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Age at migration is commonly utilized as a proxy measure for assimilation in health behavior research. We reconsider this approach by examining the role of continued connection with places of origin on alcohol use, an important marker of health behavior and overall population health. Cross-border connections may buffer the association between earlier age at migration and alcohol use by providing an alternative channel of influence for behavioral norms. Alternatively, a stress and coping perspective on cross-border ties suggests potentially countervailing adverse impacts of these connections on alcohol use. We used data from the 2002/2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) (n = 1,641/1,630 Asian and Latino origin respondents, respectively). We first estimated the association between age at migration (child/adolescent versus adult migrant) and any past-year alcohol use. We subsequently tested the interaction between age at migration and two measures of cross-border connections. All models were stratified by region of origin and gender. For Latin American-origin women, cross-border ties were associated with increased risk of past-year alcohol use among those who migrated early in life. In contrast, Asian-origin men and women who migrated as adults and had contact with family and friends abroad had the lowest predicted probabilities of past-year alcohol use. The results among Asians support the idea that cross-border ties may be alternative influences on health behavior outcomes, particularly for adult migrants. Overall, we find qualified support for both transnational and assimilationist perspectives on alcohol use behaviors among US immigrants – as well as the interaction between these two frameworks. The joint influences of cross-border ties and age at migration were observed primarily for immigrant women, and not always in expected directions. We nevertheless urge future research to consider both US and country of origin influences on a wider range of health and health behavior outcomes for immigrants, as well as the potential intersection between US and cross-border connections.

The evolution in developed countries has taken a role in global warming and natural disasters such as flash flood, El-Nino, earthquake and groundwater contamination. The underground storage tank leakage problems and spillage of hydrocarbon liquid leading to the contamination of non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) into the groundwater could reduce the quality of groundwater. This chapter is intended to investigate the behaviour and the pattern of NAPL migrations in double-porosity soil under vibration and intact conditions. The experimental model is developed by using kaolin soil type S300 and toluene as NAPLs. The kaolin soil was mixed with 25% of moisture content to produce kaolin granules in the soil column and vibrate under 0.98 Hz of frequency within 60 seconds. As a result, both specimen liquids completely migrated to the bottom of soil column: sample 1 has higher permeability compared to sample 2. This is due to the fracture in double-porosity soil under vibration effect and loosened the soil structure in sample 1 compared to good intact soil sample 2 with stronger and compact soil structure. In conclusion, this study proves that the dangerous hydrocarbon NAPL migration in fractured double-porosity soil has very harmful effect on the environment and groundwater resources.

We document long-run trends in interstate migration rates, using individual-level data from the U.S. Census for the period 1850–1990. Two measures of migration are calculated. The first considers an individual to have moved if she is residing in a state different from her state of birth. The second considers a family to have moved if it is residing in a state different from the state of birth of one of its young children, allowing us to estimate the timing of moves more precisely. Overall migration propensities have followed a U-shaped trend since 1850, falling until around 1900 and then rising until around 1970. We examine variation in the propensity to make an interstate move by age, sex, race, nativity, region of origin, family structure, and education. Counterfactuals based on probit estimates of the propensity to migrate suggest that the rise in migration of families since 1900 could be explained by increased educational attainment, although education may be serving as a proxy for unmeasured covariates. The decline of interstate migration in the late nineteenth century remains to be explained.

We examine the determinants of a current migrant's location choice emphasizing the relative importance and interaction of migrant stocks and flows. We show that both stocks and flow have significant impacts on the migrant's decision of where to locate. The significance and size of the effects vary according to legal status and whether the migrant is a “new” or a “repeat” migrant.

The Russian Federation is the scene of one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the world. In dialogue with the scholarship on gendered connections between migration and HIV/STIs, this study employs unique survey and qualitative data to examine HIV/STI-related risks and attitudes among working migrant women from three Central Asian countries and their native counterparts in three Russian cities. The analyses focus on involvement in risky sexual relationships, negotiation of trust and safer sexual practices in permanent partnerships, worries about HIV infection, and experience of HIV testing by comparing natives and migrants as well as migrants of different legal statuses. The results suggest that while migrant women are generally less likely to engage in risky behavior, they are also less able to establish trust and to negotiate safer sex within their permanent partnerships, compared to native women. Migrants are less worried about HIV risks than are native women. Finally, migrant women are less likely to get tested for HIV than natives, but the analyses also point to a particular disadvantage of migrants with temporary or irregular legal status. The findings are interpreted within the structural and cultural constraints that shape migrant women’s lives in Russia and similar migrant-receiving contexts.

