Introduction

At the centre of this chapter are the process of migration, its structural trends, geographical patterns, conceptual delineation and statistical measurement. In describing and analysing these, we do not follow traditional theoretical concepts that interpret migration as a ‘natural’ function and only as a consequence of economic or political disparities. This perception of migration as an automatic flow in an uneven world does not do justice to the complexity of this phenomenon. Migration is regulated and defined by various forces, two of which will be in the centre of attention in this chapter: the economy and the society. The economy and its specific demand for qualified and unqualified labour are of critical importance because they have the societal power to define the size and the structure of the labour markets to which the migrants have to adapt. The institutional approach, by contrast, is central to explaining why and which migration takes place. It underlines the significance of policy and administrative procedures for canalising migration flows. Of course, these two forces interact. The enterprises and their political representatives formulate their needs and economic interests and influence the institutional rules. The institutional rules, in turn, delimit the scope and options of entrepreneurial action.

The economy and the societal institutions open and close gates for migrants; they also define and differentiate between spatial mobility and migration. Usually, only some forms of spatial mobility are perceived as migration – a fact not reflected in the general and rather technical definition of migration given by the United Nations recommendation dating back to 1998: ‘a long-term migrant should be defined as a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence.’ According to these guidelines, EU citizens moving within the EU are migrants while in reality they may not be perceived as such. On the other hand, in some countries labour migrants are categorised as guest workers and not as migrants. And it is also a matter of public perception whether asylum seekers, who are obviously mobile, are migrants.