The International Migration System Today and in the Years Ahead

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The International Migration SystemToday and in
the Years Ahead

• Demetrios G. Papademetriou
• President
• Migration Policy Institute
• Global Forum on Migration Development
• Civil Society Days
• November 2009
• Athens, Greece

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The Challenge of Complex Global Interdependence
and the Place of Migration in It

• International migration is already one of this
  centurys unavoidable issues.
• Few by-products of globalization seem to be
  pricklier for high income societies than the
  movement of people.
• Both immigrant origin and destination societies
  have become more conflicted about migration. Yet,
  the economic importance of migration is growing
  for both of them and, notwithstanding the current
  recession, will only grow stronger in the next
  two decades.
• More countries are now significant players in the
  international migration system than at any time
  in history.
• Almost all high income and most fast-growing
  middle income countries are already, or are fast
  becoming, major immigration actors.
• The statement above notwithstanding, twenty or so
  countries, including some of the most developed
  ones (UK, US, Germany, Canada) provide the vast
  majority of migrants in the world.
• Mobility vs. Migration increasingly competing
  core concepts in the movement of people in the
  future.

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A Few Basic Facts and Observations About
Immigrant Stocks and Flows
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Absolute and Relative Migration Volume (Stock)

• The number of international migrants grew
  significantly in the last few decades, but not at
  disproportionate rates relative to the growth of
  the worlds population.
• Nearly 30 million of the 200 or so million
  persons counted in the UN population statistics
  as immigrants never movedborders moved around
  them as the Soviet Union gave way to the
  Commonwealth of Independent States.
• The remaining 170 or so million immigrants
  constitute about 2.5 of the world population of
  6.7 billion, a rate not appreciably higher than
  that of the last 40 or so years.

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Nonetheless, Numbers Do MatterImmigrant Density
(Stock)

• About 60 percent of the worlds immigrants now
  live in the 30 OECD countriesa significantly
  larger (and growing) share of all immigrants than
  any time in the last 30 years.
• Most of that growth has occurred since 1990.
• About half of all immigrants in OECD countries
  come from other OECD countries (stock figure).
• In last 30 years, immigrant density (proportion
  of foreign born per capita) in OECD countries
  nearly doubled from about 4.5 percent to 8.3
  percent of the population.
• But if we remove the five OECD countries with
  less than a 2 percent immigrant density in 2005
  from the total (Turkey, Mexico, Japan, South
  Korea, and Poland), the immigrant density for the
  remaining 25 OECD countries rises to 11.5
  percent.
• And if we include estimates of unauthorized
  immigrants (only the US does so now), the OECD-25
  figure settles at around 13 percentroughly the
  US immigrant density.

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Numbers Do Matter (Flows)

• Flows are also very large and growing but are
  very hard to measure accurately. They include
• Large and growing numbers of highly desirable,
  and needed, migrants (e.g. tourists, students,
  legal temporary workers and business persons).
• But also a very large and increasing proportion
  of undesirablebut many argue inevitable, even
  necessaryones (unauthorized migrants).

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Anxiety About Immigration Has Been Increasing
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Rate of Growth and Distance are at the Root of
Most Popular Anxiety about Immigration

• The speed with which immigration has grown fuels
  natural anxieties about social and cultural
  change. Many countries now become major
  immigration players in the course of a single
  decade (Spain, Ireland, Russia, South Africa,
  etc.).
• Adding to this anxiety is the fact that many (and
  in some cases most) new immigrants come from
  countries of large social, cultural, and often
  racial distances.
• In recent years, religious distance has often
  seemed to take pride of place among these
  differences and has defined much of the anxiety.
• The increasing visibility and otherness of
  newcomers fuels discomfort among host populations
  and shapes the reactions to them.
• The key takeaway so far The manner in which
  migration has evolved in recent years has
  challenged host societies management models and
  led to profound and highly visible social and
  cultural changeand it has done so almost
  literally before peoples eyes. This makes the
  popular discomfort about migration more
  understandable and sets up the governance
  challenges discussed in the next part of this
  presentation.

