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Global migration: causes and consequences.

• Benjamin Helms Benjamin Helms Department of Politics, University of Virginia
•  and  David Leblang David Leblang Department of Politics, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.631
• Published online: 25 February 2019

International migration is a multifaceted process with distinct stages and decision points. An initial decision to leave one’s country of birth may be made by the individual or the family unit, and this decision may reflect a desire to reconnect with friends and family who have already moved abroad, a need to diversify the family’s access to financial capital, a demand to increase wages, or a belief that conditions abroad will provide social and/or political benefits not available in the homeland. Once the individual has decided to move abroad, the next decision is the choice of destination. Standard explanations of destination choice have focused on the physical costs associated with moving—moving shorter distances is often less expensive than moving to a destination farther away; these explanations have recently been modified to include other social, political, familial, and cultural dimensions as part of the transaction cost associated with migrating. Arrival in a host country does not mean that an émigré’s relationship with their homeland is over. Migrant networks are an engine of global economic integration—expatriates help expand trade and investment flows, they transmit skills and knowledge back to their homelands, and they remit financial and human capital. Aware of the value of their external populations, home countries have developed a range of policies that enable them to “harness” their diasporas.

• immigration
• international political economy
• factor flows
• gravity models

Introduction

The steady growth of international labor migration is an important, yet underappreciated, aspect of globalization. 1 In 1970 , just 78 million people, or about 2.1% of the global population, lived outside their country of birth. By 1990 , that number had nearly doubled to more than 150 million people, or about 2.8% of the global population (United Nations Population Division, 2012 ). Despite the growth of populist political parties and restrictionist movements in key destination countries, the growth in global migration shows no signs of slowing down, with nearly 250 million people living outside their country of birth as of 2015 . While 34% of all global migrants live in industrialized countries (with the United States and Germany leading the way), 38% of all global migration occurs between developing countries (World Bank, 2016 ).

Identifying the causes and consequences of international labor migration is essential to our broader understanding of globalization. Scholars across diverse academic fields, including economics, political science, sociology, law, and demography, have attempted to explain why individuals voluntarily leave their homelands. The dominant thread in the labor migration literature is influenced by microeconomics, which posits that individuals contemplating migration are rational, utility-maximizing actors who carefully weigh the potential costs and benefits of leaving their country of origin (e.g., Borjas, 1989 ; Portes & Böröcz, 1989 ; Grogger & Hanson, 2011 ). The act of migration, from this perspective, is typically conceptualized as an investment from which a migrant expects to receive some benefit, whether it be in the form of increased income, political freedom, or enhanced social ties (Schultz, 1961 ; Sjaastad, 1962 ; Collier & Hoeffler, 2014 ).

In this article we go beyond the treatment of migration as a single decision and conceive of it as a multifaceted process with distinct stages and decision points. We identify factors that are relevant at different stages in the migration process and highlight how and when certain factors interact with others during the migration process. Economic factors such as the wage differential between origin and destination countries, for example, may be the driving factor behind someone’s initial decision to migrate (Borjas, 1989 ). But when choosing a specific destination, economic factors may be conditioned by political or social conditions in that destination (Fitzgerald, Leblang, & Teets, 2014 ). Each stage or decision point has distinguishing features that are important in determining how (potential) migrants respond to the driving forces identified by scholars.

This is certainly not a theoretical innovation; migration has long been conceived of as a multi-step process, and scholars often identify the stage or decision point to which their argument best applies. However, most interdisciplinary syntheses of the literature on international labor migration do not provide a systematic treatment of this defining feature, instead organizing theoretical and empirical contributions by field of study, unit or level of analysis, or theoretical tradition (e.g., Portes & Böröcz, 1989 ; Massey et al., 1993 ; European Asylum Support Office, 2016 ). Such approaches are undoubtedly valuable in their own right. Our decision to organize this discussion by stage allows us to understand this as a process, rather than as a set of discrete events. As a result, we conceptualize international labor migration as three stages or decision points: (a) the decision to migrate or to remain at home, (b) the choice of destination, and (c) the manner by which expatriates re-engage—or choose not to re-engage—with their country of origin once abroad. We also use these decision points to highlight a number of potential new directions for future research in this still-evolving field.

Figure 1. Global migration intentions by educational attainment, 2008–2017.

Should I Stay or Should I Go, Now?

The massive growth in international labor migration in the age of globalization is remarkable, but the fact remains that over 95% of the world’s population never leave their country of origin (United Nations Population Division, 2012 ). Figure 1 shows the percentage of people who expressed an intention to move abroad between 2008 and 2017 by educational attainment, according to data from the Gallup World Poll. Over this time period, it appears that those who were highly educated expressed intent to migrate in greater numbers than those who had less than a college education, although these two groups have converged in recent years. What is most striking, however, is that a vast majority of people, regardless of educational attainment, expressed no desire to move abroad. Even though absolute flows of migrants have grown at a near-exponential rate, relative to their non-migrating counterparts, they remain a small minority. What factors are important in determining who decides to migrate and who decides to remain at home? 2

From Neoclassical Economics to the Mobility Transition

Neoclassical economic models posit that the primary driving factor behind migration is the expected difference in wages (discounted future income streams) between origin and destination countries (Sjaastad, 1962 ; Borjas, 1989 ; Clark, Hatton, & Williamson, 2007 ). All else equal, when the wage gap, minus the costs associated with moving between origin and destination, is high, these models predict large flows of labor migrants. In equilibrium, as more individuals move from origin to destination countries, the wage differential narrows, which in turn leads to zero net migration (Lewis, 1954 ; Harris & Todaro, 1970 ). Traditional models predict a negative monotonic relationship between the wage gap and the number of migrants (e.g., Sjaastad, 1962 ). However, the predictions of neoclassical models are not well supported by the empirical record. Empirical evidence shows that, at least in a cross-section, the relationship between economic development and migration is more akin to an inverted U. For countries with low levels of per capita income, we observe little migration due to a liquidity constraint: at this end of the income distribution, individuals do not have sufficient resources to cover even minor costs associated with moving abroad. Increasing income helps to decrease this constraint, and consequently we observe increased levels of emigration as incomes rise (de Haas, 2007 ). This effect, however, is not monotonic: as countries reach middle-income status, declining wage differentials lead to flattening rates of emigration, and then decreasing rates as countries enter later stages of economic development. 3

