DOCSLIB.ORG

2015 Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa Was the Result of Efforts of Many People

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
2015 Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa Was the Result of Efforts of Many People 2015 Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa Meeting Summary and Main Findings Angela Buchanan, Rachel Marks, and Magdaliz Álvarez Figueroa Population Division U.S. Census Bureau Washington, DC 20233 September 7, 2016 Acknowledgments This report was prepared by Angela Buchanan, Rachel Marks, and Magdaliz Álvarez Figueroa, demographic statisticians in the Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch of the Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. General direction for this work was provided by Roberto Ramirez, Assistant Division Chief for Special Population Statistics, and Merarys Rios, Chief of the Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch. Valuable feedback was provided by Bashiruddin Ahmed, Demographic Reviewer. Karen Humes, Chief, Population Division, provided overall direction. The 2015 Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa was the result of efforts of many people. Karen Humes and Roberto Ramirez had overall responsibility for directing the conference. Angela Buchanan, Rachel Marks, and Merarys Rios were responsible for planning the conference, preparing content, and communicating with participants. Nicholas Jones provided much assistance in planning the content. Beverly Pratt and Joseph Brunn helped document the feedback. The authors are grateful to the many people in the Population Division, as well as others in the Public Information Office, Administrative and Customer Services Division, and the Office of the Director who made valuable contributions to planning, holding, and recording the conference. The authors also wish to extend their gratitude to all the participants for their time, energy, and invaluable input. ii Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................ v Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Participants .......................................................................................................................................3 Materials ...........................................................................................................................................7 Opening Remarks ...............................................................................................................................9 Session A: Testing a Middle Eastern or North African Category on the 2015 National Content Test ..... 13 Session B: The Term “Middle Eastern or North African” .................................................................... 21 Session C: Census Bureau’s Working Classification of Middle Eastern or North African for the 2015 National Content Test ...................................................................................................................... 27 Session D: Potential Data Products Featuring Middle Eastern and North African Data ........................ 35 Session E: Wrap-Up and Next Steps .................................................................................................. 40 Closing Remarks ...............................................................................................................................43 Appendices Appendix A. Agenda .......................................................................................................................A-1 Appendix B. Presentation Slides .....................................................................................................B-1 Appendix C. Feedback Sheets .........................................................................................................C-1 Appendix D. Proposed Middle Eastern and North African Code List .................................................D-1 Appendix E. Working Classification for the Middle Eastern and North African Category on the 2015 National Content Test ............................................................................................................E-1 Appendix F. Welcome Letter ..........................................................................................................F-1 Appendix G. 2015 National Content Test Paper Forms ....................................................................G-1 iii List of Tables Table 1. Responses to Questions on Session A Feedback Sheet………………………..……………….………….....16 Table 2. Responses to Questions on Session B Feedback Sheet………………………..……………….………….....23 Table 3. Responses to Questions on Session C Feedback Sheet………………………..…………..…………….......30 Table 4. Additional Ethnic Groups Mentioned in Session C Written Feedback………………….………….......33 Table E-1. Countries Included in Fifteen Organizations’ Classifications……………………………………………..E-3 iv Executive Summary Like in the past, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted a mid-decade content test in 2015 to explore ways of improving the quality of the race and ethnicity data the Census Bureau collects and provides. The 2015 National Content Test (NCT) included a category for people to identify as Middle Eastern or North African (MENA).1 This being the first time the MENA category has appeared on any census test or Census Bureau sponsored survey, it was critical to get feedback from the community and stakeholders on the proposed format and usage of the category. To address this need, the Census Bureau held the Forum on Ethnic Groups from the Middle East and North Africa on May 29, 2015. The Census Bureau invited community members, academics, organization leaders, and other experts in the field to review its plans to