While decisions for working overseas are often based on expectations and promises of better jobs, opportunities, economic gains and, eventually, a better future, such assumptions may not always be realized. Focusing on the question of why migrants, despite not realizing their earlier aspirations, continue to remain as migrants rather than return home, this book provides a unified understanding of the rationalization of the migration decision making. It does so by empirically situating the study in the experiences of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

While decisions for working overseas are often based on expectations and promises of better jobs, opportunities, economic gains and, eventually, a better future, such assumptions may not always be realized. Focusing on the question of why migrants, despite not realizing their earlier aspirations, continue to remain as migrants rather than return home, this book provides a unified understanding of the rationalization of the migration decision making. It does so by empirically situating the study in the experiences of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Acquiring information about destinations can be costly for migrants. We model information frictions in the rational inattention framework and obtain a closed-form expression for a migration gravity equation that we bring to the data. The model predicts that ows from countries with a higher cost of information or stronger priors are less responsive to variations in economic conditions at destination, as migrants rationally get less information before deciding where to move. The econometric analysis reveals systematic heterogeneity in the pro-cyclical behavior of migration flows across origins that is consistent with the existence of information frictions.

Migration Decision Making: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Microlevel Studies and Developing Countries discusses several topics, such as systematics review and evaluation of microlevel frameworks and models of the migration decision; applicability of microlevel migration models and framework; and general policy implications of microlevel models and frame works. The opening chapter introduces the main themes and provides an overview of the book. Chapter 2 discusses the motivation for migration, an assessment and a value-expectancy research model, and the next chapter tackles macrolevel influences on the migration decision process. Chapter 4 covers microeconomic approaches to studying migration decisions, while Chapter 5 discusses information, uncertainty, and the microeconomic model of migration decision making. The sixth chapter talks about moving toward a development paradigm of migration, with particular reference to third world countries, and the seventh chapter discusses village-community ties, village norms, and ethnic and social networks. Chapter 8 covers family structure and family strategy in migration decision making, and then Chapter 9 discusses the migration decision-making process, emphasizing some social-psychological considerations. Chapter 10 tackles policy intervention considerations, focusing on the relationship of theoretical models to planning, and Chapter 11 discusses the utility of microlevel approach to migration, using a Philippine perspective. The last chapter is a review of micro migration research in the third world context. This book will be of great interest to sociologists, economists, law makers, and government agencies who are concerned with the implications of migrations.

Examining how changing conditions in the Mediterranean Region have affected the decisions of those considering migrating from Sub-Saharan Africa to or through the Region, this book represents an important and overdue contribution to international policy-making and academic discourse. In current discussions relating to this migration phenomenon, the complexity of individual decision-making is often left unacknowledged, so that subsequent policy responses draw upon simplified models. In this volume, individual decision-making takes central stage by bringing together chapters that demonstrate very different types of decision-making frameworks. In this project, it is highlighted that people move for a variety of reasons such as being affected by conflict and insecurity, by economic pressures, and by desire for other forms of enrichment. Throughout, the book’s contributors find that events in the Mediterranean cannot be considered alone in understanding migration decision-making from Sub-Saharan Africa, but as part of an increasingly complicated global system not encompassed by one simplified theory or by looking at one regional context in isolation. Knowing why individual people are moving and how they decide upon which routes to take can help to ensure policy that promotes safer travel options, or makes genuine alternatives to migration available.