Conference Programme (PDF, 1019KB) - Trinity College Dublin

abstracts by stream and session
SESSION 4g
Using cognitive interviewing techniques to improve surveys of the remittance sending practices of immigrants
Audrey Lenoel, University of Bristol, UK
In recent years, the surge in international migrant remittances has attracted considerable policy and research interest focusing on ways
of enhancing their developmental impact. However, both research and policy-making have been hindered by the limitations of official
statistics in providing accurate information on remittances’ size and characteristics and the organisation of remittance payments. Survey
methods are increasingly used with both remittance recipients and senders to address these knowledge gaps. While surveys collecting
information on the characteristics and uses of remittances by the recipient households are quite common in developing countries,
remittance surveys of immigrant households have only been developed very recently. They are however crucial to improving the estimates
of flows and to understand the determinants of remittance sending and the preferred transfer modes.
Against the backdrop of this increasing number of immigrant surveys, the reliability of survey questionnaires for capturing accurate data
on remittance practices has however been insufficiently reflected upon. The risks of measurement error are particularly acute in these
surveys due to the sensitivity of questions on household finances and the recall error associated with the collection of retrospective data.
This study sets out to address this problem by applying an innovative approach to questionnaire testing called cognitive interviewing to the
field of migrant remittances research. Rooted in cognitive psychology and mainly used to date in health and market research, this type
of in-depth interviewing aims to explore the mental processes respondents use to answer survey questions, their understanding of the
questions and the meaning of their answers.
This presentation will describe the results of cognitive interviewing to test common remittance survey questions on a small sample of
remitting Moroccan migrants residing in France. The study highlights common sources of measurement error resulting from problematic
question wording, ill-defined categories, recall error and other issues relating to the survey design and interview situation. It also
emphasizes the potential of cognitive methods for improving research design by gaining ethnographic insights into the cultural
background of the respondents. However, the research also found that cognitive interviewing can have limitations, particularly when used
with populations characterised by various levels of education and literacy, and in cross-cultural research settings.
Overall, this study demonstrated that cognitive interviewing techniques can be successfully applied to questionnaire design in survey
research on migration and remittances, and that it can address some of the limitations of normal questionnaire piloting methods.
Who is in, who is out? Some Methodological and Conceptual Challenges for Survey-Based Research into Changing Migration-Labour
Market Constellations
Kenneth Horvath, University of Vienna, Austria
*Sanna Markkanen, University of Cambridge, UK
Over the past decades, developments in European labour markets, migration patterns, and migration and citizenship politics have led to
the emergence of new and complex migration-labour market constellations. In our paper, we discuss the challenges that these pose for
quantitative – especially survey-based – research into current patterns and dynamics of labour migration and labour market inequalities.
The argument proceeds in four steps. First, we outline some of the key features of recent developments that have taken place in (Western)
Europe, focusing on (i) labour markets; (ii) migration patterns; (iii) migration regimes, and the complex interrelationships between these.
Regarding labour markets, the crucial changes include the contraction of the industrial labour force and the expansion of the service
sector, the deregulation of working conditions, and the flexibilisation of working arrangements. Against this background, migration
patterns have evolved and added to the resulting complexity by both leading and responding to the economic and political changes. In
addition to staying numerically noteworthy (or increasing in numbers), migration movements have also grown increasingly diverse in
terms of countries of origin/countries of destination, migration channels, and educational/occupational background of migrants, among
others. These new migration movements overlap with minority formation processes that resulted from previous large scale immigration.
Amongst the most significant political developments are the expansion of the EU and changes in the regulation of migratory movements
(characterised by an emphasis on restriction and on immigration control), leading to new and complex forms of legal and political
stratification between different migrant populations, as well as the gradual emergence of regimes of migration management.
In a second step, we discuss specific migration-labour market constellations that have emerged on the basis of these developments. With
focus on the Central European (i.e. Austria and neighbouring new member states) and the British contexts, examples of relevant
constellations and processes are taken from qualitative studies to illustrate the various and partly new ways in which migrant labour is
being integrated into European labour markets. These include the increased relevance of transnational working and living arrangements
(partly connected to EU-enlargement), various forms of irregularity and legal stratification regarding residency rights, working relations
and entitlement to social welfare (resulting from restrictive policies, forced migration, and EU-enlargement), and complicated (and
dynamic) categorisation processes of migrant labour along the lines of "skill-level" and educational background. As will be discussed,
these phenomena are of high analytical as well as political relevance. Yet reliable quantitative information that could be used to explore
their size and structure remain largely unavailable.
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