Search results
1 – 10 of over 5000Rabi’u Isah Moh’d and Joseph Boniface Ajefu
Studies on the relationship between migration and health status of individuals most often concentrate on international migrants. In contrast, the purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies on the relationship between migration and health status of individuals most often concentrate on international migrants. In contrast, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between health and internal migration using the first 18 waves of the British Household Survey.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use the 12-version of General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), an indicator of mental health, and physical health indicators as the health variables. This study uses different econometrics estimation methods in modelling the relationship in order to address omitted variable bias as well as unobserved heterogeneity. The econometric estimation methods include Pooled OLS, random effects (RE), fixed effects (FE) and then probit RE. The authors explore the relationship by comparing the health status of movers and non-movers and different types of internal migration such as between local authority districts and between regions.
Findings
The results of this research suggest that there is healthy migrant effect on migration within UK on some indicators of physical health like arm/leg, heart and migraine/headache problems, but not on mental health indicator. And the effects are similar for both males and females. It is advised therefore that the department of health should improve the health of those affected by these ailments so that they can have a chance to move perhaps to better their lots.
Originality/value
This study uses different econometrics estimation methods in modelling the relationship in order to address omitted variable bias as well as unobserved heterogeneity. The econometric estimation methods include Pooled OLS, RE, FE and then probit RE.
Details
Keywords
Jonathan Coope, Andy Barrett, Brian Brown, Mark Crossley, Raghu Raghavan and Muthusamy Sivakami
The purpose of this paper is to provide a narrative review of the literature on mental health resilience and other positive mental health capacities of urban and internal migrants.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a narrative review of the literature on mental health resilience and other positive mental health capacities of urban and internal migrants.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology for this narrative review included a search of articles published up to 2017. The abstracts were screened and relevant articles studied and discussed. Literature on the particular mental health challenges of urban migrants in India was also studied. References found in the literature relating to neurourbanism were also followed up to explore broader historical and conceptual contexts.
Findings
Several key sources and resources for mental health resilience were identified – including familial and community networks and individual hope or optimism. Nevertheless, much of the literature tends to focus at the level of the individual person, even though ecological systems theory would suggest that mental health resilience is better understood as multi-layered, i.e. relevant to, and impacted by, communities and broader societal and environmental contexts.
Originality/value
This paper provides insight into an aspect of migrant mental health that has tended to be overlooked hitherto: the mental health resilience and positive mental health capacities of urban migrants. This is particularly relevant where professional “expert” mental health provision for internal migrant communities is absent or unaffordable. Previous work has tended to focus predominantly on mental health risk factors, despite growing awareness that focusing on risk factors along can lead to an over-reliance on top-down expert-led interventions and overlook positive capacities for mental health that are sometimes possessed by individuals and their communities.
Details
Keywords
Charles Ackah and Denis Medvedev
Using a recently compiled dataset on migration and remittances in Ghana, the purpose of this paper is to estimate the determinants of an individual's likelihood to be an internal…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a recently compiled dataset on migration and remittances in Ghana, the purpose of this paper is to estimate the determinants of an individual's likelihood to be an internal migrant and the relationship between internal migration and welfare.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses treatment regression techniques to assess the characteristics of Ghanaian migrants, the determinants of migration, and its impact on household welfare.
Findings
The paper finds that the likelihood to migrate is determined by a combination of individual (pull) and community‐level (push) characteristics. The probability of migration is higher for younger and more educated individuals, but communities with higher levels of literacy, higher rates of subsidized medical care, and better access to water and sanitation are less likely to produce migrants. It is found that households with migrants tend to be better off than similar households without migrants, even after controlling for the fact that households with migrants are a non‐random sample of Ghanaians. However, the positive relationship is only true for households with at least one migrant in urban areas.
Research limitations/implications
Clearly, if the authors had access to panel data, they would have been able to do something very nice and clean (on both theoretical and econometric grounds).
Originality/value
This paper adds to the Ghana migration literature by offering a novel empirical assessment of the characteristics of Ghanaian migrants, the determinants of migration, and its impact on household welfare by drawing on a recently‐assembled, nationally‐representative sample of Ghanaian households.