include a Middle Eastern or North African category in the census test, and provide feedback on several aspects of its data collection plans. The Census Bureau asked participants for their opinions on how the public would identify with the term Middle Eastern or North African, the validity of the working classification of nationalities and ethnicities, the appropriateness of the examples listed with the category on the test form, and possible ways of presenting the data. Furthermore, under the current government standards on the collection of race data issued by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a person having origins in the original peoples of the Middle East and North Africa is classified as White.2 The Census Bureau asked for the opinions of participants on whether MENA respondents should continue to be classified this way. Participants reviewed background materials prior to the forum, were briefed on the goals of the meeting, and then gathered with Census Bureau staff to give their input. During the forum, there were five sessions of information sharing and discussion: • Session A: Testing a Middle Eastern or North African category on the 2015 National Content Test In this session, forum participants were briefed on the Census Bureau’s plans to test alternative question formats for collecting race and ethnicity data. The NCT tested four key dimensions for the questions on race and ethnicity, including question format, response categories, instruction wording and terminology, and web-based designs to improve understanding and optimize reporting of detailed racial and ethnic groups . The three goals of the NCT were to 1) increase accuracy and reliability of reporting in the major OMB race and ethnic categories, 2) collect detailed data for groups, and 3) obtain lower item nonresponse rates. In an effort to meet these goals, the Middle Eastern or North African category was tested in both the separate and combined question approaches. This session also outlined the current standards laid out by the Office of Management and Budget in 1997 for the collection of data on race and ethnicity by federal agencies. According to 1 For more information on the 2015 National Content Test, see http://www.census.gov/programs- surveys/decennial-census/2020-census/research-testing/testing-activities/2015-census-tests/national-content- test.html. 2 For more information on the OMB standards, see www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards. v the standards, a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa is classified as White. Lastly, this session discussed the rationale for the examples that were chosen to appear with the Middle Eastern or North African category on the questionnaires. For the 2015 NCT race and/or ethnicity question(s), each major category, such as White, Hispanic or Latino, or Black or African American, included examples to give respondents an idea of what groups are included in each category. All test panels that included the Middle Eastern or North African category used Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan, and Algerian as examples. The rationale for using these groups as examples was to use the three largest Middle Eastern nationalities and three largest North African nationalities in the United States. On some web-based panels and one paper panel, three additional examples of Israeli, Iraqi, and Tunisian were included. These groups represented the next two largest Middle Eastern nationalities and the next largest North African nationality. • Session B: The Term “Middle Eastern or North African” This session introduced participants to the research done by the Census Bureau into how fifteen other federal agencies, research centers, universities, and other organizations classified people with origins from the Middle East and North Africa. Most used the term “Middle Eastern and North African,” and half of those also used
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Theoretical Implications of the Beachy Amish-Mennonites DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Th
    Theoretical Implications of the Beachy Amish-Mennonites DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Cory Alexander Anderson Graduate Program in Rural Sociology The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Joseph Donnermeyer, Advisor Richard Moore Edward Crenshaw Copyrighted by Cory Alexander Anderson 2014 Abstract One of the hallmarks of social science is the interaction of theory and methods/data, the former guiding the latter and the latter refining the former, in a cyclical relationship. The goal of theory is to provide explanations for and even predict a range of human behaviors. One potential cause of theoretical stagnation is an over focus on a singular, usually easily accessible group. Given the persistence of plain Anabaptists like the Amish as a highly distinct subgroup in American society, their utility for refining sociological theories is persuasive, but has rarely been employed to this end because of their social inaccessibility, shyness towards social science research, and the popular interpretive frames placed on them that distract would-be investigators. Even with Amish-focused scholarship, the emphasis has been largely on describing the population or applying theory to understand the Amish case, but not returning findings back to theory in critique and revision. This dissertation introduces and contextualizes the plain Anabaptists, then describes the Beachy Amish-Mennonites, a group within the Amish religious tension, but dealing markedly with tensions between separatism and assimilation. Following this introduction are three independent studies that demonstrate the use of plain Anabaptists to refine theory.
