"The paper examines the usefulness of various theoretical approaches for understanding the causes and consequences of international migration in the 1990s. Extant ideas are considered in three periods, each with its own characteristic approach: the classical, represented by push and pull and assimilation perspectives; the modern, reflecting neo-Marxist and structured inequality perspectives; and emerging patterns in the literature, focusing on multiculturalism, social movements and citizenship." The geographical focus is on Europe and the United States.
In the comparative literature on immigrant integration, Germany and the United States are frequently placed in distinct and opposing regime categories. Using cross-sectional data from the 1997 German SocioEconomic Panel and the 1997 Panel of Income Dynamics, we compare the process of integration of four generational cohorts of Turks in Germany and Mexicans in the United States, focusing on markets, welfare, and culture. The comparative analysis of the data supports Gary Freeman's 'patchwork' hypothesis that integration in Western democracies is happening not monolithically, or in a linear fashion, but rather in the form of irregular patchworks. The specific patchworks revealed by our data include some progress toward integration, in particular in the market sector, as well as stagnation, and perhaps exclusion, in others.
"The paper examines the usefulness of various theoretical approaches for understanding the causes and consequences of international migration in the 1990s. Extant ideas are considered in three periods, each with its own characteristic approach: the classical, represented by push and pull and assimilation perspectives; the modern, reflecting neo-Marxist and structured inequality perspectives; and emerging patterns in the literature, focusing on multiculturalism, social movements and citizenship." The geographical focus is on Europe and the United States.
Migration to Western Europe in the past 20 to 25 years differs substantially in form and consequences from earlier large-scale population movements across national boundaries. The importation of temporary foreign workers on a modest scale—to meet labor shortages in arduous, low-status occupations—rapidly yielded massive political, economic, cultural, and international problems for the countries of in-migration. The temporary sojourn of mostly single males hired for specific jobs has been transmuted into the semi-settled presence of more than 15 million persons, most of whom are culturally very distinct from the host populations and are now dependents of the original migrants. Their protracted presence is explained in part by the economic and political attractiveness of the liberal welfare states, in part by the more limited opportunities in the countries of origin, and in part by the latter countries' policies. The host societies are strained by the new and substantial imported cultural diversity and the emergence of a socioeconomic and political underclass. The political ethos of the host countries and formal agreements with the sending countries preclude involuntary repatriation, and the myth of return associated with the semi-settled condition of the migrants militates against their assimilation. No ready solutions are apparent.
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