Global Trends in Migration

Migration in Europe © Fòrum Barcelona 2004

According to the most recent assessment by the UN Population Division, in 2005 there were 191 million people living outside their country of birth, 3% of the world’s population. This number has almost certainly increased further, as transport and communications continue to encourage mobility. Although most migrants live in the richer countries of Europe and North America, including 38 million in the US and 10 million in Germany, a 2006 report by former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, suggested that about one third of global migrants have moved from one developing country to another.

In the Arab countries of the Middle East the labour force comprises up to 80% migrant workers. The major sending countries are Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. These countries also supply labour for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. About 10% of the population of Philippines, 8 million people, are engaged in work away from their home country.

Whereas in the 1980s most workers in the south of the US came from Mexico, today they come from all over Latin America. This change transformed Mexico into both a transit country and a country of destination, whilst it also remains a sending country. Other Central American countries also follow this trend, such as Guatemala.

In Africa, temporary labour migration, brain drain and unauthorized migration are increasing in scope with large numbers of African workers moving to either South Africa or to the European Union (EU).

The Path to Migrant Work

Immigrant Domestic Worker in US © Institute for Policy Studies

People choose to migrate from the belief that they can achieve a better life in a foreign country. The decision is triggered when the combination of “push” and “pull” forces – the lack of opportunities at home and the perceived potential of a fresh start – overwhelms the wrench of leaving familiar surrounds and the risks of the unknown. Although established channels of migration exist both for skilled and unskilled labour, these are insufficient to absorb the supply. The freedom of movement of goods and capital unleashed by globalisation has not embraced the latent mobility of the global workforce, other than the most highly skilled.

Many would-be migrants who fail to qualify for the established channels nevertheless choose to take their chance as “undocumented” migrants, entering a country indirectly by overstaying a visa or directly by crossing an unprotected border. Work is often to be found thanks to opportunist employers who ask no questions in return for a pliant labour force beyond the protection of minimum standards of pay and conditions. There are believed to be 12 million undocumented migrants in the US and possibly a similar number in the EU.

Whether documented or undocumented, the jobs available to migrant workers tend to be those rejected by the local population, often being described as “3D” (dirty, dangerous and difficult). Many migrant workers are professionals who take on jobs that do not utilize their full skills and potential. Within the richer OECD countries, more than a third of migrant workers were on temporary contracts in 2006.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, demand for female migrant workers has grown so that women increasingly come under pressure to go abroad to find a job. Half of all international migrants are women, often leaving their children and families behind, and mostly engaged as domestic labour.
The Migrant Experience

Fair deal for migrant workers ©ILO

A significant number of these women are hidden within private households, vulnerable to sexual abuse, rape, slavery-like labour conditions, and non-payment of wages. Conditions for domestic workers in the Middle East in particular have attracted the attention of human rights organisations. Following revelations of abusive treatment, a number of sending countries have placed a ban on women heading for that region.

In many countries undocumented migrants live in daily fear of round-ups, abusive treatment in detention centres and mass deportation. About 1.5 million Burmese can expect no favours from the authorities in Thailand whilst Indonesian workers in Malaysia face periodic clamp-downs by the state, enforced by unsympathetic local vigilante groups.

Integration with host communities is a critical variable for international migrants. Resentment and discrimination can fester especially where there is competition for jobs and housing. Xenophobia has been a blot on the new South Africa, exploding into violence during 2008 when 60 people were killed and homes of thousands of Zimbabweans and other immigrant groups were destroyed.

Limits of jurisdiction severely curtail the options for a state of origin to ensure that its nationals are protected while working abroad. The receiving state carries the responsibility but, typically anxious to create a flexible labour supply and to avoid social costs, often extends only minimum protection. Weak labour laws encourage unscrupulous recruitment agencies and employers to withhold wages, confiscate identity documents and deny reasonable time off work. Access to health and education services is often denied.
Migration and Development

Arab immigrants © Alternatives

Economists are increasingly interested in the potential paradox that stimulating migration in the short term could be a strategy for its long term reduction. If migration makes a positive contribution to development of sending countries, then global inequalities which provoke labour mobility will diminish. The danger of this debate is that it treats migrant workers as impersonal bundles of economic energy, packaged into temporary labour contracts which yield payments back home.

This cold cost/benefit analysis of migration from developing countries compares the total of remittances returned by migrant workers with the value of economic activity lost through their absence. According to the World Bank, officially recorded remittances to developing countries reached $240 billion in 2007, more than double the amount of foreign aid for that year. India’s share of $27 billion exceeded central government spending on health and education combined. When added to figures not recorded by the banking system, these remittances often represent a significant percentage of GDP and the greatest source of foreign currency for many countries.

