Global Migration

Learning Outcomes
• Analyze the political, economic, cultural, and social factors
underlying the global movements of people
• Display first-hand knowledge of the experiences of OFWs
What are migrants?
• Migrants - Population on the move, both vagabonds and tourists
• Kinds of Migrants
• Vagabonds – those likely to move because they have to be
• Refugees – forced to leave their homeland, or who leave involuntarily, because they
fear for their safety
• Asylum seekers – refugees who seek to remain in the country to which they flee
• Labor migrant – one who is forced to search for work outside his/her home country
by “push” and “pull” factors

• Tourists – people who move about the world because they want to
Terms
• Types of Migration
• Internal Migration – refers to people moving from one area to another
within one country
• International Migration – in which people cross border of one country to
another
International Migration
• Five Groups
1. Immigrants - who move permanently to another country
2. Workers – who stay in another country for a fixed period (at least 6
months in a year)
3. Illegal migrants
4. Migrants whose families have “petitioned” them to move to the
destination country
5. Refugees (also known as 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
Difficulties in Acquiring Migration Data
• Many countries do not collect data
• Countries that collect data do not report them to international
agencies
• Population flows are defined differently in different countries
• Few countries keep track of their expatriates
• Difficulty in keeping tabs on illegal migrants
Trends
• Proportion of international migrants from the developed world has
actually declined
• Large increase in the number of migrants from the developing
world
• Very significant proportion of them are moving to North America.
Trends
• 247 million people are currently living outside the countries of their
birth
• 90% of them moved for economic reasons
• 10% were refugees and asylum seekers
• Top 3 regions of origin
• Latin America (18% of global total)
• Eastern Europe and Central Asia (16 %)
• Middle East and North Africa (14%)
• Top countries of origin – India, Mexico, China, Philippines, Afghanistan
• Top destinations – West and Middle East, United States
Restrictions on Migration
• Nations tend to keep the labor it needs
• Influx of large number of migrants into another country often lead
to conflict
• Concern over terrorism
• Product of the Westphalia era
Traditional Factors:
Push and Pull Factors of Migration
Global Age Factors
• Global Dispersion of Information
• Easier to find out about, and become comfortable in a host country
• Interaction of global-local networks through
• Formal networks mediated by modern technologies
• Informal family and social networks
• Labor shortages – needs of MNCs for workers
• Aging population
• New tax revenues from migrants to be used to help support state
welfare systems
Benefits and Detriments for the Sending
Countries
Benefits Detriments
• Remittances make significant • Remittances may not
contributions to the rebalance growth in the long
development of SMEs that help run
generate jobs • Brain drain
• Purchasing power of families • Human trafficking
doubled
Issues on
Brain Drain
• Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have lost 1/3 of their
college graduates
• 52% of Filipinos who leave for work in the developed world have
tertiary education
• 15% of locally trained doctors from 21 Sub-Saharan African
countries had emigrated to the US or Canada
• Liberia (43% of doctors left)
• Ghana (30%)
• Uganda (20%)
Human Trafficking
• ILO identified 21 million (3 in every 1,000 persons worldwide) men,
women, and children as victims of “forced labor”
• 90% are exploited by private enterprises and entrepreneurs
• 22% are sexually abused
• 68% work under compulsion in agricultural, manufacturing, infrastructure,
and domestic activities
• Traffickers earn as high as $150 billion a year
Feminization of Migration
Integration
• This relates to how migrants interact with their new home countries
• Access to housing, health care and education is not easy
• Xenophobic and anti-immigrant issues
• Linguistic difficulties
• Customs from the “old country”
• Differing religions
• Local network of fellow citizens can help facilitate integration but can also
give drawbacks by exacerbating differences and discrimination.
• Government and private businesses to address integration problems:
• Using multiple languages in state documents
• Training programs complemented with counseling
Conclusion
• Global migration entails the globalization of people.