The Migration Program Area focuses on the many dimensions of the growing international and internal migration. It is concerned with the determinants of the supply and demand for migration, including immigration law and the legal status of migrants. It is also interested in the many aspects of the adjustment of the migrants and their descendants in the destination, including public policies regarding absorption and assimilation. Moreover, the program area is concerned with the impact of the migration on both the origin and the destination. The implications of the analyses for immigration policy, absorption and assimilation policy, and other public policies will also be developed.
For general information about this program area, please contact: migration@iza.org
IZA Director calls for fundamental changes in German immigration policy
In view of the skilled labor shortage in Germany, IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann has urged policymakers to ease the current restrictions on labor immigration. An export nation like Germany "cannot survive in the globalized world" without opening its labor market to qualified foreign workers, said Zimmermann in an interview with the news agency "ddp". At the same time he proposed the establishment of a "Federal Ministry for Immigration and Integration" to ensure a consistent policy with regard to all economic, social and educational aspects surrounding this issue.
For more information (in German) see:
- full text of the ddp interview (July 25, 2010)
- op-ed by Klaus F. Zimmermann in Süddeutsche Zeitung (July 27, 2010)
- IZA Standpunkt No. 28 ("Mehr ökonomische Rationalität in der Zuwanderungspolitik")
The "Migration Topic Week （MTW）" established in 2006 is a biennial gathering of migration scholars at IZA and over time it became the regular event. The last 3rd IZA Migration Topic Week took place in Washington, DC, USA from May 11 to May 15, 2011.
The idea of MTW is to create a forum of discussions on migration, to provide the opportunities to have useful interactions and engage in long discussions with both young scholars and senior researchers in migration, to have highly stimulating and provocative meetings, to brainstorm, and to converge to possible fruitful collaborations.
This forum is not confined to the constrained format of a conference or a workshop. We especially invite researchers who want to work together on migration projects during this week. We expect to have longer lectures from the participants and end the week with our Annual Migration Meeting (AM²). All participants are expected to interface and have an active role during the week and at the AM².
The Annual Migration Meeting (AM2) established the Julian Simon Keynote Lecture in honor of Julian Simon, in recognition of his research on the economic effects of population change.
The Board of Transatlantic Advisers comprises some of the most influential academicians and policy intellectuals with profound expertise on current labor and migration challenges from both sides of the Atlantic. The main role of the Board is to inform IZA's research agenda by firmly connecting it to the critical scientific and policy issues in the areas of migration, immigrant integration, and the associated transatlantic challenges. The IZA's Migration Program Area frequently consults its research projects with David G. Blanchflower (UK), Barry R. Chiswick (US), Jose Manuel Fresno-Garcia (Spain), Guillermina Jasso (US), Douglas S. Massey (US) and Rita Süssmuth (Germany).
This study aims to provide both the EU Commission and the Partner Countries of the Eastern Partnership (EaP, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine) with an expert analysis of the current patterns of labor migration, their relationships with labor market characteristics as well as the potential for increased flows between the EaP countries and the EU. The study will aim to propose a series of specific and detailed recommendations that could improve the labor migration management of the EU and of its Member States when seeking human capital complementarities with EaP partner countries, and the overall EU economic strategy towards EaP partner countries as well as the labor and labor migration policies of EaP partner countries. Based on available sources as well as original data collection as required, the study aims to provide forecasts of the future impact of labor migration on the labor markets of the EU and the Partner countries, and propose possible policy/legislative/operational interventions to facilitate labor-matching between the EU and the partner countries of the EaP. The study will concentrate on the possible effects of different scenarios of liberalization on the economies and labor markets of Germany, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom and Spain. The choice of these destination countries is based on current migration patterns from these countries (particularly the ones with the largest existing migration flows such as Moldova and Georgia), as well as the likely complementarities between the supply of certain types of skills and demand in EU economies. In the project consortium IZA partners with Central European University, CASE Warsaw, and London School of Economics.
This Migration Program research sub-area combines IZA's internal scientific potential with the expertise of external researchers to address three primary scientific objectives. First, we assess the effects of the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements on the labor markets of the fifteen original member states as well as the ten new members from Central and Eastern Europe. The second objective is to evaluate the different migration policies adopted by the old and new member states as well as the European Union regarding mobility in an enlarged EU. The third objective of this research sub-area is to enlighten the growing and yet rather uninformed debate about the role of post-enlargement migration for economic adjustment in the crisis-stricken labor markets of the Eurozone and the EU as a whole. To foster collaboration with external experts on achieving these objectives, the IZA Expert Network on EU Enlargement and the Labor Markets has been established. The network is coordinated by Martin Kahanec and currently involves nine members (Alan Barrett, Ireland; Denis Fougere, France; Marek Gora, Poland; Joop Hartog, The Netherlands; Timothy J. Hatton, The UK; Mihails Hazans, Latvia; Peder J. Pedersen, Denmark; Sara de la Rica, Spain; and Eskil Wadensjö, Sweden). A highlight achievement of this research sub-area is the edited volume "EU Labor Markets after Post-Enlargement Migration", M. Kahanec and K.F. Zimmermann (eds.), Berlin: Springer, (2010), praised as "Noteworthy in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics" by Princeton University for 2010.
Proximity and Coresidence of Adult Children and their Parents in the United States: Description and Correlates (forthcoming in: Annals of Economics and Statistics)
Showing Off to the New Neighbors? Income, Socioeconomic Status and Consumption Patterns of Internal Migrants (forthcoming in: Journal of Comparative Economics, 2013)
Zuwanderung und Arbeitsmarkt. Deutschland und Dänemark im Vergleich (Immigration and the Labor Market. Germany and Denmark in Comparison), Springer-Verlag: Berlin et al. 2005, 322 pages.
