Explaining international migrations

The Master of Science in International Business (MScIB) students enjoyed a masterclass by Mariña Fernández Reino, a researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. Her speciality is the correlation between educational inequalities and migration and her lecture was entitled “International Migrations and their Impact on the Economic Global Order”.

At the beginning of the conference, PhD Fernández Reino dealt with the new UK migration law. There will be no visas for low-skilled workers and those who are already in the UK will need to register to extend their visa or permanent residence permission.

One of the goals of her speech made it clear to the students that migration is not something new or unknown. It has always existed but in the latest years is a topic that has gained centrality in political discourse. At this moment the lecturer shared some graphics to explain the international migration fluxes. In Spain, for example, the migrant population represents 12 % of the total.

Why do people migrate? What are the main determinants of international migrations? To solve these questions Mariña Fernández Reino presented different theories. The Neo-Classical that only explain migration from Macro-structures (institutional factors, political economy or inter-state relationships). Another theory is the New Economics of Labour Migration that assumes migration is not an individual decision. Other topics point, for example, on families or communities of migrant people and the network generated with the origin country.

Finally, the lecturer presented how migration transforms the origin and destination countries. PhD Fernández Reino introduced the question of integration of the ethnic minorities in the destination countries and the policies to facilitate this process. This topic will be the main aspect of her next class, an activity for the IBP students and opened to ESCI-UPF community.