Migration and social structure: Analytic issues and comparative perspectives in developing nations

There are profound relationships between migration and social structure, reflecting the varieties of migration types, the complexities of social structure, and the reciprocal ways migration and social structure are interrelated over time, in different societies, for different communities and social groups. Almost every thread of social structure may be linked to migration patterns at macro- and micro-levels of analysis, cross-sectionally and longitudinally, with variation over the life cycle, connections to levels of socioeconomic development, and relationships to social class and subject to political control. This paper focuses on several propositions that identify and illustrate the complexities of these linkages in developing nations and suggests some of the ways in which our understanding of social structure enhances the analysis of migration processes and vice versa.