Some research explains this curvilinear relationship by focusing on the interaction between emigration incentives and constraints : for example, increased income initially makes migration more affordable (reduces constraints), but also simultaneously reduces the relative economic benefits of migrating as the wage differential narrows (as potential migrants now have the financial capacity to enhance local amenities) (Dao, Docquier, Parsons, & Peri, 2016 ). The theoretical underpinnings of this interaction, however, are not without controversy. Clemens identifies several classes of theory that attempt to explain this curvilinear relationship—a relationship that has been referred to in the literature as the mobility transition (Clemens, 2014 ). These theories include: demographic changes resulting from development that also favor emigration up to a point (Easterlin, 1961 ; Tomaske, 1971 ), the loosening of credit restraints on would-be migrants (Vanderkamp, 1971 ; Hatton & Williamson, 1994 ), a breakdown of information barriers via the building of transnational social networks (Epstein, 2008 ), structural economic changes in the development process that result in worker dislocation (Zelinsky, 1971 ; Massey, 1988 ), the dynamics of economic inequality and relative deprivation (Stark, 1984 ; Stark & Yitzhaki, 1988 ; Stark & Taylor, 1991 ), and changing immigration policies in destination countries toward increasingly wealthy countries (Clemens, 2014 ). While each of these play some role in the mobility transition curve, Dao et al. ( 2016 ) run an empirical horse race between numerous explanations and find that changing skill composition resulting from economic development is the most substantively important driver. Economic development is correlated with an increase in a country’s level of education; an increase in the level of education, in turn, is correlated with increased emigration. However, traditional explanations involving microeconomic drivers such as income, credit constraints, and economic inequality remain important factors (Dao et al., 2016 ). The diversity of explanations offered for the mobility transition curve indicates that while most research agrees the inverted-U relationship is an accurate empirical portrayal of the relationship between development and migration, little theoretical agreement exists on what drives this relationship. Complicating this disagreement is the difficulty of empirically disentangling highly correlated factors such as income, skill composition, and demographic trends in order to identify robust causal relationships.

Political Conditions at the Origin

While there is a scholarly consensus around the mobility transition and the role of economic conditions, emerging research suggests that the political environment in the origin country may also be salient. We do not refer here to forced migration, such as in the case of those who leave because they are fleeing political persecution or violent conflict. Rather, we focus on political conditions in the homeland that influence a potential migrant’s decision to emigrate voluntarily. Interpretations of how, and the extent to which, political conditions in origin countries (independent of economic conditions) influence the decision to migrate have been heavily influenced by Hirschman’s “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” framework (Hirschman, 1970 , 1978 ). Hirschman argues that the opportunity to exit—to exit a firm, an organization, or a country—places pressure on the local authorities; voting with one’s feet forces organizations to reassess their operations.

When applied to the politics of emigration, Hirschman’s framework generates two different hypotheses. On the one hand, politicians may allow, encourage, or force the emigration of groups that oppose the regime as a political safety valve of sorts. This provides the government with a mechanism with which to manage potential political challengers by encouraging their exit. On the other hand, politicians—especially those in autocracies—may actively work to prevent exit because they fear the emigration of economic elites, the highly skilled, and others who have resources vital to the survival of the regime. 4

A small number of studies investigate how local-level, rather than national, political circumstances affect a potential migrant’s calculus. The limited empirical evidence currently available suggests that local conditions are substantively important determinants of the emigration decision. When individuals are highly satisfied with local amenities such as their own standard of living, quality of public services, and overall sense of physical security, they express far less intention to migrate compared with highly dissatisfied individuals (Dustmann & Okatenko, 2014 ). Furthermore, availability of public transport and access to better education facilities decreases the propensity to express an intention to emigrate (Cazzuffi & Modrego, 2018 ). This relationship holds across all levels of wealth and economic development, and there is some evidence that satisfaction with local amenities matters as much as, or even more than, income or wealth (Dustmann & Okatenko, 2014 ).

Political corruption, on both national and local levels, also has substantively important effects on potential migrants, especially those who are highly skilled. Broadly defined as the use of public office for political gain, political corruption operates as both a direct and an indirect factor promoting emigration. 5 Firstly, corruption may have a direct effect on the desire to emigrate in that it can decrease the political and economic power of an individual, leading to a lower standard of living and poorer quality of life in origin countries. If the reduction in life satisfaction resulting from corruption is sufficiently high—either by itself or in combination with other “push” factors—then the exit option becomes more attractive (Cooray & Schneider, 2016 ). Secondly, corruption also operates through indirect channels that influence other push factors. Given the large literature on how political corruption influences a number of development outcomes, it is conceivable that corruption affects the decision-making process of a potential migrant through its negative effect on social spending, education, and public health (Mo, 2001 ; Mauro, 1998 ; Gupta, Davoodi, & Thigonson, 2001 ).

The combination of its direct and indirect impacts means that corruption could be a significant part of a migrant’s decision-making process. At present there is limited work exploring this question, and the research does not yield a consensus. Some scholars argue that political corruption has no substantive effect on total bilateral migration, but that it does encourage migration among the highly skilled (Dimant, Krieger, & Meierrieks, 2013 ). This is the case, the argument goes, because corruption causes the greatest relative harm to the utility of those who have invested in human capital, who migrate to escape the negative effect on their fixed investment. In contrast, others find that a high level of corruption does increase emigration at the aggregate level (Poprawe, 2015 ). More nuanced arguments take into account the intensity of corruption: low to moderate levels of corruption lead to increased emigration of all groups, and especially of the highly skilled. But at high levels of corruption, emigration begins to decrease, indicating that intense corruption can act as a mobility constraint (Cooray & Schneider, 2016 ). All of these existing accounts, however, employ state-level measures of corruption by non-governmental organizations, such as those produced by Transparency International. Scholars have yet to harness micro-level survey data to explore the influence of personal corruption perception on the individual’s decision-making process.

