Risky journeys – Risk and decision‐making among potential irregular migrants in Senegal and Guinea

Abstract

In response to well‐documented harms inflicted on irregular migrants attempting to travel from West Africa to Europe, various actors have scaled up information interventions to counter misinformation by smuggling networks and facilitate safe migration decisions. Many interventions include information on the potential dangers involved in migration. However, there is a striking lack of empirical evidence assessing a key assumption of campaign effectiveness, that is the relationship between risk perceptions and the decision to migrate irregularly. This study contributes an empirical account based on two independently collected surveys in Senegal and Guinea. Consistent with rational choice theories on migration decisions under uncertainty, the results suggest that higher risk perceptions are consistently and strongly associated with reduced intentions to migrate irregularly. Yet, the explanatory power of risk perceptions depends on context and is generally less important than structural and socio‐economic factors.

How Migrant Resource Centres affect migration decisions: Quasi‐experimental evidence from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq and Pakistan

“…These findings have implications for our understanding of how the decision to migrate is made, what interventions are effective and why -a question of both social scientific interest and substantive, and even mortal, policy importance, as well as a value-for-money matter. They suggest that new information from a reliable source presented in an interactive, personalised manner has dramatic effects on the individuals' level of awareness of issues and migration decision-making, building on and complimenting recent findings that focused on the awareness-raising effects of edutainment interventions (Bia-Zafinikamia et al, 2020;Tjaden, 2022;Tjaden & Dunsch, 2021;Tjaden & Gninafon, 2022).…”

“…However, Tjaden (2022) emphasises that, although risks -and the awareness thereof -affects migration decisions, they have far weaker predictive power than broader structural factors, measured as village fixed effects; though it is worth remembering that risk awareness remains distinct from information. The effects of such campaigns are thus likely to be relatively marginal unless designed to interact with context factors.…”

“…Exposing would‐be migrants to information on the chances of dying en route and of obtaining a legal residence permit have been shown to affect self‐reported willingness to migrate in the Gambia, with follow‐up research a year later showing that actual migratory behaviour correlates strongly with self‐reported intention (Bah & Batista, 2018), with similar results in Nepal when migrants were provided with information on deaths whilst migrating and wages for emigrants (Shrestha, 2020) or according to actual variation in the reported death rate of migrants by district (Shrestha, 2019). However, Tjaden (2022) emphasises that, although risks – and the awareness thereof – affects migration decisions, they have far weaker predictive power than broader structural factors, measured as village fixed effects; though it is worth remembering that risk awareness remains distinct from information. The effects of such campaigns are thus likely to be relatively marginal unless designed to interact with context factors.…”

Spiritual practices predict migration behavior

“…Social scientists studying migration have long pointed to risk and uncertainty as important factors characterizing migration decision-making [8][9][10][11][12] . However, existing migration theories trying to explain why some people migrate while others stay, have largely focused on socioeconomic and structural factors 13,14 .…”

“…From a methodological point of view, this study allows for a rare analysis of actual migration behavior rather than relying solely on intentions and/or plans, as is common in recent empirical studies on risk perceptions and (irregular) migration 12 . This is made possible due to the large sample size and the study's three wave panel structure, where respondents were followed over the course of almost a year.…”