Global migration and mobility

Description: As an important force of development in both sending and destination regions, migration forms a top-priority issue in the global policy debate. In order to assess the impact of future migrant flows and to develop appropriate policies to manage them, knowledge of their size, composition and distribution is crucial. The project will provide a deeper understanding of the root causes of migration with a specific focus on the role of financial incentives and constraints. In particular, we will focus on Central, Eastern and Western Africa and analyze people’s capacity to respond to economic, climatic and political shocks by migrating either internally or internationally. Based on the expected allocation of future migrants across destinations delivered by the first objective, we will then disentangle for which countries new international arrangements on migration are the most pressing and which type of agreement or partnership (intra- or interregional) is most suited for which countries.
Promoter(s): Ilse Ruyssen
Researcher(s): Sara Salomone
Department / Research group:Department of Economics 
Faculty: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Description: As an important force of development in both sending and destination regions, migration forms a top-priority issue in the global policy debate. In order to assess the impact of future migrant flows and to develop appropriate policies to manage them, knowledge of their size, composition and distribution is crucial. The project will provide a deeper understanding of the root causes of migration with a specific focus on the role of financial constraints. In particular, we will analyze people’s capacity to respond to severe environmental problems by migrating either internally or internationally. Based on the expected allocation of future migrants across destinations delivered by the first objective, we will then disentangle for which countries new international arrangements on migration are the most pressing and which type of agreement or partnership (intra- or interregional) is most suited for which countries.
Promoter(s): Ilse Ruyssen
Researcher(s): Els Bekaert
Department / Research group: Department of Economics
Faculty: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Description: My research aims to study the integration of immigrants for a wide range of EU and non-EU countries, by applying a new approach based on the time immigrants and natives allocate to daily activities. This will be achieved by: 1) investigating the differences between immigrants and natives in participation and in the time spent in integrating activities using parametric methods. In particular, the analysis focuses on differences between sub-groups of immigrants based on gender and other characteristics; 2) developing new metrics that analyse the relationships between integrating activities and how individuals distribute the time across activities. The analysis of the relationships between activities allows us to better understand deviations from desirable behaviour and inform policy actions aimed at removing constraints.
Website research project: https://research.ugent.be/web/result/project/2666a28c-28ca-42f4-8d49-d0ea0f2f0c71/details/timeuse-41n03420-immigrants-integration-in-several-eu-and-non-eu-countries--a-time-use-approach/en
Promoter(s): Glenn Rayp
Researcher(s): Rezart Hoxhaj
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Period of time: 2021 - 2023

Description: PROTECT The Right to International Protection. A Pendulum between Globalization and Nativization? is an EU-funded research project launched on 1 February 2020. We study the impacts of the UN's Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration, which are two non-binding frameworks promoting international cooperation and responsibility-sharing as key solutions to handle global refugee flows. By studying how the Compacts are received and implemented in different countries, and how they interact with existing legal frameworks and governance architectures, we investigate the Compacts' impact on refugees' right to international protection.
Promoter(s): Frank Caestecker
Researcher(s): Eva Ecker
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Period of time: 2020 - 2023

Description: The EU increasingly seeks to outsource or 'externalise' its international responsibility for the protection of refugees and other migrants to third countries, such as Morocco. This PhD research examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, what legal and actual protection exists for forced migrants in Morocco. The research evaluates the extraterritorial responsibility of states under international refugee and human rights law (doctrinal law perspective), examines what migrants themselves seek and understand to be protection, or 'protection consciousness' (socio-legal perspective), and looks at Morocco’s Africa diplomacy regarding asylum and migrants’ rights (critical policy perspective).
Promoter(s): Ellen Desmet
Researcher(s): Ruben Wissing
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Law and Criminology
Period of time: 2018 - 2022

Description: My research centers around space, identity, minorities, and mobilities in general. I have specifically written on Muslim minorities in the United States and Europe, minorities in Turkey, and history of geographic thought. I am particularly interested in the role of place in constructing identities, drawing boundaries and maintaining differences. Uneven power relations are at the center of my analysis. I believe that without understanding power relations and the role of place in power struggles, one cannot fully understand the contextuality, contingency and complexity of mobility, space and identity. Discourses produced, policies formed, narratives and memories created reflect complex power relations. The power to define, to draw boundaries, to dominate, to resist, to create and maintain differences is a central issue in mobilities and identities, whether it is immigration or emigration, integration or assimilation, reconciliation or alienation.
Promoter(s): Ilse Derluyn
Researcher(s): Ilhan Kaya
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Period of time: 2021 - 2022

Description: In this project, we will analyse the influence of terrorist attacks on worldwide migration. First, we empirically investigate the extent to which terrorist attacks act as a push factor for emigration and as a deterring factor for immigration by reducing potential destination countries' attractiveness. To do so, we will make use of cross-country data since 1980 which allows to identify also heterogeneous effects across different types of countries (e.g. depending on countries' development level). Second, we combine individual-level survey data on migration intentions (internal and international) with regional information on terrorist attacks which garantuees a more accurate identification of the connection between migration behavior and individual exposure to terrorism and the mechanisms at play (e.g. income or psychological). We will also explore to what extent the results vary with individual or household characteristics.
Promoter(s): Ilse Ruyssen
Researcher(s): Killian Foubert
Department / Research group: Department of Economics
Faculty: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration