Browsing by Author "Schewel, K"
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Item Open Access Aspiring for Change: Ethiopian Women’s Labor Migration to the Middle East(Social Forces) Schewel, KAbstract This paper examines why young women in rural Ethiopia decide to migrate as domestic workers to the Middle East. Based on survey data and 84 in-depth interviews, it explores the forces shaping young women’s aspirations and capabilities to migrate, challenging the dominant narratives of trafficking, deception, and victimization that surround this migration corridor. It finds, first, that migration to the Middle East is one migration trajectory embedded within a broader urban transition occurring across Ethiopia. For rural women, labor emigration is often a long-distance, short-term strategy to access the capital needed to realize a long-term, short-distance move to town. Second, the aspiration to migrate emerges at a particular moment in the life course, as young women transition from adolescence into adulthood and when local opportunities do not provide promising pathways to achieve their life aspirations. This paper shows why labor emigration can simultaneously be a reasonable, capabilities-enhancing choice for young women and a response to a critical lack of capabilities in other domains of their lives. Finally, through applying an aspiration–capability framework, this paper advances a theoretical approach that avoids the common binary between “forced” and “voluntary” migration and thus contributes to advancing research on other forms of precarious migration occurring under highly constrained conditions.Item Open Access How well can we predict climate migration? A review of forecasting models(Frontiers in Climate, 2023-01-01) Schewel, K; Dickerson, S; Madson, B; Nagle Alverio, GClimate change will have significant impacts on all aspects of human society, including population movements. In some cases, populations will be displaced by natural disasters and sudden-onset climate events, such as tropical storms. In other cases, climate change will gradually influence the economic, social, and political realities of a place, which will in turn influence how and where people migrate. Planning for the wide spectrum of future climate-related mobility is a key challenge facing development planners and policy makers. This article reviews the state of climate-related migration forecasting models, based on an analysis of thirty recent models. We present the key characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of different modeling approaches, including gravity, radiation, agent-based, systems dynamics and statistical extrapolation models, and consider five illustrative models in depth. We show why, at this stage of development, forecasting models are not yet able to provide reliable numerical estimates of future climate-related migration. Rather, models are best used as tools to consider a range of possible futures, to explore systems dynamics, to test theories or potential policy effects. We consider the policy and research implications of our findings, including the need for improved migration data collection, enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration, and scenarios-based planning.Item Open Access Migration and development in Ethiopia: Exploring the mechanisms behind an emerging mobility transition(Migration Studies, 2021-12-01) Schewel, K; Asmamaw, LBThis article examines the impact of Ethiopia's historical development on the nature, volume, and direction of internal and international migration. We describe three important trends associated with an emerging 'mobility transition': the sedentarization of nomadic and semi-nomadic populations; the urbanization of internal migration trajectories; and the diversification of international migration. Within these overarching trends, we discuss periods of political conflict, resettlement, and famine that led to significant internal and international displacement. We then explore the drivers of these mobility shifts, evaluating the relative influence of various political, economic, cultural, and technological developments on migration patterns over time. Our analyses distinguish between the deep drivers of an emerging mobility transition (e.g. nation-state formation, rising educational attainment, infrastructure development, and industrialization) and the drivers of displacement (e.g. political conflict or resettlement programs) that can suddenly affect the movements of large population segments. This detailed case study contributes to a growing body of research on the 'mobility transition' by revealing how a society's entire mobility complex changes - not only levels of international migration - as the social transformations associated with modern-day development proceed.Item Open Access Revisiting aspiration and ability in international migration(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2018-04-26) Carling, J; Schewel, KIt is a refreshingly simple thought that migration is the combined result of two factors: the aspiration to migrate and the ability to migrate. Without having to resort to overly structural or individualistic explanations, this analytical distinction helps disentangle complex questions around why some people migrate but others do not. Still, aspiration and ability raise their own thorny theoretical and methodological questions. To begin with, what does it mean to have migration aspirations? How can such concepts be objects of empirical research? And is it meaningful to say that individuals possess the ability to migrate if their preference is to stay? The aspiration/ability model was originally proposed in this journal and has since been diversely applied and adapted. In this article, we look back at more than a decade of research to examine a series of theoretical and empirical developments related to the aspiration/ability model and its extensions. We identify two-step approaches as a class of analytical frameworks that share the basic logic of the aspiration/ability model. Covering expansive theoretical, methodological and empirical ground, we seek to lay a foundation for new research on global migration in its diverse forms.Item Open Access Understanding Immobility: Moving Beyond the Mobility Bias in Migration Studies(International Migration Review, 2020-06-01) Schewel, KThis article suggests that there is a mobility bias in migration research: by focusing on the “drivers” of migration — the forces that lead to the initiation and perpetuation of migration flows — migration theories neglect the countervailing structural and personal forces that restrict or resist these drivers and lead to different immobility outcomes. To advance a research agenda on immobility, it offers a definition of immobility, further develops the aspiration-capability framework as an analytical tool for exploring the determinants of different forms of (im)mobility, synthesizes decades of interdisciplinary research to help explain why people do not migrate or desire to migrate, and considers future directions for further qualitative and quantitative research on immobility.Item Open Access Who prefers to stay? voluntary immobility among youth in Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2022-01-01) Schewel, K; Fransen, SFar fewer people migrate than global disparities in wealth and well-being would lead us to predict, yet we know relatively little about why those who presumably have much to gain from migration prefer to stay in place. This article examines the motivations of young people who express the preference to stay put, and asks what individual and household characteristics are associated with voluntary immobility. Using survey data collected in Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam for the Young Lives Project, we find that the majority of young people surveyed envision a future within their home country, and between 32 per cent (Ethiopia) and 60 per cent (Vietnam) prefer to stay in their current location. Most youth prefer to stay for family-related reasons. Living in an urban area and engagement in farm work are associated with greater staying aspirations, but only for youth from the most resource-poor or the wealthiest households. Higher levels of schooling, wealth, feelings of self-efficacy and paid employment are consistently associated with diminished desires to stay, with stronger effects for youth from rural settings, resource-poor households, and women. Our results reveal the social patterning of staying aspirations and have important implications for development interventions that seek to enhance aspirations and capabilities of individuals to stay in place.