explained is why distant rural areas should be repopulated ,

21

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movement (as happened in the American of the early 1930s), the present-day outwardsurge began no later than 1970, and perhaps two or three years earlier in some sectionsof the U.S., at the crest of the long, postwar boom in personal and collective affluence,and has since persisted with scant correlation with dips or spurts in the economic indio

caters.The moral to be drawn from the foregoing theoretical strategies is that conventional

modes of explaining migration phenomena are inadequate in coping with that surprisinginternational event, the turnaround. Clearly, it's time to start searching for some theore-tical apparatus that will accommodate both it and the earlier patterns of migration thatare at least partially explained by traditional formulae.

Two recent intellectual developments suggest that paradigm shock may sooner orlater induce enlightenment. First, there is the notion that human migration, like otherspatial phenomena, may be essentially an equilibrium-seeking process - a possibilitymasked by the enonmously rapid transformation of society and places in recent history.Thus if the transitional phases of modernization are indeed ending and some kind ofsteadv-state system is evolving, then the turnaround may be just the first of a series ofperiodic oscillations that occur as metropolis and countryside approach a dynamic equi-libnum." Much more thinking and a great deal of empirical work are needed before thisidea can be assessed fairly. In my own view, I find it difficult to envision a society whoseeconomy, technology, and social behavior are changing so rapidly achieving any sort ofnear·stability in its settlement characteristics.

Another suggestion, with perhaps deeper implications, enters the realm of socialpsychology. The postulate is that circa 1970 a large number of people in a set of highlydeveloped countries (closely linked in psychic space by modern communication andtravel) simultaneously attained a level of affluence that greatly broadened their range oflocational decisions, and, at the same time, underwent a potentially irreversible shift intheir place-preference value system, aided and abetted by economic and technologicaladvances. An ancillary factor could be the sheer burden of the combined economic andecological costs of maintaining very large urban agglomerations, with special attentionto the problems of energy (Sly and Tayman, 1977). Once again, the testing of this propo-sition might prove to be long and difficult, but the effort will almost certainly stretchtheoretical horizons.

MIGRATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES:

ANOTHER THEORETICAL DILEMMA

The challenge to the theoretician posed by migrational developments in the LessDeveloped Countries may be less dramatic than that emanating from the turnaround,but a careful look reveals implications at least equally far·reaching, and with immenselyimportant practical repercussions. If the reversal in metro-non metro flows within coun-tries such as the United States has serious policy implications at the local level (Morrison,19771. it hardly threatens the survival of the national community. In many of the LDes,on the other hand, the appropriate spatial redistribution of popu lation may be one of

4 An explicit argument that includes some interesting but less than fully conclusive Australian evidenceis al'ailable in Rowland, 1976,1979. The case for the United Stares is presented in Wardwell, 1977a,1977b.

the key factors in negotiating the passage to a viable level of socioeconomic develop-ment, the alternative being consignment to some unending collective misery.

The working assumption behind nearly all the many recent analyses of migrationalevents in the developing world is of the deja vu variety. It ho Ids that, after making gener·ous allowances for differences in timing, scale, and sociopolitical circumstance, cu lturalpeculiarities, and recent technological advances, events in these countries are simply arepeat performance of the essential scenario already enacted in the advanced nations.The hope is that, even though the denouement may lie some years ahead, the pocesses,motivations, sequence of flows and patterns, and general outcome will not produce anysurprises. If there are differences between the two categories of countries, they arepresumed to be 01 an equal or lesser order of magnitude than those within each category.

After careful reflection, I believe this initial impression, which I shared a few shortyears ago, is false and deceptive. In fact, I wish to advance the thesis that the observablefacts suggest profound differences between the two sets of events, differences that pro-voke fundamental theoretical quandaries.

Clearly, there are some large difficulties with the empirical evidence needed tobolster either point of view. If the currently advanced nations did indeed once undergoa stage of migrational evolution comparable with the present-day situation in the LDCs,the statistical and other relevant records for that period are seriously deficient or atleast inadequately studied to date.s Much of the scanty evidence for those bygone eventsis indirect or inferential; but there now exists a respectable sampling, from census andsurvey sources, of population shifts within an array of Less Developed Countries _ and.much more data can be expected in the near future.

Equally troublesome is the parochial character of the large mass of recent researchon Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Not only are most investigators reluctant to gobeyond narrow disciplinary concerns and "ask the broader questions that OJt across orescape 'conventional boundaries" (Simmons, et el., 1977: 9), but students of migrationtoo often confine their curlositv to just one of the three great continental segments ofthe Third World, or perhaps only a subregion thereof, making little effort to share,compare and integrate results. This is a serious matter because of the great diversity ofcultural, political, environmental, and historical settings for the oommunities in question.Such diversity makes cross-national analysis both more difficult and more urgent thanhas been the case with the fully developed nations - at least until Japan entered thisgroup. I am not suggesting that all migration research in LDCs should be interdisciplinaryor cross-national in character, only that more such efforts are needed and that more 01the localized studies should be cognizant of other areas and ccher approaches.

The superficial similarity between the two sets of phenomena - earlier phases ofmigration in the advanced countries and present-day processes in the LDCs - is obviousenough. In both instances, migration has been dominated by a great wave of ru ral-to-urban movement, along with much shifting about within the rural sector. For those f ortu-nate countries having a good supply of relatively empty, resource-rich territory, pioneersettlement has also generated significant redistribution of population; and for many ofthe others, emigration to labor- deficient and/or underpopulated nations has been quite

5 Where early parish or town records are still extant, as they are for many communities in Europe andthe colonial Americas, historical demographer; can extract useful migration information from rnernas was done, for example, in Greven, 1970. Unfortunately, the process is not only extremely labor ious but the results appreciably more inferential than for fertility Or rnortalitv.

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important. However, the less 'obvious diHerences between the two groups of countriesmay be symptomatic of divergent paths of social change.

For one thing, the relationships between city and countryside in the LOCs are of adifferent order from those 'hoe find in the developed countries of the past or present. Ifthere was a decided economic pull by the cities of Europe or America of an earlier era,as well as a rural push, the extraordinary current levels of unemployment or under-employment indicate little, if any, discernible labor shortage in the metropolitan areasof the LOCs. The apparent near-standstill in recent urbanization rates in India shouldgive one pause (Brush, 1970). There may be some personal social or economic benefitsfor migrants transferring into cities, but no convincing case that the national welfare,or the economy of the individual city, has enjoyed any net gain. Moreover, if the urban-ization of developed countries was simultaneous with, and probably an integral factorcontributing to, the upward thrust of socioeconomic development (and this suppositionis, of course, hampered by weaknesses in the historical data), the available evidence forLOCs seems, on balance, to argue just the opposite: a general stagnation, or even retro-gression, of the physical level of living of much of the population in recent years. Butone cannot blame the ills of underdevelopment on excessive urbanization; the latter isjust one symptom of a more basic malady.

The dynamics of rural-urban migration streams in the late·2Oth-century LOG maydiffer from those of its potential 19th-century counterpart in the developed worldin two respects. First, there seems to be a strong pattern of periodic circulationbetween city and countryside in the LOGs (Chapman, 1977a, 1977b; Bedford, 1973;Gould and Prothero, 1973; McGee, 1971; Mitchell, 1971, 1978; Prothero, 1978); theseoscillatory movements, which may be especially important in Africa, Southeast Asiaand the Southwest Pacific, promise to endu re indefin itely and in large volume in contrastto their relatively sliqht, transient significance in the developed countries. Circular migra-tion rnav be a modem phenomenon, as in much of Central and Southern Africa, or anextension of traditional patterns. In any event, its existence helps explain the universalincrease in rural numbers and densities in the LOGs, whereas at the superficially analogousphase of migrational history in the developed nations, rural depopulation was usuallyfar advanced.