Nguyen Quynh Phuong and Sundar Venkatesh
Limited previous studies about Vietnamese returned migrant workers reviewed that a relatively high rate of migrants returned home before their contract ended. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Limited previous studies about Vietnamese returned migrant workers reviewed that a relatively high rate of migrants returned home before their contract ended. This paper aims to explore how the decisions to return were made under social lenses.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses data obtained through in-depth interviews of contract workers who had worked in Taiwan with a focus on Phu Tho province in Vietnam.
Findings
The authors followed O’Reilly’s (2012) adaption of Practice theory in migration research to examine a group of Vietnamese labour migrants returning from Taiwan. Under this theory, external and internal structures are the two divisions of the social environment. The authors identified external structures that might enable or constraint migrant’s mobility. When negotiating internal structures, Vietnamese women might end their contract early in response to family obligations.
Originality/value
The findings provide insights into how women make their decisions when to return, which may contribute to a better understanding of how to assist women engaged in transnational labour migration.
Details
Keywords
Archana Preeti Voola, Subhasis Ray and Ranjit Voola
The purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of social inclusion of vulnerable populations. Employing cross disciplinary literature from marketing and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of social inclusion of vulnerable populations. Employing cross disciplinary literature from marketing and social policy, this paper examines the factors shaping internal migrant workers experience of inclusion and vulnerability in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a review of social inclusion and consumer vulnerability literature to develop a new and innovative conceptual framework which operationalises social inclusion. This framework was then examined using an illustrative case study of internal migrant worker crisis in India. Data for the case were collected from various national and international media, government and non-government reports published in English on the pandemic related migrant crisis in India.
Findings
Access and control over food was fraught with barriers for migrant workers. As the lockdown progressed, access to and control over work opportunities was precarious. Furthermore, the resource-control constraints faced by migrant workers in terms of food, work and transport had a direct impact on their experience of social inclusion. Lastly, the stranded migrant workers found themselves unable to fully participate in economic activities.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge this is the first paper that integrates consumer vulnerability concept, originating in marketing scholarship into the social inclusion framework. This allowed for anchoring the “aspirational goals” of social inclusion into the concrete context of consumers and marketplaces.
Details
Keywords
Bismark Amfo, Vincent Abankwah and Mohammed Tanko
This study investigated consumers' satisfaction with local rice attributes and willingness to pay (WTP) for improvement by internal migrants and natives in urban Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated consumers' satisfaction with local rice attributes and willingness to pay (WTP) for improvement by internal migrants and natives in urban Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary data was sourced from 304 urban consumers and ordered probit regression was employed.
Findings
Urban consumers had higher satisfaction with imported rice attributes than local rice. Consumers were unsatisfied with aroma, availability/accessibility, cleanliness, packaging, grain appearance, measurement standard, and taste of local rice. Moreover, 90% were willing to pay higher prices for local rice with improved attributes and WTP was higher among natives than migrants. Averagely, urban consumers are willing to pay 51% increase in market price of local rice if attributes were improved. Natives, males, educated, high-income, local rice consumption, shopping from supermarkets, trust in certification bodies, and dissatisfaction with local rice attributes boost WTP for improved local rice attributes.
Research limitations/implications
There is a great market potential for local rice with improved attributes. Thus, there should be an improvement in local rice attributes and sold at moderate price and in supermarkets.
Originality/value
We compared consumers' satisfaction and WTP for improved local rice attributes among internal migrants and natives in urban Ghana.
Details
Keywords
Walter R. Erdelen and Jacques G. Richardson
This paper aims to discuss the history of human migration till the present day.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the history of human migration till the present day.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze the human movement from pre-hominid times, forming patterns of existence. Thus, ambient sun and water, weather and climate extremes, shelter, food supply, natural or human-made disasters gave rise to Homo sapiens’ wanderlust.
Findings
Despite obstacles, formidable barriers and even perilous deterrents, the species explored and exploited new soils and waters, whether beneficial or destructive of nature’s ample providence.
