Turning the Tide? Why Development Will Not Stop Migration

Abstract

Restrictive immigration policies and the militarization of external border controls by the US and the EU have failed to significantly curb immigration from Latin America and Africa. Rather, they have led to greater reliance on increasingly risky and costly irregular migration and have paradoxically encouraged permanent settlement. A commonly presented ‘smart solution’ to curb immigration is to address the perceived root causes of migration through increasing aid or liberalizing trade with origin countries. Recently, policies to stimulate remittances and to promote temporary and circular migration have also been advocated as enhancing home country development, so that these forms of migration become a medicine against illegal and permanent migration. However, besides the limited scope and credibility of such policies, empirical and theoretical evidence strongly suggests that economic and human development increases people's capabilities and aspirations and therefore tends to coincide with an increase rather than a decrease in emigration, at least in the short to medium term. Under unfavourable conditions, trade, aid and remittances can be complements to, rather than substitutes for, migration also in the longer term. At the same time, demand for both skilled and unskilled migrant labour is likely to persist. Trade, aid, return migration and remittances are no short‐cut ‘solutions’ to migration, and sustained immigration therefore seems likely.

Migration and Development Framework and Its Links to Integration

“…If development leads to reduced migration, then this is vindication of the "root causes" argument whereby, if a state of underdevelopment can be steered towards development, then the fundamental driver of outmigration will be removed. But this is far from the whole story, since evidence is accumulating that migration-led development can also stimulate further emigration through the demonstration effect (the success of some migrants tempts others to move) and the fact that, as a result of development, more people have access to the fi nancial resources and social networks necessary for successful emigration (De Haas 2007 ). The positive correlation between migration and development continues until such time as the country or region reaches a level of development whereby poverty-induced migration no longer occurs, thereby producing an inverted U-curve, labelled by Martin and Taylor ( 1996 ) as the "migration hump" ( …”

Migrating into Financial Markets How Remittances Became a Development Tool

“…) Other, more critical contributions have demonstrated many of the faulty bases on which the edifice of remittances and development policies have been constructed. (See, e.g., Goldring, 2004;de Haas, 2007;Delgado-Wise and Márquez Covarrubias, 2007;Glick Schiller and Faist, 2010.) As will become clear below, this project is distinct in that I am not solely interested in contributing to the formation or critique of remittances and development policies.…”

Política Externa Brasileira, Cooperação Sul-Sul E Educação Superior: O Caso Do Programa Estudante-Convênio De Graduação

“…Amaral e Meneghel (2015, p. 102) reforçam que "mesmo com o modelo de não indicação por parte dos países, aparentemente existe algum tipo de benefício àqueles estudantes das elites nacionais africanas". Uma analogia com o estudo de Haas (2007) sobre a relação entre migração e desenvolvimento parece oportuna. O autor entende como equivocada a noção popular de que os mais pobres têm a maior tendência de migrar.…”