Second, the phenomenon of metropolitan primacy - the tendency of citywardmigrants to favor the largest metropolis over its competitors - may be manifesting itselfmore powerfully in some of the LOGs than elsewhere. Insofar as this is true - and itremains a matter of sharp scholarly controversy 6 - it may reflect a weak developmentof interactive, hierarchical urban systems such as those characterizing most highly de-veloped nations, There is also much food for thought in the unquestioned fact that thepresent-day metropolis within the LOCs is growing through a combination of net in-migration and positive natural increase, whereas, until fairly recently, the metropolisesof the developed countries had to rely upon migrants to cancel out an excess of deathsover births.

6 I find it hard to believe that the disproportion between the primatemetropolisesand the secondarycities in early modern Europe beganto approach what we observetoday in Thailand.the Philipines,Guatemala, Burma, Taiwan, Guyana, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan or Peru to take some especiallyhypercephalicnations, The generalproblem of metropolitan prirnacvis analyzed in Berry and Hor-ton, 1970: 64·75.

To the extent that inhabitants of LOGs have participated in international migration,they have done so in ways bearing only a causal resemblance to the patterns observed inthe developed world. These emigrants have tended to gravitate to places of decidedlyhigher levels of development; and many, perhaps most, have been temporary labormigrants, i.e., essentially circular migrants. In contrast, the citizens of the del/elopedworld have moved or circulated to nations of comparable, or only slightly lower, levelsof development; and on the average, the incidence of return movements by emigrants hasbeen relatively 10w.7 .

There is an even more fundamental distinction between the migrational - and thelarger demographic - histories of the two sets of countries. Without exception, dUringtheir earlier stages of development. the demographic transformation of the advancednations was a spontaneous affair, neither monitored nor controlled by any central au-thority. Most LOCs, on the other hand, have tried varying degrees of official manipu-lation of mortality, fertility, and migration in recent decades or at the very least havedone a great deal of organized worrying, and much more can be anticipated. Obviouslysome of these efforts have been inept and ineffectual; but, in certain instances, they havebeen dramatically effective, Examples include the abrupt changes in patterns of emigrationnot only from the semi-developed Soviet Union, and the nations of Eastern Europe, butalso the "underdeveloped" socialist countries of East Asia following the changeover inpolitical regimes. If reliable diachronic data can ever be acquired for Ghina, Vietnam, andCambodia, they may show that those nations succeeded in reversing or at least severely -reducing the flow of migrants from countryside to city.

If any single moral can be drawn from the foregoing arguments, it is that the world-system - cap italstic-curn-socialist - as of the end of the 1970s is an immensely diHerentcreature from that of a century or two ago. It is much more complex, interactive, andself-conscious, so that research must look far past the proximate economic or demo-graphic factors to explain the true nature of migrational and other readily countableevents. I would suggest for a start that much can be learned by applying "dependencytheory," ICastes and Kosack, 1973; De Souza and Foust, 1979; Frank, 1969; Oxaal,et et., 1975) which offers the thesis that social and economic processes throughout theLOCs are contingent upon decisions made by governments and corporations based inthe more fortunate sections of a tightly interdependent world. Obviously, the developingnations of the past epoch - now the advanced nations - experienced nothing approach-ing the current condition of dependency and external domination.

Setting aside for the time being the substantial achievements in generating mone andbetter migration data and analytical tactics and in broadening the range of empiricalinvestications," how much progress has been made along the theoretical front? What arethe major strategies, and how effective have they proved to be in coping with the wholerange of rniqrationalphenomena, including those discussed in the previous pages ?

Immigration into NorthAmerica, for example, displays decided difference in rates of rerum migra.tion as between nativesof various nations of origin. Few of the Swedish or Irish immigrantsreversedirection. but a large fraction of persons arrivingfrom Italy, Greece, and Puerto Rico evenwall,.re-enter the home country. Socioculruralfactors may be as influential as economicones in account-ing for the differentials.But, in any case, there is little or no organized effort in the host countriesof Europe 01 America to expel newcomersfrom lands of comparable developmental status, Theimmigrantsfrom the LDCs cannot beso certain of lonq-terrnresidence.

8 Notably into such subjectsas intra-urbanmovements (Simmons, 1968; Quigleyand Weinberg,1977).commuting (Vance.19601,and tourism (Matley,1976; Svart, 1976).

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NINE STRATEGIES, THEORETICAL OR OTHERWISE,FOR THE STUDY OF MIGRATION

I can discern in migration studies nine fairly distinct sets of ideas or emphases, onlysome of which can be dignified as "theoretical." None, I hasten to add, is totally inde-pendent of one or more of the others; in fact, the overlap is considerable. Discussion ofthem shou ld also be prefaced with the acknowledgement that several classificato rysystems have been proposed for categorizing migrants and/or migrations on a basis otherthan simple distance or permanence (Davis, 1959: 589-591; Eichenbaum, 1970; Kant,1962, McGee, 1976: 14-21; Petersen, 1958, 1969; Roseman, 1971). These systems varyin both approach and complexity, ranging from a minimum of two types in Roseman'scase to more than a dozen in Petersen's scheme. They are of interest insofar as theyembody some underlying theory, as all typologies must do, even if they are only partialtheories in these instances and expressed more implitictly than otherwise.

The explicit explanatory strategies are as follows:1. The general empirical approach : Within this classification lie various efforts to

describe and perhaps account for migration phenomena as the outcome of a combinationof some rather immediate factors - a generalized inductive approach based upon histori-cal evidence. The most influential have been series of codifications of empirical findings,sets of "laws" which may not technically qualify as theoretical statements but which havecertainly been pressed into service as such. The earliest, and still perhaps the most conse-quential, was Ravenstein's pioneering feat in bringing some order out of the chaos of19th-Century migration data (Ravenstein, 1885, 1889). In a sense, all subsequent sets ofgeneral "demographic laws" have amounted to "Variations upon Some Themes by Ra-venstein." Uke most other theoretical efforts reported in this paper, Ravenstein drewalmost solely upon Westem experience, and more particularly the British and Europeanvariety .. Within its empirical limitations, it was an extraordinary achievement, and onewhich recognized economic dimensions and the shihing dynamics of migrational systemsover time as well as other factors.

Another highly durable codification, though one limited to migration differentials(Thomas, 1938), has sti II not been fu Ily superseded after four decades. Dorothy Thomas'distillation of a vast amount of published literature confirmed and extended some ofRavenstein's notions although she dealt with a narrower span of topics. Quite recently,and also in quasi.theoretical style, Campbell and Johnson (1976) have assembled availableknowledge of an even more limited segment of the migrational realm: counterstreammigrations. Undoubted Iy the most influential recent effort is Everett Lee's" A Theory ofMigration" (1966). Less empirical and more abstruse in character, it amounts nonethelessto an updating of most of Ravenstein's propositions in the form of a model wherebyamount and direction of migrational flows are determinated by the relative strength ofpositive and negative attributes summed at potential sources and destinations and moder-ated by intervening obstacles of all sorts. Some allowances are also made for the role ofinformation and cumulative inertia. Certainly the most elaborate and detailed set ofmigrational laws is that promulgated by the historian George W. Pierson in his semi-popular The Moving American (1973). Several scores of propositions and sub-proposi-tions, all overtly based on the United States record and all thoroughly empirical, com-prehensively set forth what is known or suspected in three chapters entitled "Any 'Lawsof Migrability'? ", 'Move Effects," and "And What Happens to Those Who Go" (Pierson,1973: 165-228). Despite the somewhat breezy style of the volume, Pierson's ideas meritclose examination by academicians. In some ways they go deeper than Ravenstein's orLee's.