Policy-makers in OECD countries appear to be increasingly concerned about growing migration pressure from developing countries. At the same, at least within Europe, they typically complain about the low level of internal labor mobility. In this chapter, we try to cast some light on the issues of both internal and external labor mobility. We investigate the link between development and migration and argue, on both theoretical and empirical grounds, that it is likely be nonlinear. More precisely, we find that, in a relatively poor sending country, an increase in income will have a positive impact on the propensity to migrate, even if we control for the income differential with the receiving country, because the financial constraint of the poorest become less binding. Conversely, if the home country is relatively better off, an increase in income may be associated with a fall in the propensity to migrate even for an unchanged income differential. Econometric estimation for Southern Europe over the period 1962–1988 provides substantial support to this approach. We estimate first the level of income for which the financial constraint is no more binding, around $950, and then the level of income for which the propensity to migrate declines, which is around $4,300 in 1985 prices. We therefore predict a steady decline in the propensity to migrate from Southern European countries. Similarly, our results highlight the possibility that the pressure to migrate from Northern African countries and other developing countries may increase with further growth.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate consumption discourses in contexts characterized by multiple cultures and intercultural contacts, as multicultural contacts and multiple migrations challenge existing consumer acculturation models based on a dualistic process of acculturation. This chapter explores empirically the character of cultural reflexivity and its expression in consumers’ discourses. Given that nostalgia is one prominent dimension of the migration conceptualization, we seek to understand how the role of nostalgia changes in contexts where consumers are decreasingly territorially embedded agents.

Methodology – The study rests on in-depth analysis of migrant narratives from two research phases. While the first phase encompasses in-depth interviews, the second one combines interviews and observations to provide a depiction of intercultural contact within the micro cosmos of a multicultural apartment.

Findings – The findings of this chapter illustrate how migrants develop different nostalgic discourses, to either (re-)appropriate the Expatriate as defined by James (1999), or to appropriate global consumptionscapes through nostalgia for the routine.

Research implications – On the basis of these findings, the article discusses cultural reflexivity in terms of naturalization and cultivation narratives (Wilk, 1999), proposing shifts between reflexive and routinized consumption practices as basis for consumers’ cultural reflexivity.

Originality/value of chapter – The contribution of this chapter is firstly a contextualized and empirically grounded definition of cultural reflexivity. Secondly, it demonstrates that migrants’ consumption discourses revolve more around disruptions of routines than around acculturation processes. Thirdly, the chapter illustrates the use of nostalgia for emotional valorization of cultures beyond classical home cultural authenticity discourses.

This paper explores whether the spread of air conditioning in the United States from 1960 to 1990 affected quality of life in warmer areas enough to influence decisions about where to live, or to change North-South wage and rent differentials. Using measures designed to identify climates in which air conditioning would have made the biggest difference, I found little evidence that the flow of elderly migrants to MSAs with such climates increased over the period. Following Roback (1982), I analyzed data on MSA wages, rents, and climates from 1960 to 1990, and find that the implicit price of these hot summer climates did not change significantly from 1960 to 1980, then became significantly negative in 1990. This contrary to what one would expect if air conditioning made hot summers more bearable. I presented evidence that hot summers are an inferior good, which would explain part of the negative movement in the implicit price of a hot summer, and evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the marginal person migrating from colder to hotter MSAs dislikes summer heat more than does the average resident of a hot MSA, which would also exert downward pressure on the implicit price of a hot summer.

In order to study whether college scholarships can be an effective tool in raising students’ performance in secondary school, we use one aspect of the Kalamazoo Promise that resembles a quasi-experiment. The surprise announcement of the scholarship created a large change in expected college tuition costs that varied across different groups of students based on past enrollment decisions. This variation is arguably exogenous to unobserved student characteristics. We estimate the effects of this change by a set of “difference-in-differences” regressions where we compare the change in student outcomes in secondary school across time for different student “length of enrollment” groups. We also control for student fixed effects. We find positive effects of the Kalamazoo Promise on Promise-eligible students large enough to be deemed important – about a 9 percent increase in the probability of earning any credits and one less suspension day per year. We also find large increases in GPA among African American students.