The historical-structural approach “is not a unified theory” and is “considerably more difficult to
summarize,” due in part to the fact that it is found “in a variety of models.” (Wood 1982:301,
cited in Abreu 2010: 7). Therefore, in this section, I limit my discussion to one major study,
which has come to dominate the historical-structuralist perspective.
The historical-structural perspective, including what De Haas terms the ‘migration pessimists’,
comes as an alternative to the neoclassical model for highlighting the reverse effects of migration
“optimistic views on migration and development in sending areas were increasingly challenged
due to the combined influence of a paradigm shift in social sciences toward (historical)
structuralist views and an increasing number of empirical studies that often did not support
optimistic views on migration and development” (De Haas 2005: 4). Under this view, migration
is seen as exacerbating problems of underdevelopment (De Haas 2010: 232). Economist
Papademetriou (1985) suggested that in sending countries, migration would contribute to “the
evolution into an uncontrolled depletion of their already meager supplies of skilled manpower –
and the most healthy, dynamic, and productive members of their populations. (De Haas 2010:
232; 1985: 211-212). This depletion is identified as the ‘brain-drain’; that is, when skilled people
migrate to rich countries, depriving their own poor countries from their professional skills and
professional labor resources in which states have invested many years of education (Baldwin,
1970; cited in De Haas 2010:232). Among the many problems resulting from migration was that
of conspicuous consumption, as migrants rarely invested their money (remittances) in productive
enterprises and instead spent in conspicuous consumption.50
Although the historical-structural approach includes different aspects of the migration
phenomenon, it is possible to bring together its main argument as one in which capitalist
development in the advanced industrialized economies intrinsically requires a constant inflow of
workers, creating a structural incentive for immigration to occur (Abreu 2010: 7). One of the
most complete studies that pointed to this process of migration is sociologist Michael Piore’s
work in Birds of Passage (1979). Piore understands migration to be the result of a strong
structural labor demand in developed countries. His concerns center on why migrants
50 I limit the review of the ‘pessimist’ view only to these two factors –brain-drain and conspicuous consumption as I
concentrate in semi-skilled jobs that have limited job security; why wages fall more than they
rise; and why migrants tend to work for jobs that bring low social status. The novelty of Piore’s
work is that he stresses the importance of non-economic variables such as status and hierarchy,
as potential causes affecting labor migration.
Piore’s most striking finding is that migration does not result from push factors, such as low
wages. Rather, it is caused by the different levels of jobs that are inherent of advanced industrial
countries (see also Miles 1990, Sassen 2001).Piore sees three reasons that explain the ‘chronic
and unavoidable’ demand for foreign labor workers. The first follows the traditional (and macro)
view that migration is a result of labor shortages. As economy expands, labor workers seek
better-paying and more prestigious jobs. The second reason for foreign labor demand and
perhaps the most sociological Piore has advanced comes from the motivating effects of
hierarchy. People work for money but also for the accumulation and maintenance of social
prestige (See also McGovern 2007). Employers need migrants who regard low-status jobs simply
as a way to make money. Those jobs generally attract labor workers who are more concerned
with economic survival than status. The third reason refers to the duality between labor and
capital. According to Piore (1979), two non-competing sectors pervade markets – a primary
sector that provides well-paid jobs and a peripheral sector that hires those who are unskilled. The
demand for labor is created by these different level sectors. The primary sector is constantly
challenged by structural inflation causing wages to rise. Too expensive for proportional wage
increases and too uncertain because of market fluctuation, the peripheral sector is not being
pursued by native workers but becomes an attractive workplace for migrant and ethnic workers.
in developed countries. As a consequence, there is a strong demand for labor in developing
countries, acting as a pull factor to migration.
Piore’s study is perhaps the most inclusive study ever done on migration and one that is of
particular importance for explaining migration trends in Europe and the United States. His theory
provides a significant step to a sociologically oriented theory of division of labor. Though
scholars criticized Piore, and other researchers who used a historical-structural theoretical
approach for seeing interests of capital as all-determining, he is one of the first scholars in the
sociology of migration, at a time of heavy reliance on neoclassical and Marxist theories, to have
stressed the importance of non economic factors in labor migration.
Although these approaches have contributed significant knowledge on the national patterns and
outcomes of migration, their emphasis on economics is not just flagrant but universal.
The historical-structural approach was criticized for its reductionist approach to the migrant’s
agency. Its often too Marxist and neo-Marxist emphasis on migration as a social process was
largely influenced by political-economic processes at the structural level (Abreu 2010: 10). Just
like the neo-classical perspective, historical-structural scholars did not consider the various
processes by which migrants came to migrate in the first place, nor were they concerned with the
role remittances played in one’s decision to migrate. The determinants of migration were seen
exclusively at a macro level, greatly undermining migrants’ agency in their reasons for
migrating. However, soon after Piore’s study, we begin to notice a shift of focus in migration
households and remittances as a new unit of analysis. Thanks to remittances, migration is seen
not just as a positive process but as a key actor in the development process of poor countries.51
A summary of migration theories is provided in the table below (De Haas 2010: 230).
Table 19. Summary of migration perspectives
Source: De Haas (2010: 230).
B).REMITTANCES