Step migration

Step migration was found by Paul to be used by domestic Filipino workers in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore to gain migrant capital and work their way up a destination hierarchy of countries to gain legal entry into their ultimate preferred destinations, usually in the West.[5] Step migration is a popular phenomenon among the developing world as it is a strategy to overcome barriers to migration.[5] According to Paul, it is a necessary pattern as many of these migrants have low-capital and face high cost barriers and immigration policy restrictions which prevent them from migrating to their preferred destinations.[5] Step migration allows migrants to increase the likelihood of reaching the West by undertaking multistage migration often starting with low-wage countries with low immigration restrictions in the Middle East and working their way through multiple countries toward their ultimate destination.[5] Through this process, they increase their savings, gain work experience and educational qualifications which allow them to qualify for jobs in their preferred destination countries.[5] Migrant capital is used to accumulate cultural, financial and social capital to move on to preferred destinations, and these form the reasons given by scholars as to what motivates migration.[13]

Multinational mobility of migrant workers is increasingly popular in the global marketplace as migrants follow an upward pattern of destination hierarchies based on opportunities.[14] Paul sees step-wise international labour migrants as those workers who take incremental steps in a hierarchy of labour migrations from country to country and being able to leverage resources and experience gained.[14] The workers Paul interviewed all started out with menial jobs in their home countries such as working in fast food, and then leaving their home country to become maids in Western countries.[14] However, Western countries are not easily accessible from countries such as the Philippines and so migrants often go through an intermediary country such as Hong Kong which has high wage rates for migrant domestic workers and better labour protections than most Asian countries.[14] The time in an intermediary country allows migrants to gain migrant capital, work experience, and good job references, which enable further migration to a Western country.[14] After working for the required number of years in Western countries, migrants can apply for permanent residency and the process of step migration is complete.[14]

Step migration is seen as a highly popular migration pattern and part of a wider circulatory transnational migratory movement which describes the migration route of Chinese immigrants.[15] Step migration of Chinese migrants can be seen through New Zealand as a case study.[8] Scholars have identified a pattern in which Chinese Migrants use New Zealand as a step destination toward their preferred destination of Australia.[8] The aim found behind this particular pattern of step migration from New Zealand to Australia is that moving to New Zealand first helps these migrants overcome structural obstacles of migrating to Australia.[8] There has been an increase in New Zealand departures to Australia due to better employment and lifestyle reasons.[16] Historically, due to events like the Chinese being subject to military defeats by the Western world, the Chinese regard immigration to Western countries as a move toward personal advancement that could only be undertaken by those who possess a significant amount of human and cultural capital.[8] By emigrating first to New Zealand and gaining permanent residence or citizenship, this allows migrants to gain a safeguard or a step toward another destination with better financial and social prospects, such as Australia.[8] There has been a 20 percent increase in migrants who originally moved to New Zealand to live, departing New Zealand and migrating elsewhere.[16]

Ravenstein's step migration hypothesis was found to exist among the Inupiat peoples in Arctic Alaska according to scholars evaluating census data and logit models.[4] Arctic Alaska is also an example of a rural and remote location in the United States where migrants move in and out of.[9] Berman, Huskey and Howe discovered that step migration occurred both upward and downward in an urban and rural hierarchy.[4] Step migration is hierarchical in Alaska as people move from rural villages to regional centres.[9]

The key factors identified by scholars in broader migration literature influencing migration decisions are networks such as family, friends, and community ties.[4] Migrants are said to choose to move because of household and personal characteristics and technological changes, which have significantly impacted migration patterns, as the bridge between rural and urban areas can be bridged over networks of communication.[4] Migration can also be impacted by the environment since are undertaking step migration towards urban cities because of coastal erosion in the Arctic, which has increased the risk of storms to rural and coastal villages.[4] According to Berman, Huskey and Howe, step migration is more likely to occur if family and friends are concentrated in an area, and the quality of information about a place declines with distance.[4]

The enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 was said to have resulted in a multistage nature of migration to the new member countries of the EU.[10] Kraler and Iglicka analysed the migration step migration pattern from Poland to the new members of Germany, and the United Kingdom.[10] The first stage was the migratory labour movement from Ukraine, a neighbouring country of the EU, to Poland and then from Poland to the UK and Germany.[10] The scholars see the motivation behind multistage migration as being both economic and institutional.[10] Ukrainians migrating to Poland do so due to the growing GDP per person of those employed in Poland.[10] At the second stage of migration, those who migrated from Poland to Germany did so due to its proximity, the unemployment level in Poland and the level of GDP per capita in Germany.[10] They conclude that the multistage nature of migration seen in the Ukrainian migration to Poland, then migration to Germany and the UK occurred due to the EU enlargement, the free movement of labour and economic factors.[10]

During the mid-1860s to 1870s, congress implemented various contributions to reconstruct the South prior to the Civil War. This was in an effort to rebuild the unification of an irregular segregated society.[17] After the former slaves became free following the Emancipation Proclamation many ventured up towards the Lower Midwest from the South in search of opportunity. Step migration was seen 91.9% of cases of this new migration pre-1890. One reason for this serge in step migration was the lack of Northern newspapers and common illiteracy in the black communities, leading to a reliance on verbal communication to have awareness of prospective destinations.[18] Difficulties in transportation also made a singular journey a difficult task. During the American Civil War many railway systems were destroyed, which left many rebuilding projects to take place. It wasn't until 1890 that the three states of the Lower Midwest had stable connections to the South.[18] The journey to the North was also unmanageable for most in one trip due to poor conditions and high prices. The trip would be about 30 hours sitting on wooden benches with only the food and drink one brought abroad. Instead many African Americans elected to travel via steamboat, which was a cheaper alternative to its railroad counterpart.[18] Even with cheaper prices, many had to work in shipping docks for extended periods of time to accumulate more money to continue on the rest of their journey. Step migration was also more commonplace pre-1890 because of the mass amounts of African Americans heading towards the Lower Midwest compared to later time periods.[18]

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