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A basic difficu ty with all the foregoing efforts is that they are in essence descriptiveas well as both time-bound and place-bound, and do not venture far into either predictionor deeper explanations of migrational processes, such "laws" constituting at best a formof "middle-ranqe theorv ", The desirability and possibility of bolder theoretical advanceshave been sketched (e.q., Vance, 1952; Goldscheider, 1971 a, 1971 b). Perhaps the mostsubstantial accompfishment in both originating and testing migrational theory, at leastwithin the predorniaant lv demographic mode, is the hypothesis of multiphasic responseinitiated by Davis (1963) and subsequently pursued in Fr.iedlander, 1969. These arthorsdeal effectively with the question of whether citizens of countries passing through thedemographic transi:ion will opt for out-migration to a city or foreign lands, and whenand in what numbers this will be done, or whether they wi II adjust to economic stressby means of family limitation. They have managed to connect migration phenomena withthe demographic transition, one of the few constructs in demography that has muchtheoretical appeal.

2. The economic epproecb: If any single strategy has dominated the migration scenein recent decades, it has been one rooted in the calculus of economics _ the basic premisebeing that for members of the labor force the decision whether and where to migrateresults primarily from a rational comparison of the known costs and benefits of alter-native locations. (Of course, economic considerations also enter, in varying Degrees, intoall the other strajeqies noted here.I The practitioners of this approach in its simplestform assume that unemployed workers will move, with or without their families, tolocalities where jobs are believed to be available, and that those who are employed willconsider the possibilities of more remunerative or secure employment and the oppor-tunities for advancement, along with such factors as moving expenses and differentialsin cost of living, before reaching a sensible decision as to whether to migrate or remainin the same place, In more sophisticated versions of this model, various social and per-sonal factors may be introduced (as was done in Mincer, 1978). Much of the voluminousliterature in this vein is critically summarized in Olsson, 1965, Ritchey, 1976, Shaw,1975, Simmons, et el., 1977.

Two factors accounting for much of the enthusiasms for the economic approachdisplayed by American students are that this approach fits snugly within the thought.ways of a predominantly business civilization and, more immediately, that by far thegreater part of the spatial and temporal variance in migrational events can be accountedfor statistically by an array of economic variables. Indeed there has been much clevertinkering with both spatial and a-spatial versions of push-pu II and related models ofmigration, grounjed in economic assumptions, with some gradual improvements; butmuch greater prcqress is unlikely, Indeed one begins to sense a growing disenchantmentwith the fu rther prospects." There are several reasons.

Clearly, for any study period, the assumptions of perfect knowledge of the labormarket and of .otal economic rationality on the part of economically motivated mi-grants must be modified by the inclusion of political, social, and psychological factors.But whatever vsliditv these assumptions may have had in the past is probably beingeroded by chanjes in preference structures and various changes in the social system.Perhaps the most dramatic challenge comes from the recent migrational turnarounddiscussed above. Furthermore, there are several large, spreading fissure~ in the migration

9 For an especialv spirited. closely reasoned attack on the shortcomings of conventional economicthought in deali1g with migration, see Amin, 1974: 85.110,

27

scene left unaccounted for by economic explanations. At the relatively micro intra-metropolitan scale, for example, economic considerations furnish quite incompleteexplanations for residential relocation (Simmons, 1968). Similarly, to account for themovements of students, the fully or partially retired, institutionalized persons, theunemployed, rentiers, and other individuals outside the regular labor force - and, inthe aggregate, they account for a large; increasing share of the total popu lation - thedefinition of "economic" must be stretched almost to the point of absurdity to sustainthe economic model. It is, of course, possible to apply the economist's kit of tools tonon-monetary, non parametric variables by inventing some plausible quantitative meas-ures for them, But it is likely that other modes of analysis might be more rewarding,especially for the great volume of more or less permanent migration now inspired bythe a<Tlenities,not to mention more ephemeral kinds of movement in that genre (Svart,1976; Ullman, 1954).

3. The human ecology approach: The question is not whether to discard economicformu lae but rather how they can be incorporated into more comprehensive, meaning.ful general theories of migration. A promising move in this direction has been generatedby the adherents of the human ecology school among sociologists. The basic ideas firstenunciated by Hawley, 1950 and Duncan, 1959, 1961 have been fleshed out in empiricaltests of their dernoqraphic implications by Sly, 1972, Frisbie and Poston, 1975, and Slyand Tayman, 1977. In their model of social dynamics, one which has the potentialityof becoming a large component within a general theory of society, the human ecologistspostu late four interacting sets of phenomena: population, technology, environment, andornanization. In this context, "organization" is defined mainly as the constellation ofactivities which contribute to the survival of the population, in essence, the local sub-sistence base or, in anthropological parlance, the 'culture core." In the works cited,"organization' is clearly treated as the most crucial of the four variables or rubrics; hencethe juxtaposition here of t he human ecology approach to the economic.

There is much to be said for this approach, but its strengths and weaknesses as adevice for studying migration, or other phenomena for that matter, cannot be assessedwithout a great deal of additional testing. Some basic flaws may be detected, however,even upon a preliminary encounter. What is the optimal size, or physical area, for thecommunity to be studied in this manner? Are present data systems appropriate to thedemands of this methodology? The relationships among factors within each of the fourrubrics are poorly understood (Sly and Tayman, 1978: 793). Furthermore, the schemeis not as inclusive as may have been intended, for there is scant provision for items inthe ideational realm or for forms of spatial interaction aside from migration. Neither isit clear just how change is initiated within this system from either internal or externalsources. Finally, this approach is more effective in describing the how of interactionsbetv••een various elements in the population-organization-environment-technoIDgy systemthan noffering true explanations of why they should be so.

4. The spatial modeling of migration: An explicitly spatial approach to migration -one that considers distance and direction as major explanatory variables - ought logical-ly to be subsumed under the economic approach, considering the orientation of thegeographers and economists who have cu Itivated it; but it has been persued so assiduouslyon its own merits that perhaps it is not improper to single it out here. Following theannouncement of "The Law of Retail Gravitation" (Reilly, 1931), the idea of the GravityModel - essentially that the volume of migrations, or the movement of other items,between two places is inversely proportional to some function of their distance andpositively related to the size of their population - has been elaborated with great vigor

in both empirical and theoretical studies (many of which are discussed in Olsson, 19::5,Shaw, 1975: 41-42, and ter Heide, 1963). The basic notion has been refined by redefiningdistance in terms of cost and dimensions other than simply physical extent and ':Iyconsidering the effect of 'intervening opportunities' (Stouffer, 1940, 1960). A particolar-Iy interesting extension of the ideas of 'social physics' is the mapping of "popu lationpotential" (Stewart and Wamtz, 1958; Wamtz, 1964).

Once again, this general scheme with its assumpt-ions concerni ng Homo ecoriornicushas yielded reassuring results up to a point, but apparently less so with the passage oftime and the ongoing transformation in social-psychological structure. If the gravitymodel and its variants do a reasonable job of accounting for most "norma I," ecoriornical-Iy motivated movements, they fail in several other contexts. For example, in the processof pioneer colonization, a thin or nonexistent population is a positive inducement andthe friction of distance is of relatively little consequence. Simi larly, the remoteness andpopulation density of potential destinations are lightly regarded by amenity-inspiredmigrants. When it comes to tourism, the ordinary relationship between movement anddistance is inverted in many cases.!? More fundamentally, the gravity model has alsobeen severely criticized in terms of its basic logic and philosophic underpinnings (Olsson,1976; Sheppard, 1978).

If the orthodox gravity model explains little about the evolution of migration sys-tems over time, the time-path analysis initiated by Hagerstrand (1969) may open the wayfor such development. It treats the shifting location of individual persons or householdsin a biographical rather than a historical time-frame, but eaves unresolved the question ofhow to relate individual acts to larger migratory flows.

