The 2008–09 Recession: Implications for International Labor Migration
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Table 22.2. Population and Migration, 2010
World More-developed countries Less-developed countries Africa Asia Europe Latin America North America Oceania
Population (millions)
Migrants (millions)
Migrants as % of population
% of total population
% of migrants
Ratio of % of migrants to % of total population
6,909
214
3
100
100
1.0
1,237
128
10
18
60
3.3
5,671 1,033 4,167 733 589 352 36
86 19 61 70 7 50 6
2 2 1 10 1 14 17
82 15 60 11 9 5 1
40 9 29 33 3 23 3
0.5 0.6 0.5 3.1 0.4 4.6 5.4
Source: UN 2009b.
Cuba, Indonesia, Peru, and Vietnam, where less than 0.1 percent of residents were migrants. Shifting patterns can also be seen in migrant destinations by income level. In particular, migration to middleincome developing countries has been on the rise in recent years. The cases of Malaysia and Thailand illustrate several common features of migration trends in fast-growing developing countries. These two countries attract significant numbers of migrants from poorer neighbors and have become increasingly dependent on migrant workers over time. While flows have increased because of the attraction of higher-wage jobs, the governments of both countries acknowledge significant gaps between the goals and the outcomes of their migrant labor policies. Malaysia and Thailand have been taking an ad hoc approach to employer requests for migrant workers and migrant worker policy, wavering between periods of openness and periods of restrictions. However, they are now making efforts to reduce irregular migration and employment in ways that avoid the settlement of immigrants. Indeed, in contrast to many European nations, most Asian nations do not have the goal of not becoming destinations for immigrants. What Drives Migration? Two key factors have contributed to the rise in migrant flows in recent decades. First, the revolution in communications, transportation, and rights, has made international migration easier. Cheaper communication has facilitated the growth of “migration infrastructure,” a substantive network of private and public intermediaries that helps migrants cross national borders. Intermediaries include employers seeking migrants, public employment services that match local workers with foreign jobs, social networks such as friends and family who are or were abroad, and
private recruiters. Recently, the role of direct employer recruitment and public employment services has been declining, as the role of networks and private agents has been increasing. The transportation revolution has facilitated migration through the declining cost of travel. British migrants unable to pay one-way passage to North American colonies in the 18th century often indentured themselves, signing contracts that obliged them to work for three to six years for whoever met the ship and paid the captain. In contrast, transportation costs today are typically less than US$2,500 to travel anywhere in the world legally and US$1,000 to US$20,000 for unauthorized migration. Most studies suggest faster payback times for migrants today, so that even migrants who pay high recruitment or smuggling fees can usually repay them within two or three years. The rights revolution has also facilitated migration by increasing the ability of migrants to stay abroad. After World War II, most industrial countries strengthened the constitutional and political rights of residents and granted social or economic rights to individuals in their evolving welfare states without distinguishing between citizens and migrants. As migration increased in the 1990s, policy makers began to roll back socioeconomic rights for migrants in an effort to manage migration.7 Adjusting rights is widely acknowledged to be a blunt and often inefficient instrument for managing economically motivated migration. A second factor that can explain the rise in international migration is the persistence of demographic and economic inequalities. Demographic differences between areas have historically driven large-scale migration in some parts of the world. For instance, in 1800, when 21 percent of the world’s population was in Europe and 4 percent was in the Americas, millions of Europeans emigrated to the Americas in search of economic opportunity as well as religious and