The Land of Hopes and Dreams

Given that an individual has decided to emigrate, the next decision point is to choose a destination country. Advanced industrial democracies, such as those in the OECD, are major migrant-receiving countries, but so are Russia and several Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (World Bank, 2016 ). A country’s constellation of political, economic, and social attributes is crucial to understanding an emigrant’s choice of destination. Potential migrants weigh all of these factors simultaneously when choosing a destination: will the destination allow political rights for the migrant and their children, is access to the labor market possible, and does the destination provide an opportunity for reunification with friends and family? In this section we focus on the non-economic factors that draw migrants to certain countries over others. In addition, we emphasize how skill level adds layers of complexity to a migrant’s calculus.

Political Environment, Both Formal and Informal

As noted earlier, traditional neoclassical models and their extensions place wage differentials and associated economic variables at the heart of a migrant’s choice. Gravity models posit that migrants choose a destination country based on their expected income—which itself is a function of the wage rate and the probability of finding employment in the destination—less the costs associated with moving (Ravenstein, 1885 ; Todaro, 1969 ; Borjas, 1989 ). A rigid focus on economic factors, however, blinds us to the empirical reality that a destination country’s political environment influences what destination a migrant chooses (Borjas, 1989 ). A country’s legal and political rights structure for migrants, as well as its level of tolerance for newcomers, is critical to migrants discriminating between an array of potential destinations. Fitzgerald, Leblang, and Teets ( 2014 ) argue, for example, that states with restrictive citizenship policies and strong radical right anti-immigrant parties will receive fewer migrants, while states with relatively liberal citizenship requirements and weak radical right political movements will receive more migrants. In the rational actor framework, migrants seek countries with hospitable political environments to maximize both their political representation in government and their access to labor market opportunities as a result of citizenship rights and social acceptance (Fitzgerald et al., 2014 ).

Using a broad sample of origin countries and 18 destination countries, they find that relative restrictiveness of citizenship policies and level of domestic support for the radical right are substantively important determinants of global migratory flows. Further, they find that these political variables condition a migrant’s choice of destination: the relative importance of economic factors such as the unemployment rate or the wage differential diminishes as a destination country’s political environment becomes more open for migrants. In other words, when migrants are choosing a destination country, political considerations may trump economic ones—a finding that is an important amendment to the primarily economics-focused calculus of the initial stage of the immigration decision.

However, prior to choosing and entering a destination country, a migrant must also navigate a country’s immigration policy—the regulation of both migrant entry and the rights and status of current migrants. While it is often assumed that a relatively more restrictive immigration policy deters entry, and vice versa, a lack of quantitative data has limited the ability of scholars to confirm this intuition cross-nationally. Money ( 1999 ) emphasizes that the policy output of immigration politics does not necessarily correlate with the outcome of international migrant flows. There are a number of unanswered questions in this field, including: is immigration policy a meaningful determinant of global flows of migration? Do certain kinds of immigration policies matter more than others? How does immigration policy interact with other political and economic factors, such as unemployment and social networks?

Only a handful of studies analyze whether or not immigration policy is a significant determinant of the size and character of migratory flows. Perhaps the most prominent answer to this question is the “gap hypothesis,” which posits that immigration rates continue to increase despite increasingly restrictive immigration policies in advanced countries (Cornelius & Tsuda, 2004 ). Some subsequent work seems to grant support to the gap hypothesis, indicating that immigration policy may not be a relevant factor and that national sovereignty as it relates to dictating migrant inflows has eroded significantly (Sassen, 1996 ; Castles, 2004 ). The gap hypothesis is not without its critics, with other scholars arguing that the existing empirical evidence actually lends it little or no support (Messina, 2007 ).

A more recent body of literature does indicate that immigration policy matters. Brücker and Schröder ( 2011 ), for example, find that immigration policies built to attract highly skilled migrants lead to higher admittance rates. They also show that diffusion processes cause neighboring countries to implement similar policy measures. Ortega and Peri ( 2013 ), in contrast to the gap hypothesis literature, find that restrictive immigration policy indeed reduces migrant inflows. But immigration policy can also have unintended effects on international migration: when entry requirements increase, migrant inflows decrease, but migrant outflows also decrease (Czaika & de Haas, 2016 ). This indicates that restrictive immigration policy may also lead to reduced circular migrant flows and encourage long-term settlement in destination countries.

Disaggregating immigration policy into its different components provides a clearer picture of how immigration policy may matter, and whether certain components matter more than others. Immigration policy is composed of both external and internal regulations. External regulations refer to policies that control migrant entry, such as eligibility requirements for migrants and additional conditions of entry. Internal regulations refer to policies that apply to migrants who have already gained status in the country, such as the security of a migrant’s legal status and the rights they are afforded. Helbling and Leblang ( 2017 ), using a comprehensive data set of bilateral migrant flows and the Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) data set, find that, in general, external regulations prove slightly more important in understanding migrant inflows (Helbling, Bjerre, Römer, & Zobel, 2017 ). This indicates that potential migrants focus more on how to cross borders, and less on the security of their status and rights once they settle. They do find, however, that both external and internal components of immigration are substantively important to international migrant flows.

The effects of policy, however, cannot be understood in isolation from other drivers of migration. Firstly, poor economic conditions and restrictive immigration policy are mutually reinforcing: when the unemployment rate is elevated, restrictive policies are more effective in deterring migrant flows. An increase in policy effectiveness in poor economic conditions suggests that states care more about deterring immigration when the economy is performing poorly. Secondly, a destination country’s restrictive immigration policy is more effective when migrants come from origin countries that have a common colonial heritage. This suggests that cultural similarities and migrant networks help to spread information about the immigration policy environment in the destination country. Social networks prove to be crucial in determining how much migrants know about the immigration policies of destination countries, regardless of other cultural factors such as colonial heritage or common language (Helbling & Leblang, 2017 ). In summary, more recent work supports the idea that immigration policy of destination countries exerts a significant influence on both the size and character of international migration flows. Much work remains to be done in terms of understanding the nuances of specific immigration policy components, the effect of policy change over time, and through what mechanisms immigration policy operates.