Two other aspects of the spatial modeling of migration which perhaps may be betterclassified as descriptive devices rather than as contributions to theoretical understandingare: (1 J the delimitation of sets of migration fields and migration regions on the basis ofthe network of migrational exchanges between groups of places (which need not becontiguous) (Slater, 1976; Stave ley, 1973); and (2) the treatment of flows between pairsof places as a stochastic process (Rogers, 1968).

5. The cultural approach. This is more a matter of attitude than a coherent theore-tical apparatus. The premise is that the cultural system per se, or the cultural personality,if you will, of a given national or sub-national community is a major, independent vari-able in the molding of migrational characteristics. This truism, more often than notignored by migration analysts, is, unfortunately difficult to translate into quantitativeterms or otherwise render operational. Nonetheless the historical and geographical evi-dence is most suggestive. In considering such questions as just where specific ethnicgroups settled within North America or, as previously noted, the differentials in ratesof return migration, much is left unexplained by standard economic factors or specifichistorical circumstances. The residuals may simply reflect cultural proclivities.

To confound the problem, it is often difficult to separate cultural peculiaritiesfrom those attendant upon various stages of socioeconomic development. (Do me migra-tional attributes of the American South reflect a certain developmental stage of a relatively retarded region, or the special cultural complex of the region, or_some combination

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10 In an analysis of international tourism, Williams and Zelinsky, 1970 describe numerous instancewhere remoteness lends enchantment. and the traveler seeks out distant ilnd ex otic places, But ther eare also cases where the friction of distance and time prevails. and the tourist settles for a neighbor.jng country.

thereof?} The general case for the cultural approach is offered in Zelinsky, 1966 andelaborated in much detail for the United States in Pierson, 1973.'1 For the time beingthe verdict must be: necessary but insufficient.

6. The sociological approach : This is yet another approach that represents a setof ani tudes. along with a number of immediate ad hoc generalizations, rather than aformally stated theory and that also overlaps most of the other approaches. In thisinstance, the generally unspoken assumption is that nearly everything that needs explaining about the migrational behavior of a population can be explained if we (a) have enoughinformation about its social characteristics and (b) then infer the various cause-and-effectrelationships between predisposing attributes and decisions as to whether and whither tomigrate. (Both literature and ideas are reviewed in Mangalam and Schvvarzweller, 1970,Ritchey, 1976, and Uhlenberg, 1973). Demographers, especially those of the sociologicalpersuasion, have leaned heavily on empirical generalizations concerning the migrationimplications of the age, educational attainment, sex, occupation, income, marital status,and ethnic or racial identity of individuals or families and also the impact of migrationupon these characteristics in both sending and receiving communities. Much attention hasalso been given in recent years to the relationships between critical stages of the Jife-cycle,and the effects of economic conditions have not been overlooked.

That these efforts have yielded useful results is beyond dispute; but, once again, toomany questions have been left unexplored or unexplained. These include: the linkagesbetween migration and social structures larger than the family, which are relatively hardto quantify; the difficulties of circumventing the "ecological fallacy"; valid explanationsfor historical changes and cross-cultural differentials in the migration effects of socio-logical variables; the impact of political institutions, when these are noticed at all; andaccounting for the whole array of relatively unconventional forms of spatial mobility.

7. The historical approach: Perhaps the closest approach to a general demographictheory to meet with general interest or approbation has been the theory of the demo-graphic transition, which is, obviously, inherently evolutionary and historical in character(Gogwill, 1963; Vance, 1952). Although the notion of an orderly, related series of phasesin demographic development was initially limited to fertility and mortality, it is self-evident that the same ideas can just as readily be applied to any set of demographic, so-cial, or economic characteristics affected by the course of modernization. Thus "TheHypothesis of the Mobility Transition" (Zelinsky, 19711, involving successive temporaland spatially diffused phases of migration and circulation, was probably an inevitabledevelopment. It is useful as a heuristic device and as a convenient way of approximating,and perhaps even predicting, the broad outlines of changing mobility conditions in awide variety of regions and periods. Nonetheless, it and the earlier versions of the demo-graphic, or vital, transition, have been subjected to severe criticism on various grounds.' 2

11 His brief for American exceptional ism may strike many as extreme and unbalanced. "For it is hardto escape the conviction that somehow, for some strange reason. Americans have had a special af-finity for mobility, have known it. used it, enjoyed it, and suffered its agonies, with a devotion andan intimacy no other people has experienced. We are, and will remain, a more fluid society: (Pierson,1973: 163).

12 Several scholars have tested the mobility transmon in widely separated parts of the world and atdifferent spatial scales. Representative examples include Bedford, 1973, Fuchs and Demko, 1978,Skeldon, 1977, and Stavely, 1973. Although their results suggest some important modifications, theyalso tend to support the basic features of the model.

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The most fundamental objection, the contention that a unilinear mode of evolutionobtains for widely disparate civilizations separated by both distance and time, has beenraised against similar propositions in history and anthropology (Steward, 1955). But thepossibility remains of convergent evolution toward similar forms among independentcommunities. More specifically, application of the mobility transition or other compon-ents of the demographic transition, which are essentially derived from Western, i.e..European and North American, experience, to the Third World has led to serious mis-givings about its exportability. It is not at all clear that the Western pattern is beingfaithfully replicated in, say, Southeast Asia or the Southwest Pacific (Bedford, 1973;McGee, 1971, 1976). In such areas, there has been a much brisker development of cir-culatory migration with many wape-earners shihing between rural and urban residencein cycles covering some months or years, a pattern of urbanization different from thatexperienced by the West, and there have been few signs as yet of the depopulation 01the countryside that signalled a critical stage of the demographic transition in the moredeveloped nations of the world.

Another intriguing suggestion with large theoretical implications is the idea thatmigrational systems may be basically equilibrium-seeking. Ponder, for example, thecontentions recently espoused by Rowland (1976) and Wardwell (1 977a, 19nb), thatrr ••• internal migration is concerned more with maintaining the settlement pattern thanwith modifying it" (Rowland, 1976: 1) and:

Just as the vital transition describes the processes of fertility and mortality 2S tending from"semi.equilibrium characterized by high fertility and rnortallrv, to a new semi-equilibrium withIDw fertility and mDrtality, SD tDO a migration equilibrium may be approacheo towards the encof the mobility transition as all parts of the se rtlernent system achieve a high level of "modernization.'

(Rowland, 1976: 11)

Thus the "normal" state of affairs for a society is posited as a dynamic near-equiiibriurnin which there is a low degree of efficiency in migrational currents, i.e., much cross.hauling of migrants, but with the net result of effecting slight adjustments in a relativeIy stable socioeconomic system. This hypothesis has been set forth so recently that i1stil/ awaits adequate testing; but it is especially germane to the discussion of the turnaround phenomenon. One question immediately presents itself. Are the United State:and similar nations indeed entering an era of relative socioeconomic stability, ard, inot, how pertinent, then, is the concept of equilibrial migration?

Another pregnant possibility still woefully underdeveloped is the application 0:

dependence theory and other aspects of current Marxist thought (as set forth, for exampie, in Frank, 1969 and de Souza and Porter, 1974) to spatial interaction in general ancmobility in particular, as it develops over time, with special reference to the Third Worleand to labor migrants Circulating betv •..een the Third World and the advanced nation(Amin,1974; Castles and Kosack, 1973). The only methodical, explicit attempt (whiclcould be just as readily classed under our economic or spatial headings) seems :0 b.McGee's work on South and Southeast Asia (McGee, 1976) wherein he proposes a s vstenof migration and circulario-, between capitalist and peasant economies situated in bot:metropolitan and ru ral localities.

