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

abstracts by stream and session
century, since the 1990s the number of migrants has increased significantly. There was particular increase in irregular migration largely
emanating from internal strife in neighbouring Zimbabwe. The political and economic crisis that gripped Zimbabwe since 2000 resulted in
unprecedented migration to South Africa. Surveys have estimated that by the end of 2007 between one million to two million
Zimbabweans had migrated to South Africa to eke a living. Two-thirds of these migrants have indicated in surveys that they would return
home should there be political and economic stability (Bloch, 2005; Chetsanga and Muchenje, 2003; Makina, 2007).
This paper analyses return migration dynamics using secondary data from a survey of 4,654 Zimbabwean migrants done by Makina (2007)
in Johannesburg, South Africa, which had become the major destination for migrants. The survey was undertaken in mid-2007 in three
suburbs of inner-city Johannesburg - Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville –provided unprecedented insights into the profile, activities and
migrant behaviour of Zimbabweans in South Africa’s largest city. Although Zimbabwean migrants are increasingly dispersed throughout
South Africa, the 2001 South African Census showed that 80 percent of the total recorded Zimbabwean migrant population lived in
inner-city Johannesburg. The survey could not use random sampling methods due to the lack of a reliable sampling frame. Convenience
sampling was therefore used to identify respondents. While questions may be asked about the representativeness of the sample, its large
size and the fact that so many Zimbabweans are concentrated in inner-city Johannesburg means that the results are probably quite
representative.
Employing descriptive statistical analysis, this paper evaluates ten migrant factors that could have influenced the respondents’ desire to
return to the home country should there be political and economic stability. Two-thirds of respondents indicate that they would return.
The factors evaluated are gender, age, legal status in the host country, marital status, number of dependents in home country, level of
education, economic activity in host country, level of income, level of savings and length of stay in host country. The results of the analysis
are as follows:
Legal status: Undocumented migrants are more likely to return to the home country than those who are legally in South Africa.
Gender: Male migrants are more likely to return than female migrants.
Marital status: Married migrants are more likely to return than single migrants.
Age: Migrants over 21 years of age are more likely to return than younger ones.
Number of dependents in Zimbabwe: Migrants with one or more dependents at home are more likely to return than those without
dependents in Zimbabwe.
Level of education: Migrants with university degrees, professional qualifications (such in teaching, nursing, artisans) and with postsecondary
education are likely to return than those with primary education.
Economic activity in host country: All professions indicate in majority that would return, especially those employed as hospitality workers,
artisans, and teachers.
Income: Migrants earning more than R4 000 (US$500) per month are more unlikely to return than those earning a lower monthly wage.
Savings: Saving migrants are likely to return than non-saving migrants.
Length of stay: Migrants who arrived in South Africa from the year 2000 onwards are more likely to return those who arrived before 2000.
Session 2h New Immigration Societies & the Impact of Education and Democracy on Immigration
Integration of immigrants and new immigration countries: The case of Croatia
Jadranka Cacic-Kumpes, University of Zadar, Croatia
*Drago Župaric-Iljic, Institute for Migration and Ethnnic Studies, Croatia
Immigrants' integration poses a problem of both conceptual and practical nature. An overview of critical questioning of the "integration
concept" and integration policies for immigrants demonstrates diversity of possible approaches and reveals changes of concepts
and practices of integration policies in Western immigration countries. Integration of immigrants has thus been slightly changing
from a "more sophisticated forms of assimilation" towards an effort of establishing a two-way interaction between immigrants and a
host society, two main actors in the process of integration. Unequal relations of power and access to resources make this interaction
asymmetrical and dependent on social context, but also upon the role that immigrants themselves assume in the integration process.
This paper raises the question whether the ways of dealing with immigrants' integration in the traditional immigration countries could
influence (and how it might affect) the regulation of relations towards immigrants in the countries which are yet to become immigration
countries. Understanding the integration of immigrants as the "process of becoming an accepted part of a society" this paper explores
social conditions necessary for achieving a genuine participation of immigrants, taking Croatia as an example. These conditions are
tracked through political, legal, cultural and economic dimensions of integration processes with special emphasis on perspectives of the
institutionalization of the immigrants' right for diversity within the educational system.
The analysis of the characteristics of integration policy towards immigrants in Croatia is being mainly based on content analysis of official
documents (state's migration strategy, guide for the integration of asylum grantees, the national educational curriculum), but also on
interviews with the actors responsible for creation and implementation of integration policies (ministries’ officials, representatives of the
civil sector, teachers who work with immigrants and with immigrants themselves).
96