Transnational Social Networks

None of this should be taken to suggest that only political and economic considerations matter when a potential migrant contemplates a potential destination; perhaps one of the biggest contributions to the study of bilateral migration is the role played by transnational social networks. Migrating is a risky undertaking, and to minimize that risk, migrants are more likely to move to destinations where they can “readily tap into networks of co-ethnics” (Fitzgerald et al., 2014 , p. 410). Dense networks of co-ethnics not only help provide information about economic opportunities, but also serve as a social safety net which, in turn, helps decrease the risks associated with migration, including, but not limited to, finding housing and integrating into a new community (Massey, 1988 ; Portes & Böröcz, 1989 ; Portes, 1995 ; Massey et al., 1993 ; Faist, 2000 ; Sassen, 1995 ; Light, Bernard, & Kim, 1999 ). Having a transnational network of family members is quite important to destination choice; if a destination country has an immigration policy that emphasizes family reunification, migrants can use their familial connections to gain economically valuable permanent resident or citizenship status more easily than in other countries (Massey et al., 1993 , p. 450; Helbing & Leblang, 2017 ). When the migrant is comparing potential destinations, countries in which that migrant has a strong social network will be heavily favored in a cost–benefit analysis.

Note, however, that even outside of a strict rational actor framework with perfect information, transnational social networks still may be quite salient to destination choice. An interesting alternative hypothesis for the patterns we observe draws on theories from financial market behavior which focus on herding. Migrants choosing a destination observe the decisions of their co-ethnics who previously migrated and assume that those decisions were based on a relevant set of information, such as job opportunities or social tolerance of migrants. New migrants then choose the same destination as their co-ethnics not based on actual exchanges of valuable information, but based solely on the assumption that previous migration decisions were based on rational calculation (Epstein & Gang, 2006 ; Epstein, 2008 ). This is a classic example of herding, and the existing empirical evidence on the importance of transnational social networks cannot invalidate this alternative hypothesis. One could also explain social network effects through the lens of cumulative causation or feedback loops: the initial existence of connections in destination countries makes the act of migration less risky and attracts additional co-ethnics. This further expands migrant networks in a destination, further decreasing risk for future waves of migrants, and so on (Massey, 1990 ; Fussel & Massey, 2004 ; Fussel, 2010 ).

No matter the pathway by which social networks operate, the empirical evidence indicates that they are one of the most important determinants of destination choice. Potential migrants from Mexico, for example, who are able to tap into existing networks in the United States face lower direct, opportunity, and psychological costs of international migration (Massey & Garcia España, 1987 ). This same relationship holds in the European context; a study of Bulgarian and Italian migrants indicates that those with “social capital” in a destination community are more likely to migrate and to choose that particular destination (Haug, 2008 ). Studies that are more broadly cross-national in nature also confirm the social network hypothesis across a range of contexts and time periods (e.g., Clark et al., 2007 ; Hatton & Williamson, 2011 ; Fitzgerald et al., 2014 ).

Despite the importance of social networks, it is, again, important to qualify their role in framing the choice of destinations. It seems that the existence of co-ethnics in destination countries most strongly influences emigration when they are relatively few in number. Clark et al. ( 2007 ), in their study of migration to the United States, find that the “friends and relatives effect” falls to zero once the migrant stock in the United States reaches 8.3% of the source-country population. In addition, social networks alone cannot explain destination choice because their explanatory power is context-dependent. For instance, restrictive immigration policies limiting legal migration channels and family reunification may dampen the effectiveness of networks (Böcker, 1994 ; Collyer, 2006 ). Social networks are not an independent force, but also interact with economic and political realities to produce the global migration patterns we observe.

The Lens of Skill

For ease of presentation, we have up to now treated migrants as a relatively homogeneous group that faces similar push and pull factors throughout the decision-making process. Of course, not all migrants experience the same economic, political, and social incentives in the same way at each stage of the decision-making process. Perhaps the most salient differentiating feature of migrants is skill or education level. Generally, one can discuss a spectrum of skill and education level for current migrants, from relatively less educated (having attained a high school degree or less) to relatively more educated (having attained a college or post-graduate degree). The factors presented here that influence destination choice interact with a migrant’s skill level to produce differing destination choice patterns.

A migrant’s level of education, or human capital, often serves as a filter for the political treatment he or she anticipates in a particular destination country. For instance, the American public has a favorable view of highly educated migrants who hold higher-status jobs, while simultaneously having an opposite view of migrants who have less job training and do not hold a college degree (Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2010 ; Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2015 ). Indeed, the political discourse surrounding migration often emphasizes skill level and education as markers of migrants who “should be” admitted, across both countries and the ideological spectrum. 6 While political tolerance may be a condition of entry for migrants in the aggregate, the relatively privileged status of highly educated and skilled migrants in most destination countries may mean that this condition is not as salient.

While it is still an open question to what extent immigration policy influences international migration, it is clear that not all migrants face evenly applied migration restrictions. Most attractive destination countries have policies that explicitly favor highly skilled migrants, since these individuals often fill labor shortages in advanced industries such as high technology and applied science. Countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand all employ so-called “points-based” immigration systems in which those with advanced degrees and needed skills are institutionally favored for legal entry (Papademetriou & Sumption, 2011 ). Meanwhile, the United States maintains the H-1B visa program, which is restricted by educational attainment and can only be used to fill jobs in which no native talent is available (USCIS). Even if destination countries decide to adopt more restrictive immigration policies, the move toward restriction has typically been focused on low-skilled migrants (Peters, 2017 ). In other words, even if immigration policy worldwide becomes more restrictive, this will almost certainly not occur at the expense of highly skilled migrants and will not prevent them choosing their most preferred destination.

Bring It on Home to Me

This article began by asserting that international labor migration is an important piece of globalization, as significant as cross-border flows of capital, goods, and services. This section argues that migrant flows enhance flows of capital and commodities. Uniquely modern conditions such as advanced telecommunications, affordable and efficient international travel, and the liberalization of financial flows mean that diasporas—populations of migrants living outside their countries of origin—and home countries often re-engage with each other (Vertovec, 2004 ; Waldinger, 2008 ). This section reviews some of the newest and most thought-provoking research on international labor migration, research that explores diaspora re-engagement and how that re-engagement alters international flows of income, portfolio and foreign direct investment (FDI), trade, and migratory flows themselves.