A sharp debate seems to be developing around the role of the present-day labocirculation system in the LDCs. One school of thought (Mabogunje, 1972) stoutly maintains that this phenomenon may be a continuation of traditional practice (at least in WesAfrica), but in any case is a healthy, positive factor conducive to economic progress an.

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development. In stark opposition are those of the Marxist persuasion (e.q., Amin, 1974,Castles and Kosack, 1973) who argue that such circulation of Third World workers andtheir families actually generates and intensifies underdevelopment. If the latter viewprevails, then, obviously we are witnessing a major deviation from the course o i themobility transition as previously played out in the advanced nations.

8. The psychological approach: This strategy has enjoyed considerable popularityin the past few years, especially among geographers and sociologists (Ritchey, 1976:397·399; Shaw, 1975: 105·116), but not noticeably among psychologists. The basicpremise is that much of the migrational process - and, incidentally, a number of otherlively questions in social science - can be explained by considering the ways in whichind ividuals cognize their present surroundinqs and other localities that are prospectivecandidates for relocation or visits. The seminal essay which seems to have inauguratedthis line of inquiry is Julian Wolpert's "Behavioral Aspects of the Decision to Migrate"(Woipert, 1965), although there ~re some earlier hints in the literature.

The approach assurnes ta subjective place-utility evaluation by individuels" (Wolpert,1965: 162, my emphasis). When feasible, migration will occur "as an adjustment to en-vironmental stress, "to quote the title of another Wolpert essay (Wolpert, 1966), assurn-ing also some necessarily limited search behavior, bounded rationality, and perhaps apredisposing stage in the life-cycle. Although it is not easy to dispute this thesis, it raisesthe difficult question of how individual personality differences, amidst all the manyother factors to be considered, enter into the migration decision; and thus far the relevantresearch has been minimal.13 We do know that certain persons, who form a small, butsignificant, minority of the total population, seem to be congenitally restless and, asrepeaters, account for a disproportionate share of all migrations (Morrison, 1971). Arelated concept has been stated by Hagerstrand (1957), namely, that a small number of"active migrants" may be the initiators of out-migration streams to distant localities,to be followed later by a larger mass of former neighbors, the "passive migrants" (Hager·strand,1957).

The intractable problem of shihing from individual to mass behavior has beenpartially overcome by charting the collective "mental maps: or place preferences, oflarger groups 0'1 persons who are tested to extract their relative evaluations of certainspecific places (Gould, 1965; Gould and White, 1974). In a related maneuver, the recentsurge of work on 'residential preferences' (Carpenter, 1977; Dejong, 1977a; Dejong andSell, 1977; Dillman and Dobash, 1972) has provided enlightenment as to how Americanscollectively rate the residential desirability of various categories 0'1 cities and places atspecified distances from cities. Of special interest in the American context is the proba-bility of a deep, persistent anti-urban bias (Blackwood and Carpenter, 1977; Hadden andBarton, 1973). All these efforts are of such recent date that there has been little oppor-tunity to attack the crucial question: to what extent are these conscious, or perhapssubconscious, preferences for, or revulsion against, various types of places and the setof perceived regions of this country translated into actual movement?

131n a tangential approach to the problem, the correlation at the state level of rnigration al data withmembership in se lecred voluntary associations and readership of special-inter est magazines, I havediscerned strong hints of some relationships between certain personality types and chronic propensi-tv to migrate and its reverse (Zelinsky, t974). On a quite different scale, Leiker (1976) indicatessicnif icant psychologioal differences among a small sample of Kansas out-rnicr ants who selectedalterna1ive rnetr opotitan destinations,

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Two considerable problems must be overcome before one can subscribe who lrheartedly tc this approach. First, there is the question of aggregation, or scale, Caenough information be derived from a relatively small sample of individuals to dra\sound inferences about large population movement? Ane findi ngs at one social or are,level applicable to another level? Closely related is the question of whether individu:attitudes and motivations have much meaning in trying to understand essentially soci,phenomena involving complex interactions among numerous groups and individual:Second, assuming that the psychological approach can be made to work for the cortemporary period, how can it be applied to earlier eras? Documentary evidence is! ikelto be of minimal utility.

Obviously, the psychological approach holds much promise; but: it is equally plai.that, as is the case for all the other strategies under discussion, it can provide only onportion of the needed total theoretical structure. The last of the strategies to be corside red does at least aspire to that ambitious prospect.

9. The system approach: General systems theory has gained great favor recentlin several sectors of social science, so that its suggested application to migration studcomes as no surprise (Mabogunje, 1970; Wolpert, 1966). In a similar vein, Gade (1970has proposed 'a general human spatial interaction theory' to be developed and exploiteby geographers that seems close in spirit to the systems approach. Unfortunately, linlseems to have been actually done beyond such programmatic statements; and the claimby geographers to a special competence in approaching the world holistically, whi:often announced, have yet to be thoroughly confirmed in practice.

In abstract terms, the systems approach is appealing, since it provides for the inteaction of all the known, and yet-to-be-discovereri, variables involved in migration ph!nomena, including the flow of information. Yet it will not meet the criteria set fonan ideal theory, for it remains a sophisticated descriptive method, as essentially mecharical one that allows for a near-infinirv of interrelationships, but which cannot reallgenerate explanations for the origin, existence, nature, and dynamics of this web ocauses and effects.

THE IDEAL MIGRATION THEORY SPECIFIED

So much, then, for a cursory review of the. principal theoretical approaches ("idelloqies" might be a more accurate term) being used by laborers in the migration vineyan:All suffer from one or several fundamental shortcomings in accounting for even tl.traditional, 'normal' phenomena of migration. They are even more deficient in copir.with the challenges of the turnaround or the peculiarities 'of present-day migration ithe Third World. But let us now consider as specifically as possible what a truly idetheory of migration must embrace.

At the core of my argument lurks a profound paradox: teat we must strive viooously toward an impossible goal. Now that the early enthusiasm for logical posit ivisin the social science has weakened, most of us realize that the inherent nature of hum,beings and human society rules out the possibility of any rigorous theory, large or srna:that fully and accurately describes and explains, much less predicts, any significant pha:of real,world human activity (Graham, 1976). Perhaps it is the realization, subcoriscioi

or otherwise, of the essential untidiness of humankind's affairs that has made demo-graphers 14 so wa ry of grand theory (Heberle, 1955; Kubat, 1976; Vance, i952).

At the same time, it is difficult not to recognize important similarities, regularities,and at least panial recurrences of human phenomena among different communities invarious places ard eras that cry out for some theoretical attention, It will be many years,if eyer, before debate is ended on the proper fonm, possibilities, and limitations of socialtheory and how it should deviate from theory in the physical and bilogical sciences; butclearly, in the meantime, in demography as in other social sciences, it is both possibleand desirable to formulate stronger generalizations that somehow take into account thevolatil ity and chanciness of human deeds along with certain lawlike relationships andthe deeper currents of social change.

Fertility and Migration: Two Very Different Sets of Challenges: An enormousamount of attention has been devoted to measuring and analyzing fertility phenomena,along with the related matters of population size, age and sex structure, and the dynamicsthereof. The result has been considerable progress and methodological refinement, atleast in short-ra'rqe analyses of empirical data and in various abstract formulations, butno end of further analytical questions. To continue in a paradoxical vein, however, therehas been much less effort expended on migration topics; but, as I hope to demonstrateshortly, the term 'migration" represents a much more complex set of phenomena than issubsumed under the term "fertility," so that we can expect enormous difficulties ifstudents of migration are ever to overtake and surpass the students of fertility in theirtechnical achievements.