    [Show full text]
  • Browsing Through Bias: the Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA Studies
    Browsing through Bias: The Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA Studies Sara A. Howard and Steven A. Knowlton Abstract The knowledge organization system prepared by the Library of Con- gress (LC) and widely used in academic libraries has some disadvan- tages for researchers in the fields of African American studies and LGBTQIA studies. The interdisciplinary nature of those fields means that browsing in stacks or shelflists organized by LC Classification requires looking in numerous locations. As well, persistent bias in the language used for subject headings, as well as the hierarchy of clas- sification for books in these fields, continues to “other” the peoples and topics that populate these titles. This paper offers tools to help researchers have a holistic view of applicable titles across library shelves and hopes to become part of a larger conversation regarding social responsibility and diversity in the library community.1 Introduction The neat division of knowledge into tidy silos of scholarly disciplines, each with its own section of a knowledge organization system (KOS), has long characterized the efforts of libraries to arrange their collections of books. The KOS most commonly used in American academic libraries is the Li- brary of Congress Classification (LCC). LCC, developed between 1899 and 1903 by James C. M. Hanson and Charles Martel, is based on the work of Charles Ammi Cutter. Cutter devised his “Expansive Classification” to em- body the universe of human knowledge within twenty-seven classes, while Hanson and Martel eventually settled on twenty (Chan 1999, 6–12). Those classes tend to mirror the names of academic departments then prevail- ing in colleges and universities (e.g., Philosophy, History, Medicine, and Agriculture).
    [Show full text]
  • Towards a Refined Symbolic Ethnicity
    RECONSTRUCTING JEWISH IDENTITY IN CROATIA: TOWARDS A REFINED SYMBOLIC ETHNICITY Nila Ginger Hofman DePaul University, Chicago This paper has two aims. To begin, it to our understanding of ethnic identity examines whether the symbolic ethnicity negotiation in capitalist as well as post- model is relevant to identity negotiation socialist societies. among Croatian Jews. In symbolic I argue, employing ethnographic ethnicity, individuals are not so much and historic analyses, that the imposition interested in the maintenance of traditional of an essentialist view of Jewish identity lifestyles as they are with choosing how to express cultural identity. In the past, by national and supranational scholars have either employed the model to constituencies may ultimately have discuss identity negotiation among ethnics adverse effects on cultural groups such in the United States and other core as the Croatian Jews who have embraced societies, or they have dismissed it humanist and idiosyncratic versions of altogether. The second aim describes the Jewish identity since the mid-nineteenth existing tension between the self-images of century (Goldstein 1988). Ethnographic the Croatian Jews and those projected on data reveals that despite a lack of strong them by others. Both Croatian “cultural religious commitments and highly diversity campaigns” and international idiosyncratic expressions of cultural Jewish support organizations consider identity, Croatian Jews are not on the Jewish identity to have an essentially religious core. Programs sponsored
    [Show full text]
  • GONE to TEXAS: PART of the NATION's IMMIGRATION STORY from the Bullock Texas State History Museum
    GONE TO TEXAS: PART OF THE NATION'S IMMIGRATION STORY from the Bullock Texas State History Museum Children and Youth Bibliography (*denotes Galveston/Texas-focus) Elementary School Connor, Leslie illustrated by Mary Azarian. Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Miss Bridie embarks on a voyage to America in 1856. She chooses to bring along a shovel to start a new life in a new land. In this children's book, a young Irish woman's journey symbolizes the contribution made by millions of immigrants in building our nation. Freeman, Marilyn. Pasquale's Journey. New York University Press, 2003. Join Pasquale and his family on a journey from Italy to America. After receiving tickets from “Papa,” they start their long, exhausting voyage, all the time dreaming of a better life! Glasscock, Sarah. Read Aloud Plays: Immigration. Scholastic, 1999. This collection of plays will give students an opportunity to actively learn about Irish, Chinese, Lebanese, Cuban, and Russian Jews immigrating for a number of reasons. Herrera, Juan Felipe illustrated by Honorio Robledo Tapia. Super Cilantro Girl. Children's Book Press, 2003. This is a tale about a super-hero child who flies huge distances and scales tall walls in order to rescue her mom. Juan Felipe Herrera addresses and transforms the concerns many first-generation children have about national borders and immigrant status. Lawrence, Jacob. The Great Migration: An American Story. HarperCollins, 1995. This book chronicles the migration of African Americans from the South to replace workers because of WWI. It touches upon discrimination and sharecropping as well as the new opportunities of voting and going to school.
