ABSTRACT

Immigration is a multidisciplinary research topic. For example, demographers stress the traits of the immigrants; psychologists look at the emotional problems encountered by immigrants when leaving their country of origin and attempting to integrate into the destination country and geographers explore the spatial distribution of immigrants in the destination country on the regional and intra-urban levels. Economists, who regard immigration as movement of labour between countries, stress the macroeconomic effect on the countries of origin and destination (more on the theoretical level than empirically) much more than the regional influence (between regions in the destination country). Finally, jurists look at the legal side and at restrictions on permission for prospective immigrants to enter the destination countries.