Originality/value
The authors treat societal as well as individual action, cultural behavior and the emergence of economic anthropology. Migratory legislation and regulation now risk transformation into resentment and then xenophobia.
Details
Keywords
Stanley Kojo Dary and Yazidu Ustarz
The paper examines the effect of internal remittances on the employment choices of household heads in rural Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper examines the effect of internal remittances on the employment choices of household heads in rural Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) of the Ghana Statistical Service. Due to issues of endogeneity of remittances in relation to labor supply, the paper adopts an instrumental variable approach in the analysis. First, employment choices are categorized into three: (1) wage/salary employment, (2) self-employment and (3) domestic/family employment. The relationship is then modeled as instrumental variable multinomial probit (IV-MNP). Secondly, employment choices are recategorized into two: farm employment and otherwise and modeled as instrumental variable probit (IV-PROBIT). The models are estimated via the conditional mixed process (CMP) estimation technique.
Findings
The results indicate that remittances have a negative effect on self-employment and a positive effect on domestic/family employment. Thus, remittances reduce participation in self-employment but increase participation in domestic/family employment. Furthermore, remittances have a negative effect on participation in farm employment. The results are robust to different measures of remittances: receipt of remittances (dummy) and remittance income.
Practical implications
The results suggest that remittances are used for consumption rather than investing in earning activities. In general, engaging in earning type of employment, whether farm and nonfarm employment will decline with receipt of remittances in rural Ghana. There is a need for policy attention with the increasing migration of people out of rural areas.
Originality/value
Prior to this study, little was known on the effect of internal remittances on labor supply decisions of remittance recipients in Ghana, particularly rural Ghana. This paper contributes significantly to filling this knowledge gap.
Details
Keywords
Asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants’ access to healthcare vary in South Africa and Cape Town due to unclear legal status. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the…
Abstract
Purpose
Asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants’ access to healthcare vary in South Africa and Cape Town due to unclear legal status. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the source of this variation, the divergence between the 1996 South African Constitution, the immigration laws, and regulations and to describe its harmful consequences.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on legal and ethnographic research, this paper documents the disjuncture between South African statutes and regulations and the South African Constitution regarding refugees and migrants’ access to healthcare. Research involved examining South African jurisprudence, the African Charter, and United Nations’ materials regarding rights to health and health care access, and speaking with civil society organizations and healthcare providers. These sources inform the description of the immigrant access to healthcare in Cape Town, South Africa.
Findings
Asylum-seekers and refugees are entitled to health and emergency care; however, hospital administrators require documentation (up-to-date permits) before care can be administered. Many immigrants – especially the undocumented – are often unable to obtain care because of a lack of papers or because of “progressive realization,” the notion that the state cannot presently afford to provide treatment in accordance with constitutional rights. These explanations have put healthcare providers in an untenable position of not being able to treat patients, including some who face fatal conditions.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited by the fact that South African courts have not adjudicated a direct challenge to being refused care at healthcare facility on the basis of legal status. This limits the ability to know how rights afforded to “everyone” within the South African Constitution will be interpreted with respect to immigrants seeking healthcare. The research is also limited by the non-circulation of healthcare admissions policies among leading facilities in the Cape Town region where the case study is based.
Practical implications
Articulation of the disjuncture between the South African Constitution and the immigration laws and regulations allows stakeholders and decision-makers to reframe provincial and municipal policies about healthcare access in terms of constitutional rights and the practical limitations accommodated through progressive realization.
Social implications
In South Africa, immigration statutes and regulations are inconsistent and deemed unconstitutional with respect to the treatment of undocumented migrants. Hospital administrators are narrowly interpreting the laws to instruct healthcare providers on how to treat patients and whom they can treat. These practices need to stop. Access to healthcare must be structured to comport with the constitutional right afforded to everyone, and with progressive realization pursued through a non – discriminatory policy regarding vulnerable immigrants.
Originality/value
This paper presents a unique case study that combines legal and social science methods to explore a common and acute question of health care access. The case is novel and instructive insofar as South Africa has not established refugee camps in response to rising numbers of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. South Africans thus confront a “first world” question of equitable access to healthcare within their African context and with limited resources in a climate of increasing xenophobia.
Details