    [Show full text]
  • Antonio L. Vásquez, Ph.D
    CURRICULUM VITAE Antonio L. Vásquez, Ph.D. Department of Mexican American & Latina/o Studies | The University of Texas at Austin Office: GWB 2.334 | Telephone: 512.471.9639 | Email: [email protected] FACULTY APPOINTMENTS Full-Time Faculty Lecturer, Mexican American & Latina/o Studies 2018-Present University of Texas at Austin Full-Time Faculty Lecturer, Global Studies 2013-2017 Middle Tennessee State University Dissertation Fellow/Faculty Lecturer, Office of the Provost 2012-2013 Middle Tennessee State University Teaching Assistant, Integrate Studies in the Arts & Humanities 2010-2012 Michigan State University EDUCATION EXPERIENCE DEGREE PROGRAMS Doctor of Philosophy | Michigan State University 2013 Dual-Major Chicano/Latino Studies + American Studies Committee Dionicio Valdés, Ph.D. (Chair), Theresa Meléndez, Ph.D., Pero Dagbovie, Ph.D., Dylan Miner, Ph.D., Jerry García, Ph.D. Dissertation Roots and Flows of the Tejano Diaspora In the Southern United States Graduate Certificate | Michigan State University 2010 Concentration Community Engagement Master of Arts | St. Mary’s University 2002 Major International Relations Concentration Conflict Resolution Bachelor of Arts | Texas Lutheran University 1998 Dual-Major Political Science + International Studies Minor Spanish ADDITIONAL STUDY MTSU Institute for Experiential Learning 2015 Experiential Learning Scholars Program | Middle Tennessee State University Underrepresented Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program 2012-2013 Office of the Provost | Middle Tennessee State University
    [Show full text]
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina Page 1 of 7
    Bosnia and Herzegovina Page 1 of 7 Bosnia and Herzegovina International Religious Freedom Report 2007 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor The State Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the entity Constitutions of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Federation) and the Republika Srpska (RS) provide for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in ethnically integrated areas or in areas where government officials are of the majority religion; the state-level Law on Religious Freedom also provides comprehensive rights to religious communities. However, local authorities sometimes restricted the right to worship of adherents of religious groups in areas where such persons are in the minority. Government protection of religious freedom declined, especially during the campaign period prior to the October 2006 national elections, due to selective legal enforcement and the indifference of some government officials. At the end of the period covered by this report, the Government was implementing the State Law on Religious Freedom to protect the rights of religious communities and create a government registry allowing them to establish legal status. Societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief and practice persisted. Religious intolerance directly reflected ethnic intolerance because of the virtually indistinguishable identification of ethnicity with religious background. Discrimination against religious minorities occurred in nearly all parts of the country. In some communities local religious leaders and politicians contributed to intolerance and an increase in nationalism through public statements and sermons. A number of illegally constructed religious objects continued to cause ethnic/religious tension and conflict in various communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Page 01 July 09.Indd
    ISO 9001:2008 CERTIFIED NEWSPAPER Tuesday 9 July 2013 30 Shaaban 1434 - Volume 18 Number 5755 Price: QR2 Helium2 plant Murray targets at RasGas more Slams after begins output historic win Business | 21 Sport | 28 www.thepeninsulaqatar.com [email protected] | [email protected] Editorial: 4455 7741 | Advertising: 4455 7837 / 4455 7780 Pakistan PM congratulates Emir Ramadan Plan to build begins huge fish tomorrow DOHA: The fasting month of Ramadan begins tomorrow, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic breeding farm Affairs announced yesterday. “July 10 will be the first day of Ramadan for the Islamic calen- dar year –Hijri—1434,” the min- Central fish market to be rebuilt istry said, according to Qatar News Agency (QNA). DOHA: The Ministry of Since the five year plan of the The head of Qatar’s new moon Environment, under which the ministry (2006-11), fishing boats sighting committee, Thaqil bin fisheries department falls, is are not being allowed to venture Saer Al Shummari, said the new building a huge fish breeding into the sea more than three moon was not sighted yesterday farm and has plans to rebuild times a