Food, Agriculture, and Development in the Pacific Basin: Prospects for International Collaboration in a Dynamic Economy by G Edward Schuh

Author:G Edward Schuh [Schuh, G Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Political Science, World, Asian, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780367006051
Google: F0yfDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49601383
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Migration Within the Pacific Basin

An account of the statistics describing Pacific Basin immigration to the United States is most meaningful within some theoretical context. This task is best accomplished by first suggesting a theory based on (unobservable) motivations, and then deriving hypotheses that are testable using the facts. Unfortunately, the availability of "facts" will usually circumscribe the ability to follow through with the testing procedure. The descriptive approach we follow below does not constitute a rigorous check of economic theory, but may indicate a fruitful path for the design and implementation of statistical tests.

Economic theory suggests that the pursuit of an increase in material well-being will be paramount in the decision to migrate. For most people, the ability to achieve a higher standard of living depends primarily on labor market involvement. Thus, people would be motivated to migrate so that they may become affiliated with a more attractive labor market—one that offers relatively high rates of remuneration along with opportunities for career advancement. If international migration is motivated by the desire for economic advancement through the labor market, then we can expect to see several patterns take shape as we examine the data on immigration. Limitations imposed by the level of detail given in the data will be noted as they become apparent.

One pattern that should manifest itself if our economic theory is accurate is that countries boasting relatively high wages and a healthy rate of economic ngrowth will be net receivers of migrants, and low-wage, slow-growth countries will be net suppliers. We have already mentioned that problems of data availability and reliability make it difficult to gauge this issue for all Pacific Basin migration with precision. Furthermore, the constraints imposed by immigration laws prevent economic incentives from freely working themselves out. However, the fact that the countries listed as primary destinations of emigrants within the Pacific Basin, namely Japan and the United States, are relatively rich and developed does not negate the view that the search for economic betterment in the labor market is a probable motivation for migration. Moreover, with the exception of Indonesia, the relatively poor Eastern hemisphere countries have been sending increasing numbers of immigrants since the 1965 changes in U.S. law, whereas flows from Japan and Oceania have remained nearly constant since 1960.5 The picture for American countries is less clear. Mexico is now by far the largest Western hemisphere supplier of immigrants to the United States, but the level of Canadian immigration has plummeted from its peak levels of the unrestricted mid-1960s. A deeper exploration of the issues is necessary to see what is going on in this area.

A second pattern to look for has to do with labor-force participation rates. If labor-force attachment is important, we would expect the percentage of the migrating population that is economically active to be greater than the same measure for the source population. A breakdown of labor-force participation rates by age groups would be best for evaluating this difference. Unfortunately, U.S. immigration data do not provide us with that much information.

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