Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies
Volume 8, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 316-338

Mechanisms of migration: Poverty and social instability in the postwar expansion of central American migration to the United States (Article)

Alisa G.*
  • a Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University, 204 Waters Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, United States

Abstract

How does migration affect the conditions in which Central Americans live and decide whether to migrate? Network theories have dominated explanations of exponentially growing migratory flows. These theories have inspired many studies on mechanisms of perpetuated migration that tend to suggest such migration can occur without any connection to poverty in sending conditions. However, fieldwork conducted in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Southern California reveals several mechanisms linking complex changes in sending conditions with Central Americans' decisions to migrate over time. This article emphasizes how deteriorating local conditions, to some degree an effect of prior migration itself, are crucial to Central Americans' decisions to migrate. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Author Keywords

Development Cumulative causation in migration Local conditions Central America-U.S. migration

Index Keywords

international migration El Salvador [Central America] Guatemala [Central America] migration determinant post-war Nicaragua poverty determinant population migration United States
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-77956044565&doi=10.1080%2f15562948.2010.501295&partnerID=40&md5=23bbbefb1d6d7c14b7d5c410a9994e17
DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2010.501295
ISSN: 15562948
Cited by: 4
Original Language: English