Arbeitsbereich
Migration und Mobilität
Auf einen Blick
Projekte
Publikationen
Team
Projekt
Understanding Opinions and Family Influence on Migrants’ Trajectories in Latin America (Dissertation)
Abigail Tun Mendicuti, Emilio Zagheni, Clara H. Mulder (University of Groningen, Niederlande); in Zusammenarbeit mit Asli Ebru Sanlitürk, Jisu Kim (beide: MPIDR), Claudia Masferrer (El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico)
Ausführliche Beschreibung
This project conceptualizes migration as an inherently social process shaped by dynamic interactions across origin, transit, and destination countries. The first study investigates the perception of migration in countries of transit and destination using the case of Central American migrant caravans. Leveraging data from Twitter, the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT), and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), we examined the topics and the sentiment intensity of tweets about migrant caravans in Mexico and the US during 2018-2021. We then explored the association between the sentiment intensity of tweets and the volume and tone of news about migrant caravans, as well as the geolocations of the tweets. Results show a more politicized discussion in the US. In the case of Mexico, higher media coverage of migrant caravans correlated with stronger sentiment intensity, while tweets from Mexican southern border states showed lower intensity than tweets from non-border states.
The next three studies focus on the relationship between social context and migration, and particularly the role of family. In the second study, we analyze the effect that the previous migration of immediate family members has on the propensity of male heads of household to migrate to the US. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) and discrete time event-history analysis, we study the effect in three periods (1942-1964, 1965-1987, 1987-2008) characterized by circular migration, undocumented circular migration, and increased border control, respectively. Results show that the presence of a father or a brother with prior migration experience significantly increases the probability of migration across all three periods. In cases in which a mother or a sister previously migrated, the same association is observed only during the undocumented circulation period.
The third study focuses on the patterns of subsequent migration within the family using the same data (MMP) and sequence analysis. We study the generation, gender, and parent-child patterns of subsequent migration. We first investigate the intergenerational patterns by observing the presence of a migration event of at least one generation in each family among the three generations included in the data. We then examine the gender and parent-child patterns. Preliminary results show that migrants tend to follow family members one generation above or below.
The fourth study focuses on the role of the family’s place of residence in plans for onward and return migration using data from the Ethno-survey on recent immigration in Latin American host contexts (LAMP-ENIR 2021). These data include a sample of migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti who were residing in Colombia, Costa Rica, or Chile at the time of the survey. Preliminary results indicate that the place of residence of the spouse and children plays a significant role in plans for return migration. In contrast, the parents' place of residence tends to be associated with plans for onward migration rather than for return migration.
The project sheds light on the roles of family and broader society in migration. Migration is a profoundly social process that is shaped by family networks, expectations, and obligations, as well as by societal perceptions of migration.
Publikationen
Tun Mendicuti, A.; Masferrer, C.; Mulder, C. H.; Zagheni, E.:
MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-017. (2026)
Tun Mendicuti, A.; Kim, J.; Mulder, C. H.:
In: WebSci '24: proceedings of the 16th ACM Web Science Conference, Stuttgart, Germany, 22-24 May 2024, 1–10. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). (2024)