Disruption and restart?

Jonas Bergmann and Susan F. Martin

Chapter 2 in Handbook of Research on Migration, COVID-19 and Cities, 2025, pp 26-44 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: We examine the historical, bidirectional links between pandemics and (im)mobilities and analyze how they unfolded during the COVID-19 emergency. Results show, first, that the extensive travel restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus early on were not a panacea. Second, government responses, and the resulting economic impacts, increased involuntary immobility by reducing people's resources to move and the demand for labor. Stay-at-home measures posed challenges for migrants lacking options to work from home and others living in crowded circumstances. Third, people's attempts to protect themselves from the virus resulted in shifting patterns of mobility, including changes in cross-border return and urban-to-rural movements. Fourth, as the COVID-19 pandemic moved into the endemic phase, many restrictive policies were withdrawn but further challenges arose as governments struggled to address the new situation. We propose approaches to alleviate the burden of restrictions while still addressing the need to contain pandemics and lessen their repercussions.

Keywords: Migration; Displacement; Immobility; Pandemic; Health; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035301225
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035301232.00009 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21950_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().