The migration flux: Understanding international immigration through internal migration

Abstract

This paper introduces the idea that the network structure that emerges from a foreign-born population's internal migration process changes the conditions for international immigration. The idea is tested by using data from the period between 1998 and 2008 about virtually all internal and international migration events in Spain. The findings show that internal migration changes the intensity and the quality content of immigrant social capital transfers, with both positive and negative ramifications for subsequent network-driven international migration. The effect of internal migration was particularly influential in localities with no prior direct international immigration experience. The findings also revealed a synergistic effect between the two migration processes - high levels of internal migration lead to elevated overall international immigration levels. Almost all research focusing on network-driven migration treats the causal mechanism producing the network effect in an endogenous way. For example, it is commonly claimed that increasing international immigration is the result of an expansion of the immigrant network due to past international immigration. My findings constitute explicit evidence that network-driven international migration is also determined by exogenous factors such as the second-order migration of past migrants in the destination.international; internal; domestic; migration; immigration; cumulative causation; chain migration; social networks