To specify the differences between the two sets of phenomena:- It is fairly ~mple to define a birth, or a death for that matter: but whether or not a

person has migrated depends on the specification of the distance and du ration of theact, and perhaps also such additional elements among others as intent, volition, func-tion, and social consequences. All these items can be defined any number of ways -and quite arbitrarily. One man's migrant may be another's nonmigrant; an infant is aninfant.

- The extent of frequency of migration is immensely more sensitive to scale, be itspatial, temporal, social, political, or whatever, than is the case for fertility. This is notto deny some degree of scale-sensitivity in the measurement of the latter. but only toassert a much lower order of magnitude. When it comes to the spatial aspect of rn iqra-tion, such scale-dependence is recognized in the conventional categories of inter-national, internal, and intra-urban migration, each of which is usually treated quiteindependen:ly ofthe others.

- One encounters a much greater quantitative range, as well as qualitative variety, inmigration rates than is true for fertility. Moreover, negative rates are as frequent aspositive ones, whereas negative fertility (or mortality) rates boggle the mind.

- Although migrational flows tend to be inertial, like fertility patterns. wide fluctuationsin fates call occur abruptly; and occasionally sudden basic alterations in pattern are

14 Along with most historians and. during the second quarter of this century at least, most humange09r aphers, On the other hand. an excessive preoccupation with theory by most economists hasdone a cer ta'n vio lence to real ity.

observed. In contrast, fertility rates tend to change relatively slowly, as well 2S wit hi,rather narrow limits.' 5

- All manner of human beings can migrate repeatedly any number of times in all sortof ways with hardly any effective upward limit, whereas each of us dies only onceand giving birth is an act for which mly a minority of a population is eligible and theronly under constraints of number and frequencvset by strong biological aid sociafactors. This fact, in tum, implies considerable perplexity for the student of migrationin deciding whom to observe, where, how, and over what spans of time; and, of coursethe devising of appropriate indices to measure migration is inherently difficult, probably much more so, in theory, if not in practice, than is the case for fertility.

- Although it is not entirely absent, the biological factor is much less significant in th.study of migration than for fertility. In its place, there is the human will, expresserindividually or collectively, as the dominant force and a much less predictable 0measurable one than the biological.

- All in all, then. whether performed singly or in groups, migration is inescapably;social act, with all the potential for complexity, opacity, and fickleness that that facimplies, to a much greater degree than is true for fertility events. This means themigration is much more place-, time-, and cu lture-specific than most other dem 0graphic phenomena (Shaw, 1975: 36-37), and more sensitive to technological chang,and political policy. It is also more responsive to unique events, including catastrophesboth natural and man-made; and it is also more closely related, directly or indirectlyto the habitat, natural and man-made.

- Finally, the study of migration has been taken up by several disciplines, notab l.sociology. economics, statistics; and geography; but each has tended to pursue analysis in its own manner relatively independent of the others. In contrast, the varioudisciplines investigating fertility topics - principally medical science, sociology, eccnomics, statistics, and psychology - have managed to coordinate their attack togreater degree, even though disciplinary differences do persist.

Toward a More Meaningful Definition of Migration: Giver: all these consideration:i.e., those that are mainly intrinsic to the nature of migration (with the exception of thlast), one can understand why progress in defining, describing, explaining, and theorizinabout migration has been slower than it ought to be, and why it will continue to be slo,and difficult. Butthere are other obstacles essentially intellectual or institutional in naturthat should be recognized, and, once having been recognized, may conceivably be corrected and overcome.

First, there has been undue caution and opportunism in recognizing and defininmigration phenomena. At the simplest level, this has meant uncritical reliance on effie.decisions and information. Thus in the U.S, we tend to accept the intercensal decade 0some other arbitrary time period set by the Bureau of the Census or other govemment;agency in deciding whether a person has migrated, or how many have done so, evethough it is obvious that migrations do not respect official calendars. Longitudinal Survevs have been making headway, but only slowly and sporadically. As-a result, the actu.number of movements is grossly undercounted and their character seriously distorts

15 However, when fertilitY rates do change unexpectedly, as happened during the "baby boom" inmediately after World War II or the decline that set in circa 1960 in most advanced countries, ir.result is paradigm shock. In fact, it will be many years before the theoetical issues brought to lig~by these unpredicted events are senled.

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throu gh dependence on data for conventional intervals. Similarly, much valuable inter-rnation is missed by defining migrants as only those persons who within certain specifiedperiods cross certain political boundaries or censally defined lines, the location of whichmay be totally irrelevant demographically; and occasionally the re;~:·..s are downrightludicrous. (Someone who moves from Alaska to Hawaii, perhaps the two most dissimilarstates in terms of physical and social environment, remains within the same Census Divi-sion, while the person who moves a couple of miles across the Mississippi from Minnesotainto a very similar habitat in Wisconsin is considered an inter-divisional migrant !) Thehazards in accepting convenient data are greater in migration work than for the studentof fertility or most other demographic items. If all population scholars need to pause andthink carefully before accepting various territorial categories, e.s., metropolitan and non-metropolitan; rural and urban; incorporated areas vs. unincorporated; urbanized areas vs,residual territory, the need is particularly urgent for the student of migration.

Several additional problems have confounded the search for an optimal definitionof mi~ation and for truly adequate indices for measuring it. Migration occurs in multipledimensions of both space and time - distance and direction in the case of the former,and various recurrent, or partially recurrent, cycles and varieties of time other thansimple clock-time in the case of the latter. One must also take into account a number ofpsychological, social, and demographic attributes in viewing migrants or the migrationalprocess. And there is the etemally intractable problem of viewing migration simultane-ously as process and structure, of looking at a system of flows and counter-flows andalso at a group of people in transit, as well as stavers. and of bringing together sources,destinations, migrationa I streams, causes, and effects into some single conceptual frame-

work.Admittedly, specifying appropriate spatial and temporal dimensions is not easy

and the procurement of adequate data is even more difficult. but these accomplishmentsare technically, if not always financially, feasible. Where continuous population registersdo not exist, it is quite practical to carry on detailed surveys of the migration history ofsample populations, and perhaps to do them longitudinally, along the same lines thatimportant fertility data have been collected. The adoption of geocoding for individualhousehold locations, an idea initiated in Sweden, makes it possible to devise study areasof any size or shape for the entire censally enumerated population and to calcu late pre-cise distances be ween successive residences.

What I am advocating is, however, much more fundamental than the mere irnprov-ement of the data base or establishment of more realistic sets of statistical areas, and anidea which many of my readers will strongly resist. It is the realization that migration, asconventionallY _ and usually crudely - defined, is only a rather arbitrary slice of a muchlarger entity, namely, territorial mobility of every scale and description. Thus I wish toargue that the population scholar must consider all manner of travel under the categoryof territorial mobility: residential shifts, whether local or long-distance; daily and weeklycommuting; recreational travel; business and shopping trips; seasonal labor migration;student and military travel; religious pilgrimages; forced transfers of convicts and slaves;nomadic wanderings; social visits; and so on down a lengthy list of human movements.

Although it is convenient for many purposes to mark off certain segments of whatis in actuality a seamless, if somewhat wrinkled, continuum, there are no absolutely clean'breaks: natu ral or man-made, in the spatia-temporal spectrum of mobility. For exam-ple, I no longer believe we can in all cases meaningtully discriminate between local movesand "genuine migration" on the basis that the latter means a decisive rupture in social

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relationships. Propinquity need not create social contact, nor is it necessary for its pre-servation. 1 6

Ample evidence exists that friends and kinfolk who wish to keep up steady contactover long distances after migratory shifts manage to find the means to do just that.Similarly, the categorical distinction between international and internal migration, whichis certainly of great importance in most instances, is .not universally valid. Residentialshifts and labor commuting across some international boundaries may be less difficultor consequential in social and economic terms than movements within the indiviciJalnations. One has only to consider Tropical Africa. And if credence can be given somecommentators in the current uproar over illicit movements between Mexico and theUnited States, a good many hundreds of thousands of persons are engaged in a complexarray of trips that, in the aggregate, closely resemble the flow of internal mig-ants be-ween the American South and Northeast or between Puerto Rico and the U.S. main-land. In any case, given the increasing internationalization of the world's economy,various regional consortia for economic and social purposes, and the vigorous circula-tion of capital, talent, tourists, commodities, and information among so many nations,the nature of the distinction between internal and international migrations may bechanging. The same mode of reasoning applies in attempts to segregate "genuine rniqra-tions" from more ephemeral movements on the basis of duration, i.e., the penmanen1vs. the temporary. There are simply no loqical cut-off points in the progression fromthe briefest kind of jaunt, measured in minutes or hours, to the settling down at a newlocation that lasts for decades." 7 Lest I be misunderstood, this is not a plea for a specificnew typology of migration. The intent is to induce the sort of rethinking of fundarneotalsthat may lead to superior typologies and other dividends.

The argument does not stop here. Territorial mobility in all its forms, magnitudes,durations, and recurrent patterns, if any, is only a sinq le aspect or dimension of thailarger many-dimensional phenomenon that embraces all varieties of mobility. Theseinclude, inter alia, movements through social space, cultural space, and economic spacr(including the occupational ladder and income brackets) and, of evergrowing significance.the transmission of information from place to place. Clearly, just as various forms 0;territorial mobility are related and partially interchangeable, e.q., labor commuting irlieu of residential shifts, there are also critical, intimate connections between territor iaand nonterritorial forms of mobility that beg for much closer study than they hav.received so far. For example, all too little is known about how travel in whatever formon the one hand, relates to, augments, or substitutes for, some fonnn of comrnuriicati oron the other, or how information can stimulate or stifle movement; but any reasonablr

16 The hackneyed example of lone-term, next-door apartment house dwellers who have never COfT,

rnunicated beyond a nod is still serviceable. But there are also many examples from bus ir-ess an.professional life. My departmental colleaaues and I have worked across a narrow corridor from,group of palynologists for a full decade without establishing any real social or professional com ac:but we Chat almost daily with colleagues in WaShington, Minneapolis, Berkeley, and a half doze;other places.

17 Under a oenuinelv radical definition of mobility, no one _ not even the untorrunate person who,bed-ridden for an entire life1ime - can be classified as a permanent non-migrant. Mobility in thextended sense may be regarded as the passage from a given social condition 10 another signiliC4l"'Iy different one, whether or not that transition involves a new locale. And what transitions are marrneaninqfu: socially and otherwise than those from non-being into being and then back again 10 norbeing that we call birTh and death?

person will concede the existence of interesting connections between the mobility ofhuman beings and the wafting about of messages (Abler, 1977). Moreover, we all realizethat a change in social status or occupation frequently triggers migration, or vice versa.Indeed this truism is the basis for the serious attention recently given the life-cycle as anexplanatory oevice in migrational studies.

If this is a convenient point at which to rest my definitional case, the trail doeslead further. Plainly mobility in all its penmutations is no more than one phase of theeven larger phenomenon of social change. Thus we find that the process of successiveenfoldings - "migration" within total territorial mobility, the latter within mobilityin the broadest sense, then that macro-mobility encapsulated within the immense phe-nomenon of social change - forces us, finally, to confront the unavoidable, ultimatetask: the discovery of a valid general social theory.

Obviously, my position will strike most readers as an extreme, impractical sortof idealism. In rejoinder the most telling point may be that the narrow pragmatism·of traditiona I migration research, a largely a-theoretical praxis that skims lightly overquestions of definition, or avoids the larger implications of the phenomena, no longerworks too well. It may have sufficed in an older, simpler era, but the increasing com-plexity of human movements and the accelerating interplay between spatial mobilityand all manner of other phenomena, social, psychological, technological, environmental,and others, compel us to ponder a deep definition of migration. The difficulties ofgenerating the additional data called for by the suggested definition, or of finding newways to manipulate existinq data, are freely admitted; but the rewards shou Id justifythe effort. But, even in lieu of fresh statistics or novel formulae, I am lobbying for liber-ation from the straitjacket of conventional thoughtvvays, or, to use the oft-quoted Tho-mas Kuhn's pregnant term, for a 'gesalt switch.'

After the assimilation of Franklin's paradigm, the electrician looking at a Leyden jar saw some-thing different from what he had seen before. The device had become a condenser, for whichneither the jar shape nor glass was required ... Lavoisier ... saw oxygen where Priestley has seendcphlogistated air and where others had seen nothing at all.

(Kuhn, 1962: 117)

Perhaps if we look at our migration data through new mental spectacles, we may besurprised at what we find.

Other Conceptual Difficulties in Migration Research: If a major reason for theweakness of migration theory and praxis has been a superficial, incomplete definitionof the subject matter, there are certainly others. Perhaps the most obvious is the per-sistence of many inadequacies, both quantitative and qualitative, in the available datain nearly every nation; but there have been notable improvements and even more are inprospect If there has been rather less serious interest in analytical methods by studentsof migration than has been displayed by analysts of fertility and some other demographictopics, aga in solid progress has been made in recent years (Bogue, 1959: 485·509; Shryockand Siegel, 1971: 616-672). These advantages are heartening to the theorist because, asis true for all scientific endeavors, the three modes of activity - collecting evidence inlaboratory or field, inventing and applying better analytical tools, and building strongertheories - are tightly interdependent. You cannot go far in any of these directionswithout progress in the others.

But, as already hinted, the more basic explanation for the unsatisfactory status ofmigrational work lies in the realm of the conceptual and the social-psychological (Elizaga,1972: 121-127; Goldstein, 1976; Jackson, 1969: 3-6; Mangalam, 1968: 3-8; Mangalam

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and Schwartzwefler, 1969, 1970). The theorists have not striven for sufficient rigor intheir formulations, nor have they been too explicit in describing the range or social orhistorical scope of their ideas. In part this is simply the familiar inertia of antiquatedideas.

Among the greatest faults of which we are guilry in migration research is being locked into thesame kinds of questions related to the same concepts of migration that were developed yearsago for a particular setting at a particular time. This may well help to explain why we are sosurprised at what is happening in the more developed world; it may go far in explaining whywe know so little about population movements elsewhere.

(Goldstein, 1976: 428)

To be more specific, most migration research by American students (and by theirEuropean counterparts as well) has been limited to their own society or similar ones tothe exclusion of Third World experiences. This ethnocentrism, largely unconscious,would be less serious if it concerned only the processing of empirical data, but it hasextended into the theoretical arena as well. In much the same way, theoretical effortshave tended to be a-historical, set as they are in some presumably timeless cosmos. Theresult, then, has been a preoccupation with the here and now, and often a pretty narrownow. There is more than one reason to broaden the geographical and historical bounds ofthe migration enterprise. Quite apart from the fact that other eras and other cornrnu-nities may be inherently interesting, our view of our own population and our times _ andthe near future - will be seriously distOrted if we are not equipped with a theory thatembraces a broad range of societies and periods, Our parochial self-interest compels usto seek intellectual catholicity.18

Another serious weakness in migration scholarship has been the relative isolation ofone disciplinary group from another, none with much interest in evolving compatiblestrategies for attacking questions of mutual interest (Mangalam, 1968: 6). Anotherhindrance, but one more difficult to document, are the biases introduced, probablyunwiningly, by the personal and class interests of the analysts and the clients to whomtheir migrational activities are directed (Cowgill, 1963). This, of course, is a problemendemic to all social science research.