Remittances

As previously argued, migration is often driven by the prospect of higher wages. Rational, utility-maximizing migrants incur the cost of migration in order to earn increased income that they could not earn at home. But when migrants obtain higher wages, this additional increment to income is not always designated for individual consumption. Often, migrants use their new income to send remittances, direct transfers of money from one individual to another across national borders. Once a marginal financial flow, in 2015 remittances totaled $431 billion, far outpacing foreign aid ($135 billion) and nearly passing private debt and portfolio equity ($443 billion). More than 70% of total global remittances flow into developing countries (World Bank, 2016 ). In comparison with other financial flows such as portfolio investment and FDI, remittances are more impervious to economic crises, suggesting that they may be a countercyclical force to global downturns (Leblang, 2017 ).

Remittances represent one of the most common ways in which migrants re-engage with their homeland and alter both global income flows and distribution. Why do migrants surrender large portions of their new income, supposedly the very reason they migrated in the first place, to their families back home? New economics of labor migration (NELM) theory argues that immigration itself is motivated by a family’s need or demand for remittances—that remittances are an integral part of a family’s strategy for diversifying household financial risk (Stark & Bloom, 1985 ). Remittances “are a manifestation of informal contractual agreements between migrants and the households from which they move,” indicating that remitting is not an individual-level or purely altruistic action but rather occurs in a larger social context, that of one’s immediate or extended family (European Asylum Support Office, 2016 , p. 15).

The impact of migrant remittances on countries of origin is multifaceted yet somewhat ambiguous. Most scholarly work focuses on whether remittances positively or negatively influence existing economic conditions. A number of studies find that remittances modestly reduce poverty levels in developing countries (Adams & Page, 2005 ; Yang & Martinez, 2006 ; Acosta, Calderon, Fajnzybler, & Lopez, 2008 ; Lokshin, Bontch-Osmolovski, & Glinskaya, 2010 ). On other measures of economic well-being, such as growth, inequality, and health, the literature is quite mixed and no definitive conclusions can be drawn. For instance, some studies find that remittances encourage investment in human capital (Yang, 2008 ; Adams & Cuecuecha, 2010 ), while others find no such effect and suggest that families typically spend remittances on non-productive consumption goods (Chami, Fullenkamp, & Jahjah, 2003 ). Here we can only scratch the surface of the empirical work on remittances and economic outcomes. 7

Some of the most recent research in the field argues that remittances have a distinct political dimension, affecting regime support in developing countries and altering the conditions in which elections are held. Ahmed ( 2012 ), grouping remittances with foreign aid, argues that increased remittances allow autocratic governments to extend their tenure in office. These governments can strategically channel unearned government and household income to finance political patronage networks, which leads to a reduced likelihood of autocratic turnover, regime collapse, and mass protests against the regime. More recent research posits nearly the exact opposite: remittances are linked to a greater likelihood of democratization under autocratic regimes. Escriba-Folch, Meseguer, and Wright ( 2015 ) argue that since remittances directly increase household incomes, they reduce voter reliance on political patronage networks, undermining a key tool of autocratic stability.

Remittances may also play an important role in countries with democratic institutions, yet more research is needed to fully understand the conditions under which they matter and their substantive impact. Particularly, remittances may alter the dynamics of an election as an additional and external financial flow. There is evidence of political remittance cycles : the value of remittances spikes in the run-up to elections in developing countries. The total value of remittances to the average developing country increases by 6.6% during election years, and by 12% in elections in which no incumbent or named successor is running (O’Mahony, 2012 ). The effect is even larger in the poorest of developing countries. Finer-grained tests of this hypothesis provide additional support: using monthly and quarterly data confirms the existence of political remittance cycles, as well as using subnational rather than cross-national data (Nyblade & O’Mahony, 2014 ). However, these studies do not reveal why remittances spike, or what the effects of that spike are on electoral outcomes such as vote share, campaign financing, and political strategy.

Remittances represent a massive international financial flow that warrants more scholarly attention. While there are numerous studies on the relationship between remittances and key economic indicators, there remains much room for further work on their relationship to political outcomes in developing countries. Do remittances hasten the downfall of autocratic regimes, or do they contribute to autocratic stability? In democratic contexts, do remittances substantively influence electoral outcomes, and if so, which outcomes and how? Finally, do remittances prevent even more migration because they allow one “breadwinner from abroad” to provide for the household that remains in the homeland? While data limitations are formidable, these questions are important to the study of both international and comparative political economy.

Bilateral Trade

The argument that migrant or co-ethnic networks play an important role in international economic exchange is not novel. Greif ( 1989 , 1993 ) illustrates the role that the Maghrebi traders of the 11th century played in providing informal institutional guarantees that facilitated trade. This is but a single example. Cowen’s historical survey identifies not only the Phoenicians but also the “Spanish Jews [who] were indispensable for international commerce in the Middle Ages. The Armenians controlled the overland route between the Orient and Europe as late as the nineteenth century . Lebanese Christians developed trade between the various parts of the Ottoman empire” (Cowen, 1997 , p. 170). Rauch and Trindade ( 2002 ) provide robust empirical evidence linking the Chinese diaspora to patterns of imports and exports with their home country.

A variety of case studies document the importance of migrant networks in helping overcome problems of information asymmetries. In his study of Indian expatriates residing in the United States, Kapur ( 2014 ) documents how that community provides U.S. investors with a signal of the work ethic, labor quality, and business culture that exists in India. Likewise, Weidenbaum and Hughes ( 1996 ) chronicle the Bamboo Network—the linkages between ethnic Chinese living outside mainland China and their homeland—and how these linkages provide superior access to information and opportunities for investment.

Connections between migrant communities across countries affect cross-national investment even when these connections do not provide information about investment opportunities. In his work on the Maghrebi traders of the 11th century , Greif argues that this trading network was effective because it was able to credibly threaten collective punishment by all merchants if even one of them defected (Greif, 1989 , 1993 ). Grief shows that this co-ethnic network was able to share information regarding the past actions of actors (they could communicate a reputation)—something that was essential for the efficient functioning of markets in the absence of formal legal rules. Weidenbaum and Hughes reach a similar conclusion about the effectiveness of the Bamboo Network, remarking that “if a business owner violates an agreement, he is blacklisted. This is far worse than being sued, because the entire Chinese networks will refrain from doing business with the guilty party” (Hughes, 1996 , p. 51).

