Determinants of International Migration from Pakistan

Determinants of International Migration from Pakistan
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Introduction
Push and pull factors are the greatest contributors to the migration of Pakistan citizens to foreign nations. They do so as a way of improving their socioeconomic status. The Pakistan government has for years been, in fact, coming up with policies that encourage its citizens to look for employment outside the motherland. They include the establishment of various divisions by the labor ministry in a bid to look after the well-being of Pakistanis living abroad. They include the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, the Overseas Pakistanis Wing and the Overseas Employment Corporation. This study aims at finding out the reasons behind the migration of Pakistanis from their mother country. It should be noted that migration, while seeming well-meaning, brings about such problems as brain-drainage which results into slow development of the country in question. Therefore, it is a problem whose solutions will be proposed in this study.
Background
As far back as the 1950s, Pakistani migration, mostly involving young men looking for better employment opportunities had began. It is important to take into account the fact that there are two types of Pakistani migration based on the target country as well as the level of skills of the migrants. The Pakistanis who migrate to Europe and North America desire to have a long-term stay and get their families to live with them. On the other hand GCC countries migrants are mainly semi-skilled and low-skilled laborers who can’t gain long-term residence due to the restrictive policies of the governments in question.
Today, International migration in Pakistan has become more obvious and influential social factors that have greatly changed the current economic system, social system, and the society as a whole. People have been known to migrate from poor countries to rich nations to improve their economic status and for better education. The decision to migrate to a foreign country is often based on several push and pull factors as described by Lee’s Push pull theory (Farook, Tariq, Ghulzar, Mirza & Riaz, 2014). Based on Lee’s theory, this study purposes to explore the main determinants of Pakistan migration to foreign countries.
Research Question
What effects do push and pull factors have on the migration of Pakistani citizens to foreign nations?
Supporting Arguments
In the rural areas of Pakistan, land holding is considered an economic opportunity.
According to the most significant aspect of the economic hypothesis aspect, land deprivation or
total landlessness is a major contributor to international immigration (Farook, Tariq, Ghulzar,
Mirza & Riaz, 2014).
A large number of Pakistanis who have managed to improve their livelihoods in both
rural and urban areas have also encouraged other Pakistanis to migrate to foreign nations.
Pakistanis, therefore, migrate to foreign nations because of the influence of individuals who went
ahead of them.
Definitions of Terms
Affective Measures
Devices or procedures used to obtain quantified descriptions of a person’s disposition,
emotional states or feelings.
Baseline
A control measurement taken before the experimental treatment.
Bias
Failure to implement research methods accurately. It can either occur during the research
stages or through the sampling frame.
Data
Factual information that is used as a basis of calculation, discussion or reasoning.
External Validity
The extent to which the study’s results are transferable or generalizable
Internal Validity
The rigor with which the study was spearheaded.
Questionnaire
Sets of structured questions on certain subjects that are used when trying to gather
information, opinions and attitudes of people towards the phenomenon under study.
Annotated Bibliography
Ahad, M. (2015). The Determinants of International Migration in Pakistan: New Evidence from
Combined Co-Integration, Causality and Innovative Accounting Approach. The
Economic Research Guardian, 5(2), 159-175
This article points out unemployment, remittances, and inflation as the main factors that
lead to the migration of Pakistanis to foreign countries. In the study, Ahad evaluates migration in
Pakistan from 1980 to 2013. The study employs the Bayer-Hanck combined co-integration
approach to test the existence or non-existence of long-run relationships between variables.
Ahad’s study provides insightful information regarding the reasons for Pakistanis migration to
other nations. More so, the method used by Ahad to prove his hypothesis can also be applied to
the project. Ahad uses the Variance Decomposition approach to prove that unemployment is the
most significant factor that contributes to migration in Pakistan. The article also offers important
background information regarding the history of migration in Pakistan as well as useful insight
on the application of Bayer-Hanck combined co-integration for testing the hypothesis.
Ahmad, N., Hussain, Z., Sia, M. H., Hussain, I., & Akram, W. (2008). Macroeconomic
Determinants of International Migration from Pakistan. Pakistan Economic and Social
Review, 46(2), 85-99.
In this study, the authors state that poverty and income inequality are the main factors that
lead to migration of Pakistanis to foreign nations. The authors identified the main reasons for
migration by analyzing the time series data. The process involved testing the stationary
properties of each time series. The study is relevant to the research because it offers an effective
method for testing the hypothesis to determine its level of validity. The authors used the Vector
Error Correction Model to estimate the short-run adjustment of the variables towards their
relationship in the long run. Similarly, this...