month during the breed- “so the Hijri month of Shaban will and expand the existing central ing period in April and May every be of 30 days and Ramadan (the fish market in the city. year. Hijri month that follows Shaban) The fish market was established Al Mohannadi said that there will begin from Wednesday”. in the 1970s with a capacity of 10 are restrictions on catching king The Ministry of Interior, tonnes, but with the population of fish from August 15 to October 15 meanwhile, announced Ramadan the country and the demand for every year for similar reasons and timings for some of its key depart- fish having multiplied, the market that the Cabinet has approved a The Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received yesterday congratulations from Pakistani Prime ments and said some of them will presently handles some 35 tonnes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Struggle of Blacks for Equal Educational Oppertunity: an Overview, 4 Hastings Const
    Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Volume 4 Article 7 Number 3 Summer 1977 1-1-1977 The trS uggle of Blacks for Equal Educational Oppertunity: An Overview Glynda Leanette Flentroy Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Glynda Leanette Flentroy, The Struggle of Blacks for Equal Educational Oppertunity: An Overview, 4 Hastings Const. L.Q. 605 (1977). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly/vol4/iss3/7 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Struggle Of Blacks For Equal Educa- tional Opportunity: An Overview By GLYNDA LEANETTE FLENTROY* Introduction Parents, educators, social scientists, legislatures, and the courts have long been concerned with ascertaining what factors will ensure equal educa- tional opportunity for all students. Early studies postulated that educational quality was variously dependent on per pupil expenditures, institutional facilities, curriculum, and teachers. More recent studies, however, have focused on the freedom to attend the school of one's choice and the equitable distribution of society's resources, and have concluded that these factors may be the most significant which contribute to the attainment of equal educational opportunity. Accessibility to the school of one's choice provides the individual with psychological and physical mobility within the academic milieu, removes the implications of a caste system within American society, and liberates the individual's mind for further intellectual exploration.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage
    Double or Nothing? mn Double or published by university press of new england hanover and london po po Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage Sylvia Barack Fishman BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS nm Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England, 37 Lafayette St., Lebanon, NH 03766 © 2004 by Brandeis University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fishman, Sylvia Barack, 1942– Double or nothing? : Jewish familes and mixed marriage / Sylvia Barack Fishman. p. cm.—(Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life) (Brandeis series on Jewish Women) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–58465–206–3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Interfaith marriage—United States. 2. Jews—United States—Social conditions. 3. Jewish families—United States. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Brandeis series on Jewish women HQ1031.F56 2004 306.84Ј3Ј0973—dc22 2003021956 Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life Jonathan D. Sarna, Editor Sylvia Barack Fishman, Associate Editor Leon A. Jick, 1992 The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820–1870 Sylvia Barack Fishman, editor, 1992 Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction Gerald Tulchinsky, 1993 Taking Root: The Origins of the Canadian Jewish Community Shalom Goldman, editor, 1993 Hebrew and the Bible in America: The First Two Centuries Marshall Sklare, 1993 Observing America’s Jews Reena Sigman Friedman, 1994 These Are Our Children: Jewish
    [Show full text]
  • Gender and Migration in Arab States