The most grievous lapse, however, has been a general failure to ground migrationwork in any basic, comprehensive social theory, or even to try seriously. What we haveinstead is a series of ad hoc generalizations or, at best, midd Ie-range theories that floatwithin an intellectual limbo. For once, the blame can be shared with nondemographers.The grand theorists of social science - and their locus, quite properly, lies in sociologyand anthropology - have accorded population items little or no space in their schemeof things. Even among the major architects of economic thought, population is a pe-ripheral issue, something usually taken for granted rather than an integral ponion oftheir philosophic edifice. It is difficult to see how this situation can persist much longer.

It is impossible to function as a scholar of any sort, or even a rank-and-the humanbeing for that matter, without carrying in one's head a map of social reality, a kind ofmega-theory, normally buried deep within the subconscious. In the case of Westerndemography, there has been a set of implicit assumptions _ which in lieu of a betterlabel might be called liberalism - the remnants of a weltanschauung clearly articulateda century ago by such major thinkers as Mill and Spencer. Insofar as those postulates

18 A parallel imperative operates in environmental studies. Underslanding and solving the many ecological dilemmas that are making life difficult, we now realize, compel, us to adopt the perspecti'Jesof several scientific disciplines and to consider large stretches of time and territory.

,0

are expressed in the demographic transition and its correlates (probably our closestapproach to grand theory in population studies, I must repeat), we find enough dis-junction between theo ry and reality to force us to consider alternate starting points in

basic social theory.' 9

BUILDING STRONGER THEORY: WHAT IS NEEDED?

What must we look for in the ideal population theory? Before itemizing its charac-teristics, a brief recapitulation of ground already traversed may be helpful:

1. Among all the major classes of demographic phenomena, including fertility,none is inherently more. complex and challenging than is the set of events we call "rni-

qratiori."

2. For this and other reasons, current migration theory is unable to cope with thescholarly and practical tasks at hand - or in near prospect - for the population scientist.The general consternation created by the recent turnaround in migration patterns incertain advanced nations offers vivid testimony to this fact.

3. Within the realm of social science, a perfect or even near perfect theory is alogical impossibility; but better theories are both feasible and necessary for the student

of migration.

4. The fundamental diHiculty in arriving at robust migration theory has been lessa matter of adequate data or suitable methods of analysis, critical though such resourcesmay be, than a case of conceptual myopia.

5. k, major a conceptual shortcoming as any has been the failure to define migrationrealistically. fully, and properly, resting content instead with makeshift formulae thatfollow paths of least resistance among oHicial designations of areas, periods, and other

variables.

Several of the positive attributes of the improved theory based upon the enriched,expanded definition of migration advocated here have already been hinted at; but, again,an orderly list, along with a few additions, may prove useful:

1. The desired theory will apply to all levels along the territorial, temporal, social,and other relevant scales of rnobilitv from the most local and ephemeral up through themost durable and intercontinental levels, and it will deal explicitly with questions of

scale.

19 S1rangely enough, the one obvious candidate. Marxism, a school of thought which pur;:>oru to offerinsights into all facets of human existence (although it has never quite gonen its theoretical acttogether!. has been interested only tangentially in questions of migration (Richmond and Verma,1978: 5.10), Nikolinakos (1975) indicates some of the possibilities, if only with respect to a singlecon1emporary phase of migration. Further Marxist efforts should prove stimu lating, The exampleof Malthus indicates the immensity of the scholarly dividends to be gained from bold theory, what-

ever the ultimate judgment of its correC1ness.

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2. It will also operate at approximately the same level of effectiveness among allsocieties, cultures, and historical periods; and it would take into account the evolutionaryprocesses of human society. .

3. Within a given population, the theory will account for extreme, aberrant behavioras well as the more numerous aggregation of "normal" events, and will also accommodateunique events, including human and natural catastrophes. Indeed the abnormal occur-rence would provide a rigorous test of the soundness of the theory.20

4. The theory will allow for the interrelationships among all forms of spatial rnobil-itv, and also between the various aspects of spatial mobility and other forms of spatialinteraction (Gade, 1970) and, finally, between this extended category of spatial phe-nomena on the one hand and various forms of nonspatial mobility on the other.

5, It will be closely integrated with other theories covering fertility and other majordemographic phenomena,

6. It will be firmly linked to a valid general social theory.

7. This theory will strive to be comprehensive, Thus it will apply to all phases ofspatial mobility, and will explain, for example, not only primary flows and various rni-gration differentials but also counter-streams return migration, nonrniqration (Uhlen-berg, 1973)' periodicities and other temporal patternings, and all the other principalforms of spatial mobility and their important attributes.

8. And, finally, such a theory will be of some utility in anticipating (though notnecessarily predicting) possible or probable future developments,

A heroic shoppinq-Iist no doubt, but the limited aspirations of the past have notyielded inspiring results.

If any final word is needed, it is simply this: If we seek to escape our theoreticalimpasse in migration studies, methodological gimmickry and the piling up of biggerand better masses of data will not do. What we really need are new ways of thinkingabout the migrant and socierv.

20 The tru e test of a scientific theory or the larger paradigm in which it is imbedded is not its capacity10 explain rcn-of.the mill, ordinary phenomena, since i1 is conceivable that several alternative theoriesor models would suffice for that purpose, but rather whether it can furnish good scen ar ios for theExtraordinary event. In this respect, the social scientist should emulate his coJleagues in the physicalsciences; acceptino the first model that explains 80 or gO percent of the variance in a set of social dataimplies intetlectual lassitude. Witness, for example, the demise of Euclidean geometry, Newtorriancelestial mechanics, 19th Century atomic physics, or pre.Wegenerian geophysics (Kuhn, 1972). Thesame kind of chaHenge to conventional migration theory is forcefully posed by runaways, hobos,hermits, and nomadic members of the counterculture (Eichenbaum, 1970, 1975).

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2 MODERNIZATION, MIGRATION, AND URBANIZATION

Calvin Go ldsche ider 1

INTRODUCTION

Analysis of the interrelationships among migration, urbanization, and modernizationfocuses on one of the dominant social transformations that has occurred in world history- the transition toward urbanized societies. The major transformation of places and thepeople within them mat is associated with the urban revolution evolved in the 19th and20th centuries: While the 19th century may be viewed as the era of urban growth and theemergence of large industrial cities, the 20th century may be characterized as the periodwhen urbanized societies evolved. These new,largely urban societies and the far larger num-ber of still overwhelmingly rural societies are major contrasting features of the co ntemporaryworld scene. For most, if not all, of the nations of the world, urbanization levels haveincreased during the last several decades and are like Iy to continue increasing in the nearfuture.

Most important from an analytic perspective is the fact that urbanized and rura!izedsocieties are associated with different forms of social organization and demographicprocesses. As a result, the transformation of places and the people within them is notonly amenable to comparative-historical analysis but also represents one of the masterthemes linking population and modernization processes. With justification, urbanizationhas often been equated with the modernization and industrialization of Westem nations andhas been identified as one of the major dimensions of population growth and change.

It is within urbanized societies and, more particularly, within the urban places ofurbanized societies that the transformation associated with modernization has been mostaccentuated. Structural differentiation, specialization, economic growth, expansion ofsocioeconomic opportunities, changing family patterns and values, and institutionalizedcontinuous change have been conspicuous features of the major cities in urbanized socie-ty. No less important is the fact that the demographic processes of fertility, mortality,and migration have been most transformed in these same urban places.

Given these overriding empirical realities, it is not at all surprising that urbanizationhas been conceptualized theoretically as an integral process of modernization and isoften used as an indicator of the degree of societal modernity and popu lation trans-formation. Nevertheless, several major distortions have characterized the analysis ofthe interrelationships between modernization, urbanization, and population-processes :l . While urbanization and urban-metropolitan growth have been major functional re-

quirements of modernization and industrialization, the reverse has not necessarily

I The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.