LESSON 10 GLOBAL MIGRATION

Migration

- Internal Migration – people moving from one area to another within the country
- International Migration – people cross borders of one country to another
 Immigrants (move permanently to another country
 Workers who stay in another country for a fixed period (at least 6 months in a year)
 Illegal migrants
 Migrants whose families “petitioned” them to move to the destination country
 Refugees (asylum-seekers) – Unable or unwilling to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution on
account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion
 Demographers estimated 247 million people are currently living outside the countries of their birth
 90% move out for economic reasons
 10% refugees
 Top 3 regions of origin (Latin America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia)
 Top destinations the West, Middle East, US
 50% of global migrants have moved from the developing countries to the developed zones
 Migrants are assets or liabilities to national development

Benefits and Detriments for the Sending Countries

- ADB “remittances do not have a significant influence on other key items of consumption or investment such as
spending on education and health care”
- Remittances therefore, may help in lifting “households out of poverty but not in rebalancing growth, especially in the
long run
- Brain Drain - Global migration is “ siphoning qualified personnel, removing dynamic young workers”
- 52% of Filipinos who leave for work in the developed world have tertiary education
- The loss of professionals in certain key roles (such as doctors) has been detrimental to the migrants’ home countries
- Governments are aware of this long-term handicap, but have no choice but to continue promoting migrant work as
part of state policy because of the remittances’ impact on GDP
- Human Trafficking – according to US-FBI (United States Federal Bureau of Investigation) is the third largest criminal
activity worldwide
 (ILO) identified 21 million men, women, and children as victims of “forced labor” an appalling three out of every
1000 persons worldwide

Integration

- How migrants interact with their new home countries

- Their access to housing, health care, and education is not easy
- Democratic states assimilate immigrants and their children by granting them citizenship and the rights that comes
with it. But this turns out to be just for “formality sake”
- Since Linguistic difficulties, customs from old country, and differing religions may create gaps between migrants and
citizens of receiving countries
- Crucially, the lack of integration gives xenophobic and anti-immigrant groups more reason to argue that these “new
citizens are often not nationals”
- Governments and private businesses have made policies to address integration problems;
 Using multiple languages in state documents
 Training programs with counselling

CONLUSION

- Global migration entails the globalization of people and is uneven just like the broader globalization
- Migration produces different and often contradictory responses
- Many richer states know that migrant labour will be beneficial for their economies (Japan, Germany, US)
- But limitation and restriction on migrant labour is brought about by the want to preserve local culture, and the blame
of economic woes are given to immigrants which is supposed to be the problem of the government
- But countries whose economies are reliant to foreign labour for growth will continue letting migrant workers in
- Likewise the countries which is in need for remittances from OFW will continue to send workers