Zur Analyse internationaler Migrationsprozesse. Makro-quantitative Perspektiven und eine vergleichende Fallstudie über die Lage der türkischen Community in Österreich.

Tausch, Arno (2010): Zur Analyse internationaler Migrationsprozesse. Makro-quantitative Perspektiven und eine vergleichende Fallstudie über die Lage der türkischen Community in Österreich.

Abstract

The present article presents at first a German language summary about recent quantitative studies by the author and his associates about global development since the end of Communism in up to 175 nations of the world, using 26 predictor variables to evaluate the determinants of 30 processes of development on a global scale.

As correctly predicted by quantitative dependency and world system research of the 1980s and 1990s, core capital penetration (MNC penetration) has very significant negative impacts on the social development of the host countries of foreign direct investments; but these negative effects are mitigated by the positive effects of MNC headquarter status. MNC penetration increases income polarization and infant mortality, and blocks democracy, desired environmental performance, and the rule of law. Increases in MNC penetration over time had a negative effect on the rule of law, and equally had a negative effect on economic growth in the period 1990-2005. A good and plausible reason for this is the process of 'creative destruction' in the less fortunate regions of the world economy, and partially also in several regions of East and Central Europe.

We can reasonably assume that the import of labor in the world economy, measured by the reciprocal value of the worker remittances scale has - ceteris paribus - detrimental effects on life quality (Happy Planet Index, life expectancy, life satisfaction, Happy Life Years), and gender relations (closing the political gender gap; closing the overall gender gap). The percentage of the population with what today is called an 'immigration background' also has - ceteris paribus - a negative effect on some other key indicators of the environment and gender justice. Immigration, and all the transport activities it causes, increases without question the CO2 output of a given society, and it also increases the ratio of carbon emissions per GDP. But ceteris paribus, there hold other important effects as well, which by contrast tend to confirm the migration policy liberal consensus, inherent in the UNDP HDR 2009 analysis.

Yes, there are not only Hiob's messages for inward migration, but the process is a very contradictory one. Yes, the share of people with migration background per total population seems to coincide with a weakening of the role of traditional local native elites, and income inequality even tends to be lower due to the effects of this variable. Also, migration phobias and migration pessimism are contradicted in another very important way: there is no significant effect of any migration variable on the unemployment rate. Liberals are right in assuming that inward migration is a driver of economic growth: net international migration rates, 2005-2010, which are a typical migration flow measure, relating to current and contemporary migration flows, are even significantly and positively influencing current economic growth rates, and also the ratio of closing the political gender gap. While stocks of already existing, large-scale migrant populations negative affect the closing of the gender political gap to the tune of -0.225, which is significant at the 2.6% level, new inflows, which are best measured by the net international migration rate, positively affect the closing of the political gender gap to the tune of 0.208, which is significant at the 8.3% level.

Under these circumstances, the political management of the global migration process becomes one of the most important phenomena to handle. One of the most glaring problems of the international migration scene - especially in Europe - is the fact that in many countries of origin of migration still blockades against religious tolerance prevail. Not 'Islam' as such is the problem in this wider context, but the combination of regionally or nationally dominant roles of religious denominations in a socio-cultural milieu of the periphery or semi-periphery of the world system. In the article, we also analyze current trends and data on Austrian migration as a case study. One of the reasons for growing social divergence of Austrian society is more and more ethnically and socio-religiously defined unemployment. A further evaluation of these trends is based on a special analysis of data from Statistics Austria on marriage patterns. Among the Muslim Religious Community, tendencies to marry only fellow members of the religious community have continued to increase since 2003 and nowadays 90.4% of Muslim women are getting married to co-religionists, while for the Protestants, comparable in relative community size, this percentage is only 18%.

The newly available analytical statistics by the Ministry of Interior/Integration Fund now fully document crime rates by age and national background. Without question, the 18-21-year-old are generally the age group in society most susceptible for criminal careers. Among this age group, for native Austrians the crime rate is only 1.5%, for young Turks residing in Austria the crime rate is over 2%, for citizens of former Yugoslavia (without Slovenia), residing in Austria, it is 3%, while for residents with a citizenship of the new EU Member States it is more than 5%, and for immigrants from other states, including the former USSR, and the rest of the world, it is an astonishing and alarming 6%.

Latest OECD data also allow comparative estimates about social marginalization among the 20-29-year-old population with an immigration background (people not having any professional qualifications, currently out of work and also not undergoing any training). While only about 2% of 'native Austrian' men of that age correspond to this category, the proportion for males with an immigration background in Austria exceeds 10%. Among women of the same age, the corresponding gap is even larger still: 3% for native Austrians and 14% for young Austrian women with an immigration background.

In the article, we also analyze latest PISA data: recent OECD PISA reading ability results for Turks in Austria and for people of a Turkish immigration background, just as the ones for Albanians in Switzerland, are at the aggregate level of developing countries.

On the level of the OECD, there are indeed contrasting patterns of immigration and education policies. In our article, we specifically mention the best practice case of Australia, where children of immigrants to that country from the UK, Korea, the USA, and China achieve some of the best global results. We contradict current islamophobic interpretations in the tradition of Mr. Thilo Sarrazin, and show that not 'Turks are the problem' and also not 'Islam is the problem', but the low linguistic competence among many Turkish immigrants from Eastern Anatolia, who never had a chance to properly study in the course of their lives the Turkish state language nor the widely used Kurdish regional language let alone the language of the host country. With an average national reading scale of 465.89, the native population in Turkey achieves better results than any Turkish immigrant community in Europe, and in fact is not too different from the value of 481.84, achieved by native Austrian children without an immigration background. Just as in Turkey, there are also considerable differences between low PISA reading scores for many of the OECD immigrant groups abroad and high PISA reading scores in the home countries of the migrants concerned, such as in Poland, Korea, Italy, and Portugal. In all these countries the home country already achieves better national results than the migrant communities from these countries abroad. Historical blue-collar migration from poor and rural regions from Italy, Korea, Poland, Portugal and Turkey well explains such phenomena. Conversely, we find clear evidence of a real contemporary 'brain drain' from Austria, the UK, Albania, France, Brazil, Germany and Russia, where migrants abroad, as a rule, achieved better OECD PISA reading ability test results than fellow citizens in their country of origin.

We also show that with Portuguese investments in education but U.S. immigration rates the current Austrian immigration model reached certain limits.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: On the analysis of international migration processes. Macro-quantitative perspectives and a comparative case study on the situation of the Turkish Community in Austria
• Language: German
• Keywords: International Relations and International Political Economy, International Migration JEL Classification Numbers: F5, F22
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F22 - International Migration; F - International Economics > F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy > F50 - General

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