When people ask me where I’m from, I pause. I take a deep breath and try to decide if I should give the long story or the short story. I was born in Abergavenny, a small town in Wales. When I was one year old, we moved to Hong Kong, and spent an amazing 10 years living there....
EU leaders have agreed to a plan that will provide Libya’s UN-backed government €200 million for dealing with migration. This includes an increase in funding for the Libyan coastguard, with an overall aim to stop migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean to Italy....
Today nearly half of all migrants are women – women migrating not just as partners and dependents but also as independent agents in search of work and opportunities. Yet, once they arrive, they are often marginalised and prevented from enjoying their rights....
My father’s great grandparents had come from Indonesia and my mother’s great grandfather had come from mainland China in search of a better life. I therefore also wondered whether I had a future in Iloilo City in the Philippines or if I would also need to become a migrant in order to have a better future....
‘Savages, monkeys … go back to the jungle!’ was the ghastly woven prose splashed across my door, the day after I arrived in Belgium. It was 23 August 2002. I was living with my cousin in the heart of the Molenbeek district, now sadly famous for other reasons. ...
A joint post by Dr. Katie Kuschminder, EUI / UNU-MERIT and Prof. Khalid Koser, UNU-MERIT. — The European Commission has decided to start returning migrants from other European countries back to Greece, lifting a ban on the practice that was put in place in 2011. The decision is influenced by concerns that 13,000 migrants recently disappeared from camps in Northern Greece and may have migrated onwards into Northern Europe. European leaders also want Greece to start returning migrants to Tur...
I identify strongly as a migration researcher. So I sometimes feel inadequate next to all my colleagues who can brandish intriguing migration histories from their own lives. My story seems parochial by comparison: I was born and raised in Oslo, Norway, and so were both my parents. I still call Oslo home, and I even have my entire university-level education from the University of Oslo. My great-grandfather admittedly migrated from Sweden to Norway, but that’s about it....
By Dr. Özge Bilgili and Veronika Fajth In today’s world, international migration not only affects those who are on the move but the vast majority of the global population. In this new era of hyper-connectedness, many of our actions have transnational ramifications, reaching many other people across the world. But the question is: how exactly should we define transnational? For some, engaging in activities that cross borders is a central part of their lives. These individuals’ lives cannot be und...
The Journal of Population Economics, an independent and international quarterly journal that publishes original theoretical and applied research in all areas of population economics, has been hosted by the ‘POP Centre‘ at UNU-MERIT since April 2016. Issue 1/2017, published on 29 October 2016, marks an important landmark for the journal, as it enters its 30th year of successful academic service. We celebrate three decades of dedication in publishing outstanding theoretical and insight...
Like most Americans, I have a pretty mixed up immigrant background: in my case from Sweden, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. My mother’s family emigrated from Sweden during the ‘great wave’ of migration between the 1880s and the 1920s....