Migrants’ Role in Enhancing the Economic Development of Host Countries: Empirical Evidence from Europe

Abstract

This research examines several modellers of immigration flows deployed within the European Union (EU), as well as their economic consequences upon the most targeted ten migrant receiving countries. The paper's aim is to identify specific ways in which migrants can contribute to host countries' sustainable development through positive spillover upon natives, labour market performance, and the overall economic activity. A set of methods and macro-econometric models, based on country fixed effects, spatial analysis, and structural equations modelling, was applied on a balanced panel formed by ten EU host economies. We analysed distinctly the labour and humanitarian (asylum seekers) migration flows, considered throughout two separate time periods, namely 2000-2015 and 2000-2019 (2019 being the deadline for Brexit negotiations). The results highlight that the immigration flows were mainly shaped by labour market outcomes, while the primary positive immigration impact was induced upon the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and employment levels, both for natives and the foreign population.

The Impact of Population Aging and Public Health Support on EU Labor Markets

“…For the EU-15 countries, the focus has to be on the following policy interventions: A rethinking of passive labor market policies in order to sustain the 55-65-year-old working group, but also to target increases of active labor market policies for this age cohort; keeping up the R&D expenditure, oriented toward labor skills of the 55-64-year-old working group; reconsideration of EDU for 55-64-year-olds, levels 3-8, oriented towards migrants' inclusion in educational programs (since, in these countries, there is a large flow of migrants from developing countries) [73], and also to 55-64-year-olds for native working people by reshaping their skills as requirements are transformed by the emergence of new digital technologies [68,74]; oriented hospital services to boost healthy conditions and perceptions of people, and thus, making them confident in the public health expenditure in the case of child birth and care, therefore indirectly sustaining birth rates and life expectancy; further government health expenditure aimed at tackling the population aging phenomenon correlated with increasing long-term healthcare in the case of the elderly; and promoting and supporting preventive health actions among people aged 55-64 and low-and medium-educated people, since these categories are the most distant from health prevention, as Bremer et al [27] demonstrated. Under these cumulative interventions, labor productivity within developed EU MS will increase, with direct effects on wellbeing and overall economic development [10,20,[35][36][37][38].…”

An Overview of the Romanian Asylum Policies

“…Strengthening the binomial of solidarity/responsibility is the solution that will create effective practices in meeting the humanitarian needs of refugees and sharing burdens between the Member States [16]. In the framework of new accurate EU migration policies, migrants can play a decisive role in enhancing economic welfare for host countries [17,18]. Policy inconsistencies between the EU's asylum and the EU's labour migration policies make a call for stronger convergence [19].…”

Migrants’ Integration on the European Labor Market: A Spatial Bootstrap, SEM and Network Approach

“…Among the main factors which influence the migration decision, particularly, for migrants coming from the New Member States (NMS), are employment opportunities, higher income, and improved living standards at destination [6,7], along with the educational attainment enhancement and poverty avoidance in the origin country [8].…”

“…The basic guidelines of main EU strategies developed in this respect recommend the acknowledgment of migrants' qualifications (skills) into the host countries, and the educational attainment [7][8][9], being also proved "the importance of skilled labor (national or foreign), to encourage workers' productivity and to ensure sustainable economic development" [10] (p. 1).…”