It is very difficult to quantify the opportunity cost relating to the exodus of workers from poor countries – as many as 20,000 African professionals are believed to leave the continent each year. This is especially alarming for the health sector and often quoted as an explanation for the disappointing progress towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals such as maternal mortality.

Migrant workers, Ontario © David Mitchell

Non-financial issues are also difficult to value. For example, linkages established between migrants living abroad and the communities back home open up opportunities for trade, investment, and transfer of skills. Conversely, developing countries are increasingly aware of the psychological pressures on family members caused by prolonged absence of one or both parents. Two million Philippine children fall into this category.

Remittances have the advantage over foreign aid of reaching households directly, offering limited potential for diversion, other than excessive bank charges. By the same token, they have little strategic development value to governments which might have other priorities such as infrastructure. Those who view migration as a positive function for development will be concerned that the global financial crisis may restrict opportunities for migrant workers and downscale their remittances.

Developed Country Policies on Migration

The US is a nation built by migrant labour yet today workers attempting to enter the country by land are met by an impenetrable border fence patrolled by armed guards. Those who defy this frontier and find work are hunted down by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and thrown into detention centres. An attempt during 2008 to pass legislation offering an amnesty path for undocumented migrants was blocked by right wing Republicans.

The EU is also pulling up the drawbridge. The principle of unrestricted movement of labour between member countries was largely torn up on the accession of the Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.

Protest against UK Immigration and Asylum bill © STAR, Student Action for Refugees

For migrants from further afield, the European Commission attempted to create a new common migration policy aligning labour needs with eventual citizenship rights of migrants, local integration and family reunification. However, the EU debate is succumbing to issues of cultural tension and this vision was diluted into a “pact on immigration and asylum”. This concentrates on border controls whilst allowing individual countries to construct their own labour migration policies.

Skilled labour in many sectors is invariably at a premium and richer countries compete to attract highly qualified workers. Gaps also open up in modern economies for unskilled labour. The OECD points out that demographic changes in Europe, including reverse migration, project a long term strategic value for incoming workers. One estimate suggests that 40 million migrant workers will be needed in the EU before 2050.
International Migration Policy

Longstanding international efforts to create a framework which recognises migrants as individuals with rights rather than collective tools of economics remain equally deadlocked. The United Nations adopted in 1990 the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, also known as the Migrant Workers' Convention. Although the Convention entered into force in 2003, it has been ratified by only 37 countries. None of the EU member states has signed or ratified the Convention, a source of major grievance for organisations campaigning for a rights-based European migration policy.

Another grievance of campaigners is the 2007 UN decision to outsource further debate about international migration to an inter-governmental policy advisory group, The Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). Conducting proceedings under UN auspices would have been more likely to focus on human rights and to deliver binding agreements. Civil society groups argue that the absence of internationally recognised standards for labour migration encourages illegal entry and social tensions.
Choice and Despair in Migration

The weakness of the rights-based approach to migration is that its premise of the individual right to seek a better life in a new country implies a world in which rational choice holds sway. The reality of extreme poverty and instability that prevails in so much of the developing world triggers mobility through desperation rather than calm choice. In a speech about migration, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has referred to “the push of danger or despair”.

Despair as homes are demolished in Zimbabwe © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

There is currently no mechanism to recognise extreme circumstances of deprivation, as there is for political refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Its requirement to establish a “fear of being persecuted” is relatively narrow and refugees comprise only about 8% of all international migrants. The head of the UN Refugee Agency has acknowledged that the presumption that all economic migration is “voluntary” does not reflect reality. For example, the total economic collapse in Zimbabwe allied with political violence unleashed by Robert Mugabe in June 2008 left vast numbers with little choice but to flee to South Africa and other neighbouring countries. Only a small proportion of these migrants are likely to gain protection as refugees.

Evidence of these extreme “push” factors can be seen in the willingness of migrants to risk their lives in the attempt to reach their destination. The death toll from boat crossings to the Canaries or from Somalia to Yemen will never be known but may run into thousands each year. Such dangers have become a global phenomenon as the absence of legal routes for migration has led to a significant expansion in human trafficking and smuggling networks which are both dangerous and exploitative in nature.

However unfounded, it is fear of inability to control desperate movements of people that drives richer countries to their obsession with border control at the expense of strategic and just migration policies. These countries are also failing to connect their fear of migration with global economic policies. For example, it is generally acknowledged that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) forced rural Mexican workers to migrate when small farm agriculture collapsed under the weight of competition with US agribusiness.

Environmental degradation and the impact of climate change create an imminent risk of further ambiguity between forced and voluntary migration. The UN University warns of the potential for 200 million environmental refugees by 2050, with greatest concern focused on Bangladesh and small island states. The current reluctance to shoulder responsibility for displaced populations does not augur well for the global agreement that will almost certainly be needed.

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