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Four challenges for all of us who care about
migration and its protagonists
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Challenge OneA Record of (Mostly) Failure The
Integration of Immigrants and their Children

• Eight (8) dominant integration models (think of
  them primarily as abstractions or heuristic
  devices)
• Denial (Germany, at least till recently)
• Official welcome but golden isolation (The
  Netherlands, probably still today)
• Benign neglect (France)
• Racial equality (UK)
• Narratives of melting pot and assimilation but
  reality of de facto multiculturalism (US)
• Official but often begrudging multiculturalism
  (Canada and Australia, although relentlessly
  increasing immigrant density may be changing the
  equation in both countriesif in complicated
  ways)
• Ad hoc-ismlittle legislative or institutional
  infrastructure but increasing governmental and
  NGO activism nonetheless (Southern and Eastern
  Europe and, for that matter, all high income
  countries that are newcomers to immigration)
• Integration? What/why Integration? (Gulf States
  and most other states that perceive of immigrants
  as migrants/foreign workers)

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Challenge One (Continued)A Record of (Mostly)
Failure The Integration of Immigrants and their
Children

• The Interim(?) Outcome In most cases, many
  immigrant groups and their offspring are well
  behind natives in
• language ability,
• educational achievement,
• access to opportunity (employment, earnings,
  quality of housing), and
• social and political engagement.
• And the global recession will only exacerbate
  those differences
• The on-the-ground effect The build up of
  cumulative disadvantage, expressing itself in
  varying forms and degrees of economic, social and
  political marginalization and the breeding of
  mutual wariness, whereby
• Many immigrant communities feel aggrieved, while
  many natives view immigrants and their children
  with impatience, if not mistrust and suspicion.

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Challenge TwoHow to Manage Migration (Much)
Better So As to Gain More from Migration

• The hardest thing that governments have to do is
  manage any kind of fundamental change welland
  large scale migration goes to the heart of change
  by forcing societies to recalibrate how they
  allocate public goods (starting with social and
  political power).
• Success in this task creates an opportunity for
  all of migrations protagonistsmembers of
  sending and receiving communities and societies
  and immigrants themselvesto draw out more
  benefits from migration.
• Failure (or carelessness in pursuing this goal)
  risks social unrest and political instability.
• Gaining more from immigration also requires that
  we find the policy means for helping immigrants
  demonstrate (a) their commitment and (b) their
  value to their adopted country.
• (a) By being law abiding, respectful of the
  receiving countrys laws, and by engaging
  constructively the community of which they are
  now part.
• (b) By contributing more to the economy than they
  take out of itand thus adding to the societys
  overall economic welfare (by changing they way
  they are perceived from that of liabilities to
  that of assets).

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Challenge ThreeBeing More Mindful of the
Long-Term Interests of Countries of Immigrant
Origin (And, Less Directly/Obviously, Those of
Countries of Destination)

• For most developing countries, emigration is
  first and foremost an essential lifeline for many
  of their citizensand much less directly for
  their economies.
• At the same time, these developing countries are
  deeply concerned about the following
• That the behavior of some authorities and publics
  in the countries in which their citizens live and
  work all too often borders on a gross disregard
  for their citizens human, labor, and other basic
  rights.
• That the human trafficking industry endangers
  their citizens lives and systematically exploits
  them, while undermining the legitimacy of their
  public institutions and complicating their
  relationships with transit and destination
  country governments.
• That the increasingly selective immigration
  policies of rich societies may be tapping too
  deeply into their human capital pool (the brain
  drain issue).