    International Labour Organisation GENDER AND MIGRATION IN ARAB STATES: THE CASE OF DOMESTIC WORKERS Edited by Simel Esim & Monica Smith June 2004 Regional Office for Arab States, Beirut International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the of its frontiers. The responsibility for opinions expressed in this study rests solely on the authors and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of opinions expressed in them. For more information, please contact: Simel Esim Gender & Women Workers’ Specialist Tel: 961 - 1 - 752400 Fax: 961 - 1 - 752405 Email: [email protected] 4 Gender & Migration in Arab States : The Case of Domestic Workers Foreword Domestic workers, the majority of whom are women, constitute a large portion of today's migrant worker population. As part of the international trend of feminization of international labour, much of this work remains invisible in national statistics and national labour legislation. It is not certain whether the increasing participation of women in international migration provides them with a decent wage, good working conditions, social security coverage and labour protection. It is therefore important to provide more attention to the labour situation of the growing number of women migrant workers. To identify critical issues of concern to women migrant domestic workers and to determine the extent of their vulnerability, the ILO has been analyzing the situation in several regions. These studies reveal practices and patterns that are the key causes of the vulnerability of women domestic migrant workers and suggest effective alternative strategies. This publication presents an ILO regional review and four country studies from the Arab States: Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and United Arab Emirates.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethnic Groups and Library of Congress Subject Headings
    Ethnic Groups and Library of Congress Subject Headings Jeffre INTRODUCTION tricks for success in doing African studies research3. One of the challenges of studying ethnic Several sections of the article touch on subject head- groups is the abundant and changing terminology as- ings related to African studies. sociated with these groups and their study. This arti- Sanford Berman authored at least two works cle explains the Library of Congress subject headings about Library of Congress subject headings for ethnic (LCSH) that relate to ethnic groups, ethnology, and groups. His contentious 1991 article Things are ethnic diversity and how they are used in libraries. A seldom what they seem: Finding multicultural materi- database that uses a controlled vocabulary, such as als in library catalogs4 describes what he viewed as LCSH, can be invaluable when doing research on LCSH shortcomings at that time that related to ethnic ethnic groups, because it can help searchers conduct groups and to other aspects of multiculturalism. searches that are precise and comprehensive. Interestingly, this article notes an inequity in the use Keyword searching is an ineffective way of of the term God in subject headings. When referring conducting ethnic studies research because so many to the Christian God, there was no qualification by individual ethnic groups are known by so many differ- religion after the term. but for other religions there ent names. Take the Mohawk lndians for example. was. For example the heading God-History of They are also known as the Canienga Indians, the doctrines is a heading for Christian works, and God Caughnawaga Indians, the Kaniakehaka Indians, (Judaism)-History of doctrines for works on Juda- the Mohaqu Indians, the Saint Regis Indians, and ism.
    [Show full text]
  • Push and Pull Factors of International Migration: a Comparative Report
    2000 EDITION Push and pull factors of international migration A comparative report THEME 1 EUROPEAN General COMMISSION 1statistics A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int). Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2000 ISBN 92-828-9721-4 © European Communities, 2000 Printed in Luxembourg PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER FOREWORD International migration flows have increased in magnitude and complexity over the past decades. As a result, migration and potential migration to, for instance, the European Union are receiving ever more attention at policy level. Within this context, the Commission of the European Communities entrusted Eurostat, its Statistical Bureau, and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) with a project to study the push and pull factors determining international migration flows. The objective of the study is to improve our understanding of the direct and indirect causes and mechanisms of international migration to the European Union, from an internationally comparative perspective. The results are intended to serve as a basis for the development of policy instruments and to provide tools for estimating future migration. The project started in 1994 with the preparation of a study on the ‘state of the art’ in migration theory and research, the identification of national and international research institutes active in this field, and a workshop. Based on the results of this preparatory stage, surveys were set up in a number of countries.
    [Show full text]