Migrants not only alter the flow of income by remitting to their countries of origin, but also influence patterns of international portfolio investment and FDI. Most existing literature on international capital allocation emphasizes monadic factors such as the importance of credible commitments and state institutional quality, failing to address explicitly dyadic phenomena that may also drive investment. Diaspora networks, in particular, facilitate cross-border investment in a number of ways. They foster a higher degree of familiarity between home and host countries, leading to a greater preference for investment in specific countries. Diaspora networks can also decrease information asymmetries in highly uncertain international capital markets in two ways. Firstly, they can provide investors with salient information about their homeland, such as consumer tastes, that can influence investment decision-making. Secondly, they can share knowledge about investment opportunities, regulation and procedures, and customs that decrease transaction costs associated with cross-border investment (Leblang, 2010 ). This place of importance for migrants suggests to the broader international political economy literature the importance of non-institutional mechanisms for channeling economic activity.

Although the hypothesized link between migrants and international investment has only recently been identified, the quantitative evidence available supports that hypothesis. Leblang ( 2010 ), using dyadic cross-sectional data, finds that diaspora networks “have both a substantively significant effect and a statistically significant effect on cross-border investment,” including international portfolio investment and FDI (p. 584). The effect of bilateral migratory flows correlates positively with the degree of information asymmetry: when informational imperfections are more pervasive in a dyad, migrants (especially the highly skilled) play a disproportionately large role in international capital allocation (Kugler, Levinthal, & Rapoport, 2017 ). Other quantitative studies find substantively similar results for FDI alone (e.g., Javorcik, Özden, Spatareanu, & Neagu, 2011 ; Aubry, Rapoport, & Reshef, 2016 ).

Many questions still remain unanswered. Firstly, does the effect of migrants on investment follow the waves of the global economy, or is it countercyclical as remittances have been shown to be? Secondly, how does this additional investment, facilitated by migrants, affect socioeconomic outcomes such as inequality, poverty, and economic development (Leblang, 2010 )? Does the participation of migrants lead to more successful FDI projects in developing countries because of their ability to break down information barriers? Within portfolio investment, do migrants lead to a preference for certain asset classes over others, and if so, what are the effects on bilateral and international capital markets? These are just a few directions in an area ripe for additional research.

Return Migration and Dual Citizenship

Besides financial flows, migrants themselves directly contribute to global flows of capital by returning to their countries of origin in large numbers. This phenomenon of return migration—or circular migration—can come in a few temporal forms, including long-term migration followed by a permanent return to a country of origin, or repeat migration in which a migrant regularly moves between destination and origin countries (Dumont & Spielvogel, 2008 ). While comparable data on return migration is scarce, some reports suggest that 20% to 50% of all immigrants leave their destination country within five years after their arrival (e.g., Borjas & Bratsberg, 1996 ; Aydemir & Robinson, 2008 ; Bratsberg, Raaum, & Sørlie, 2007 ; Dustmann & Weiss, 2007 ). An independent theoretical and empirical account of return migration does not yet exist in the literature and is beyond the scope of this paper. But in the rational actor framework, motivations to return home include a failure to realize the expected benefits of migration, changing preferences toward a migrant’s home country, achievement of a savings or other economic goal, or the opening of additional employment opportunities back home due to newly acquired experience or greater levels of economic development (Dumont & Spielvogel, 2008 ).

While most migration literature treats the country of origin as a passive actor that only provides the conditions for migration, new literature on return migration gives home country policies pride of place. Origin countries can craft policies that encourage diaspora re-engagement, incentivizing individuals to return home. Dual citizenship, for example, is an extension of extraterritorial rights, allowing migrants to retain full legal status in their home country. Dual citizenship “decreases the transaction costs associated with entering a host country’s labor market and makes it easier for migrants to return home” (Leblang, 2017 , p. 77). This leads migrants to invest their financial resources in the form of remittances back home as well as their valuable human capital. When states provide such extraterritorial rights, expatriates are 10% more likely to remit and 3% more likely to return home. Dual citizenship is also associated with a doubling of the dollar amount of remittances received by a home country (Leblang, 2017 ). These striking results suggest that in addition to the power of migrants to affect cross-border flows of money and people, countries of origin can also play a significant role.

Conclusion and Future Directions

This brief article has attempted to synthesize a broad range of literature from political science, economics, sociology, migration studies, and more to construct an account of international labor migration. To do so, the migratory process was broken down into distinct stages and decision points, focusing particularly on the decision to migrate, destination choice, and the re-engagement of migrants with their homeland. In doing so, the article also discussed the interlinkages of international migration with other fields of study in international political economy, including cross-border financial flows, trade, and investment. Through a multiplicity of approaches, we have gained a greater understanding of why people decide to move, why they decide to move to one country over another, and how and why they engage with the global economy and their homeland. Despite this intellectual progress, there remain many paths for future research at each stage of the migratory process; we highlight just a few of them here.

We know that income differentials, social ties, and local political conditions are important variables influencing the migration process. Yet the question remains: why do a small but growing number of people choose to leave while the overwhelming majority of people remain in their country of birth? Here, individual- or family-level subjective characteristics may be significant. There are a handful of observational studies that explore the relationship between subjective well-being or life satisfaction and the intention to migrate, with the nascent consensus being that life dissatisfaction increases the intention to migrate (Cai, Esipova, Oppenheimer, & Feng, 2014 ; Otrachshenko & Popova, 2014 ; Nikolova & Graham, 2015 ). But more research on intrinsic or subjective measures is needed to understand (a) their independent importance more fully and (b) how they interact with objective economic, political, and social factors. For instance, do those who are more optimistic migrate in larger numbers? Do minority individuals who feel they live in an environment in which diversity is not accepted feel a greater urge to leave home? Synthesizing these types of subjective variables and perceptions with the more prominent gravity-style models could result in a more complete picture of the international migration process.

For the “typical” migrant, one who is relatively less educated than the population in the chosen destination and does not have specialized skills, social networks are key to minimizing the risk of migrating and quickly tapping into economic opportunities in destination countries. Does this remain true for those who are highly educated? Although little empirical research exists on the topic, greater human capital and often-accompanying financial resources may operate as a substitute for the advantages offered by social networks, such as housing, overcoming linguistic barriers, and finding gainful employment. This would indicate that the “friends and family effect” is not as influential for this subset of migrants. Economic considerations, such as which destination offers the largest relative wage differential, or political considerations, such as the ease of quickly acquiring full citizenship rights, may matter more for the highly skilled. Neoclassical economic models of migration may best capture the behavior of migrants who hold human capital and who have the financial resources to independently migrate in a way that maximizes income or utility more broadly.