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Challenge FourControlling Illegal Immigration
and Resisting the Irresponsible Growth of
Immigration

• The essence of success on migration is managing
  an orderly, smartly and flexibly regulated flow
  of legal immigrants whose contributions to the
  economy and society are higher in significant
  part because the process is successfully
  regulated.
• But managing legal migration well is not enough
  either to turn the tables on gaining more from
  migration or on how immigration is perceived in
  many countries. To do so requires two additional
  things
• Success in controlling illegal immigration (the
  US is the poster child of failure in this
  regard), and
• Maintaining a sense of measure in how to grow a
  legal immigration flow (Spain is the poster child
  of how not to do so)
• Good management and legality serve the interests
  of most immigration actors wellexceptions are
  the criminal syndicates that move people,
  unscrupulous employers, family networks, the
  migration facilitation industry, and
  oblivious and/or completely self-interested
  consumers.

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Conclusion Looking Ahead A Shifting Policy
Landscape
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Supply and Demand More Rather Than Less
Migration is Likely in the Near-to-Mid-Term

• The immigrant pipeline will remain robust for the
  next two decades, but not necessarily the supply
  of skilled migrants.
• Once economic growth returns, the demand for
  immigrants across the skills continuum will once
  more grow substantially because of
• Demographics The one-two punch of the birth
  dearth and the increasing share of the elderly
  population (dependency ratios).
• Economics Increasing skill mismatches and worker
  shortfalls.
• Humanitarian Impulses Rights-based openings to
  migration will continue to build stronger
  immigration streams (families and asylum/refugee
  resettlement needs).

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Supply and Demand (cont.)

• A number of still relatively small migration
  players are likely to grow in importance, while
  China, India and a number of Southeast Asian
  countries could become massive players, both as
  senders and receivers of immigrants within and
  beyond their region.
• Policies that allow for temporary-to-permanent
  status transitions will proliferate as a
  selection mechanism for permanent immigrants as
  will regulated temporary (circular?) routes to
  recruit needed foreign workers all along the
  skills continuum.
• Pressures to admit better skilled foreigners
  outrightly as permanent immigrants will also
  increase, particularly when the world economy
  rebounds and global competition for talented
  foreigners intensifies.

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AN INFLECTION POINT????The Counter-Scenario
Illegality, Terrorism, and Deep Recession Take
their Toll

• Applying greater resources to border and interior
  controls will not suffice to stem unauthorized
  migration.
• It is difficult to anticipate the effect of
  terrorism on migration with certainty but it
  appears now that absent large scale and
  spectacular acts of terrorism, migration will
  continue unabated.
• Under a scenario of sharply fewer opportunities
  for legal migration for the next 3 to 5 years
  (due to a recession that has spread faster, has
  gone deeper, and whose employment effects for
  many countries will last longer than most had
  anticipated), a possible migration outcome for
  the next decade is one of (a) greater illegality
  and more draconian efforts to defeat it, (b)
  sharper popular reactions to all immigration and
  (c) both less immigration and different forms of
  immigration.
• The possible antidotes to all this? (a) Smart
  immigrant selection policies that are embedded in
  the receiving countries economic growth and
  competitiveness policies (b) wise investments on
  integration policies that help prepare all of a
  societys marginalized populations for active and
  fulfilling work lives, (c) an ongoing commitment
  to legality and safety by gaining the deeper
  cooperation of countries of origin, and (d)
  pursuing development friendly immigration
  policies.

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Epilogue Toward More Sensible and Responsible
Policies

• People will continue to move for a variety of
  reasonsopportunity differentials being primus
  inter pares among them. The challenge and the
  opportunity is to manage the ensuing movement
  well.
• Rich countries cannot simply exhort people to
  stay at home without a serious commitment to a
  long-term and costly endeavor to improve
  conditions there.
• Sensible and responsible immigration and
  integration policy requires far greater
  across-the-board cooperation than is now the
  case.
• Across relevant governmental agencies and levels
  of government within a single state
• Across relevant portfolios across states
• Across civil society actors and between civil
  society and the business community and
• Between the governmental and non-governmental
  sectors within and across states.

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Demetrios G. Papademetriou President Migration
Policy Institute 1400 16th Street, Suite
300 Washington D.C. 20036 dpapademetriou_at_migratio
npolicy.org www.migrationpolicy.org www.migration
information.org
Papademetriou/Migration Policy Institute