The Decline Of Migrant Transnationalism With Time Abroad

In this study, grounded in the literature on transnational migration, a theory of transnational social gravity is developed in which economic, social, and psychological dimensions of transnationalism increase or remain stable initially, and decline after reaching separate inflection points based on competing bonding social capital with the origin and destination as a migrant's time abroad increases. The theory is tested for the case of 361 active migrants from Bolivian households in the Valle Alto (near Cochabamba, Bolivia) in 2007. The results tend to support the theory. Economic remittances decrease after two years abroad; social contacts (telephoning and intending to return) after four to six years; and attitudes in support of migration by the family left behind, after six years. These declines are directly correlated with bonding to the destination and inversely with bonding to the origin.