Sociology
UPF

 

 

 

Migrations between Africa and Europe (MAFE)

Pau Baizán (scientific manager)
Amparo González (project coordinator)
Mao-Mei Liu (research assistant)

The MAFE research program aims at analysing the conditions and determinants of migrations between Africa and Europe, and the impact of migrations (including return migrations) on the development of sending countries. It brings together several research teams in both African and European countries.

International migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe constitutes a major concern in Europe for both public opinion and policy makers. The flotilla of boats bringing would-be migrants to the Canary Islands, and attempts to reach Spanish territory in Ceuta and Mellila have drawn attention to African migration and a rapid response from Europe in the form of new policy measures. Yet the scope, nature and likely development of Sub-Saharan African migration to Europe remains poorly understood, and as a result, European policies are often ineffective. For example, in spite of their visibility in media and political discourses, Africans remain a minority amongst migrants heading towards Europe, as well as a minority in the stocks of foreigners living in European countries. At the same time, despite various policy measures undertaken at the European and national levels to control African migrations, the number of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa appears to be growing rapidly.

A major cause of this lack of understanding is the absence of representative and appropriate data on the determinants of migration and circulation between Africa and Europe. The MAFE project aims to overcome this lack of understanding by collecting and disseminating unique, reliable and representative data on the characteristics and behaviour of migrants from Sub-Saharan countries to Europe, both documented and undocumented. Importantly, these data will be multi-level, and will include retrospective migration, education and work histories for individuals, linked to wider community and other contextual data in both origin and destination countries. Using this unique source of data, the project will employ the technique of ‘event history analysis’ to provide policy makers with new and accurate analyses on:

1. the changing patterns of African migration to Europe;
2. the determinants of this migration, and of return and circulation of migrants; and
3. the socio-economic and demographic changes that result from international migration.

Such analysis is urgently required in the context of rapidly changing migration patterns from Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, and the political importance of responding to such flows at both a national and European level.