Since we have focused on international migration as a series of discrete decision points in this article, we have perhaps underemphasized the complexity of the physical migration process. In reality, migrants often do not pick a country and travel directly there, but travel through (perhaps several) countries of transit such as Mexico, Morocco, or Turkey along the way (Angel Castillo, 2006 ; Natter, 2013 ; Icduygu, 2005 ). There is little existing theoretical work to understand the role of transit countries in the migratory process, with much of it focusing on the potential for cooperation between destination and transit countries in managing primarily illegal immigration (Kahana & Lecker, 2005 ; Djajic & Michael, 2014 ; Djajic & Michael, 2016 ). Another related strand of the literature focuses on how wealthy destination countries are “externalizing” their immigration policy, encompassing a broader part of the migratory process than simply crossing a physically demarcated border (Duvell, 2012 ; Menjivar, 2014 ). But many questions remain, such as the following: how do we understand those who desire to enter, say, the United States, but instead relocate permanently to Mexico along the way? How do countries of transit handle the pressure of transit migrants, and how does this affect economic and political outcomes in these countries?

Finally, the focus of nearly all literature on international migration (and this article as a byproduct) implicitly views advanced economies as the only prominent destinations. However, this belies the fact that 38% of all migration stays within the “Global South” (World Bank, 2016 ). While there is certainly some literature on this phenomenon (see Ratha & Shaw, 2007 ; Gindling, 2009 ; Hujo & Piper, 2007 ), international political economy scholars have yet to sufficiently tackle this topic. The overarching research question here is: do the same push and pull factors that influence the decision to migrate and destination choice apply to those who migrate within the Global South? Do we need to construct new theories of international migration with less emphasis on factors such as wage differentials and political tolerance, or are these sufficient to understand this facet of the phenomenon? If we fail to answer these questions, we may miss explaining a significant proportion of international migration with its own consequences and policy implications.

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1. Our use of the term international labor migration follows academic and legal conventions; we use the term migration to refer to the voluntary movement of people across national borders, either in a temporary or permanent fashion. This excludes any discussion of refugees, asylum seekers, or any other groups that are forced to migrate.

2. We do not have space in this article to delve into the theoretical and empirical work unpacking the effect of demographic characteristics—age, gender, marital status, household size, and so forth on the migration decision and on subsequent flows of migrants. For comprehensive reviews, see Lichter ( 1983 ), Morrison and Lichter ( 1988 ); United Nations Population Division ( 2013 ); and Zaiceva and Zimmerman ( 2014 ).

3. Zelinsky ( 1971 ) originally identified this relationship and termed it mobility transition curve . A wealth of empirical work supports Zelinsky’s descriptive theory in a number of contexts (see Akerman, 1976 ; Gould, 1979 ; Hatton & Williamson, 1994 ; and Dao et al., 2016 ).

4. For a review of the arguments as well as some empirical tests, see Miller and Peters ( 2018 ) and Docquier, Lodigiani, Rapoport, and Schiff ( 2018 ).

5. Transparency International. “What is corruption?”

6. For example, former United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has called for the United Kingdom to adopt an immigration system that only allows in highly skilled migrants (“UKIP launches immigration policy”). In 2014, US President Barack Obama emphasized that he wanted to attract international students to American universities and that they “create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America” (USA Today: “Full text: Obama’s immigration speech”). A key issue in Germany’s 2018 government formation was the creation of skill-based migration laws (Severin & Martin, 2018 ).

7. For a more comprehensive review, see Rapoport and Docquier ( 2006 ); and Adams ( 2011 ).

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2021 Theses Doctoral

Three Essays on International Migration

Huang, Xiaoning

Today, there are about 250 million international migrants globally, and the number is increasing each year. Immigrants have contributed to the global economy, bridged cultural and business exchanges between host and home countries, and increased ethnic, racial, social, and cultural diversity in the host societies. Immigrants have also been overgeneralized about, misunderstood, scapegoated, and discriminated against. Understanding what drives international migration, who migrate, and how immigrants fare in destination has valuable theoretical, practical, and policy implications. This dissertation consists of three essays on international immigration. The first paper aims to test a series of immigration theories by studying immigrant skill-selection into South Africa and the United States. Most of the research on the determinants of immigrant skill selection has been focusing on immigrants in the United States and other developed destination countries. However, migration has been growing much faster in recent years between developing countries. This case study offers insights into the similarities and differences of immigration theories within the contexts of international migration into South Africa and the US. This project is funded by the Hamilton Research Fellowship of Columbia School of Social Work. The second paper narrows down the focus onto Asian immigrants in the United States, studying how the skill-selection of Asian immigrants from different regions has evolved over the past four decades. Asian sending countries have experienced tremendous growth in their economy and educational infrastructure. The rapid development provides an excellent opportunity to test the theories on the associations between emigrants’ skill-selection and sending countries’ income, inequality, and education level. On the other hand, during the study period, the United States has had massive expansion employment-based immigration system, followed by cutbacks in immigration policies. I study the association between immigration patterns and these policies to draw inferences on how the changes in immigration policies have affected the skill selection of Asian immigrants. This research is funded by Columbia University Weatherhead East Asia Institute’s Dorothy Borg Research Program Dissertation Research Fellowship. The third paper centers on the less-educated immigrant groups in the US and investigates the gap in welfare use between less-educated immigrant and native households during 1995-2018, spanning periods of economic recessions and recoveries, changes in welfare policy regimes, and policies towards immigrants. I use “decomposition analysis” to study to what extend demographic factors, macroeconomic trends, and welfare and immigration policy could explain the disparities in welfare participation between immigrants and natives. This paper is co-authored with Dr. Neeraj Kaushal from Columbia School of Social Work and Dr. Julia Shu-Huah Wang from the University of Hong Kong. The work has been published in Population Research and Policy Review (doi.org/10.1007/s11113-020-09621-8).

