pp. 26-32 ESPACE POPULATIONS SOCIÉTÉS 1985-1

MIGRATION AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN A HOUSEHOLD PERSPECTIVE

An attempt to develope an integrated model of migration

The relationship of the individual to society and vice versa is a perpetual moot point in social research, two general questions being: Is the small reflected by the large, and is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? Different disciplines employ different concepts to describe the relations between small and large. Sociologists, for example, employ individual and mass, economists employ micro and macro, while geographers often describe this relationship at various levels - local, regional and national.

In the field of migration research there is a desire to construct total or general models in which individual and society are integrated. Efforts are also being made to combine theories of migration with theories of general social development (cf. Hof fman-Novotny, 1979 and 1983, Majava, 1978 and Pryor, 1983).

Migration studies have a limited value per se. The phenomenon of migration has to be viewed in relation to changes in society and in individuals. Harris and Moore (1980) say: "Mobility per se has little significance except as a mechanism for the achievement of particular individual, group, or social goals". They query the usefulness of trying to establish an independent theory of geographical mobility. Instead Harris and Moore plead for the integration of mobility studies in a more general social process.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a large number of studies of migratory movements at national and regional levels were undertaken in the western world. These were concerned not least with migration associated with the radical transformation of economic life.

In the project we worked on, Migration from Finland to Sweden since the Second World War, we made use of traditional migration models. Underlying these models there is a great deal of empirical material at aggregated level (Hàggstrôm, 1978). We used simple variables such as income differences, particulars concerning the employment situation in the immigration and emigration areas, and the influence of contact/information flow on migratory behaviour.

These factors are usually structural in nature, and they furnish only part of the "explanation" for the migratory movement. A very large proportion of migratory movements are due to motives related to the individual/household. This makes it exceedingly important that migration models should include both structural causes and individual causes, so as to enhance our understanding of the process underlying migratory behaviour.

One difficulty in interpreting the results of the above mentioned studies lay in the frequently inadequate link-up between individually attributable causes of migration and factors of economic structure.