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Abstract
The concept of chain migration has played a central role in the study of international migration over several decades. Recent developments in the ease of movement and international transmission of information may have made the social networks that are at the heart of such migration redundant, especially for skilled individuals and their households. To investigate this claim, a small panel study of recent migrants to New Zealand from China, India and South Africa is used to explore both the importance of social networks in promoting their moves and their subsequent involvement in encouraging and assisting family and friends to join them. The findings show that most of their moves did not involve the typical chain migration process, but the participants who remained in the study for the full five years assisted on average 1.25 others to move to New Zealand also.
The data used here were collected as part of the New Settlers Programme at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, a seven-year (1997–2004) programme funded by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
1. Eighty-one of the original participants were male and 26 female: the percentage female was 33 among the Chinese participants, 20 among the South Africans and 19 among the Indians. The three countries were selected because they were the most prominent extra-European sources of migrants when the study was initiated, China having replaced Taiwan after a change in the immigration policy and recommendations in October 1995. The choice also reflected a desire to contrast those from English- and non-English-speaking backgrounds, as well as between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ sources in terms of cultural background.
2. Under the 1995 immigration regulations, possession of a degree at bachelor's level or above is a key issue: 94 per cent of the Chinese and Indians had such a qualification (in engineering for most of the Chinese), as did 66 per cent of the South Africans.
3. The letter was sent out with the assistance of the New Zealand Immigration Service.
4. The majority of Chinese and Indians who left New Zealand returned to their home countries, with only a minority (one Chinese out of ten and two Indians out of five) proceeding to Australia. Three of the four South Africans known to have left New Zealand proceeded to Australia, however, and the fourth could not be traced back to South Africa.
5. These two sets of figures suggest that at least some of the migrants—especially those from China and India—may have been ‘scouts’ making initial evaluations of New Zealand for their families, but that few of them, because they had friends and business contacts there, had no personal contacts already in the country. Only 27 of the 107 respondents at wave 1 of the survey had neither relatives nor friends already in New Zealand: 13 of these were Indians, eight Chinese and six South Africans.
6. This question was not asked in the final questionnaire so we only have data for three years.
7. Those persons assisted still needed to qualify for entry to New Zealand under one of the immigration categories. In many cases this was the same ‘general skills’ category under which the original migrants had entered the country, although some used the ‘family’ category.
8. Rotation of the factors—either orthogonal or oblique—did not enhance the structure and so the unrotated factors are interpreted here.
9. Because the two questions on the rightness of the move were asked at the end of the fifth questionnaire, it could be that having brought more people to New Zealand was the cause of their positive response rather than the consequence. Our interpretation, however, is that the two are mutually reinforcing: contentment with the move is linked to encouraging others to do likewise.
10. Among both the Indians and the South Africans, a greater number reported in the last two annual interviews that, although they did not feel homesick themselves, others in their immediate household did.
11. A considerable number of the Chinese, and some of the Indians, were in full-time education for some of the period, seeking to enhance their qualifications and their facility with the English language in order to improve their prospects for employment (Trlin et al. Citation2004)
12. One participant—a Chinese—and two of the spouses—one Chinese and one Indian—were not eligible for citizenship. Although citizenship can be used as a measure of commitment to New Zealand, some may have taken it out simply to facilitate further international travel (to Australia, for example), whereas others may have retained dual citizenship and taken up New Zealand nationality simply for convenience while living there—especially if they intended to travel internationally, since New Zealand citizenship would make re-entry much easier. New Zealand, India (since 2003) and South Africa allow dual citizenship; China does not.
13. For some of the Indians, until a recent change in the legal situation under an Act passed in December 2003 (see http://www.immigration.com/india/dualindia.html), taking out New Zealand citizenship carried the negative consequence of losing home-country citizenship, which included the right to own land and other assets. For others, the costs meant that the decision to take out citizenship was staggered within families.
14. Not all migrants will have been disposed to sponsor further migration of course, and others may not be able to do so because they lack ‘eligible’ relatives. Furthermore, with transnationalism families can be scattered over different continents as a strategy for future opportunities and security. We have no figure for the number of friends who actually migrated.
15. One reason for the weaker chains involving the Chinese from the PRC is that they come from a generation of smaller and declining families with siblings also finding opportunities in Hong Kong, the USA, Canada etc.