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Leila Simona Talani

January 19th, 2022, migration and the ‘dark side’ of globalisation.

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Globalisation has had a profound impact on migration, with improving connections between states resulting in more people than ever before choosing to live and work in other countries. Yet as Leila Simona Talani explains, this process has been contradictory, with many of the migration crises the world has witnessed in recent decades having their roots in globalisation. Drawing on a new book, she outlines the ‘dark side’ of the relationship between globalisation and international migration.

The events unfolding daily in relation to migration, from the crisis at the border between Belarus and Poland, to the never-ending deaths in the Mediterranean, underline the ‘dark side’ of globalisation. This is the conclusion that I reach in my new book, The International Political Economy of Migration in the Globalization Era , which analyses how the different approaches in international political economy address the relationship between globalisation and migration.

Globalisation emerges from this investigation as a process ridden with contradictions, whose consequences increase social discrepancies and geographical marginalisation. I argue that globalisation manifests its inherent ‘dark side’ in relation to international migration due to a number of phenomena that escape traditional controls and regulations. There are at least four main components of this ‘dark side’.

The loss of political control of international migration

The first aspect of the ‘dark side’ of international migration in the age of globalisation is whether or not globalisation induced migratory flows can be governed and by whom. It is quite possible, as discussed in the relevant literature, that the forces unleashed by globalisation escape governance as they are structural necessities.

In particular, the structural transformations of the global political economy lead to the structural need for populations to move both within regions and outside them. This is the consequence of three paradoxes of globalisation and their impact on the motivations for migration: the paradox of marginalisation  and its impact in terms of increased extra-regional permanent migration and brain drain; the paradox of regionalisation and its consequences in terms of intra-regional temporary migration; and the paradox of securitisation  and its consequences in terms of irregular migration.

These paradoxes follow from the structural nature of globalisation and the emergence of a new global division of labour and power, and therefore the urge to migrate cannot be stopped by political entities. From this perspective, migration cannot be controlled, regulated or governed, neither by the state nor by supranational institutions. The only result political institutions can obtain from imposing regulatory regimes on international migration is to transform regular migration into irregular migration.

Moreover, because of the paradoxes of regionalisation and marginalisation, the population of the non-regionalised, marginal areas of the global political economy experience an increased incentive to migrate, thus adding two further elements to the dark side of globalisation: an increase in mass migration and brain drain.

The ‘irregularisation” of international migration and the criminalisation of migrants

The ‘irregularisation’ of migration is another negative consequence of globalisation on migration. This entails the creation of new inequalities in labour markets, the rise of so called ‘modern slavery’, as well as the death toll that the process of migrating through irregular means inevitably produces.

There is a widespread consensus in the scholarly community that international migration is generally beneficial for the economic performances of host societies. International migration is considered in the literature to be a positive sum game for destination countries as it allows them to cover the gaps of their labour market, complementing the skills of the local labour force and enhancing the productivity and efficiencies of their economies.

This happens despite the fact migrants are often underemployed, have relatively lower levels of employment than the local population, and have to accept working conditions below relevant standards, which is often the case for both regular and irregular migrants. In fact, the negative aspects of globalisation induced migratory flows come from their irregularisation, which substantially contributes to the antagonisation and even criminalisation of international migrants by receiving societies.

The paradox of securitisation and increasing insecurity

The securitisation paradox, which is often justified as a way to limit global terrorism, can paradoxically fuel terrorist tendencies, not only in first-generation but also in second and third-generation migrants. The securitisation of migration policy is counterproductive as it simply results in an increase in insecurity. It does so through the irregularisation of migrants and refugees.

The irregularisation of migrants and refugees leads to dangerous journeys to reach destination countries and to the involvement of organised crime in the smuggling and exploitation of migrants. It also leads to precarious working conditions for both the local and the migrant workforce, which can facilitate modern slavery. It pushes irregular migrants into the underground economy and contributes to their related marginalisation and criminalisation by host societies, increasing the ethnification of prison populations and providing an incentive to commit crime.

Finally, it leads to growing hostility among migrant communities against receiving countries. This hostility has the potential to lead to social unrest or even terrorism. It can also act in the opposite direction by increasing the hostility of ‘native populations’ to migrant communities, which leads to Islamophobia and the rise of right-wing populism.

All of this is a consequence of the paradox of securitisation within globalisation. If international migration is a structural component of globalisation, political institutions cannot stop it. The policy gap is real. The implementation of restrictive policies only produces the irregularisation of international migration. In a nutshell, increasing securitisation increases insecurity. Yet while international migrants, refugees and local citizens all stand to lose out from this process, there are also some clear ‘winners’. These are the populist and right-wing parties that have built support on their opposition to migration.

Populism and the rise of anti-migrant parties

The debate about populism and populist right-wing parties has been revamped by the recent wave of success for such parties in elections worldwide. Populism, in itself, does not need to be considered as a negative consequence of globalisation, although the literature unanimously underlines the authoritarian tendencies of populist ideologies. However, the fact that populism is often accompanied by an explicit anti-migrant, xenophobic discourse is certainly an element of the ‘dark side’ of globalisation.

But what is the relationship between both the rise of populism and globalisation and between populism and anti-migrant attitudes? Are populist parties inherently anti-migrant and xenophobic or, instead, do they simply adopt these stances to attract voters? Given the delay between the start of globalisation and the electoral success of populist movements, it is questionable whether globalisation alone can be viewed as the origin of the recent populist wave. Instead, I suggest that the global economic crisis and the eurozone crisis acted as a catalyst for the contradictions of globalisation to become salient in Europe.

This is evident because in countries where globalisation did not bring economic difficulties, the populist backlash did not appear to the same extent. Both the global financial crisis and the eurozone crisis had a major impact on the economies of some countries, especially when austerity made it more difficult to compensate the losers through suitable fiscal policies.

From this perspective, the cause of populism cannot be cultural. Rather, populism must have an economic cause and the cultural manifestation of populism, and, in particular, anti-migrant feelings, is a consequence of the worsening of economic insecurity. And once in power, the anti-migrant platforms of populist parties are likely to be further entrenched, not least because the migrants that are the focus of their attention cannot vote.

For more information, see the author’s new monograph, The International Political Economy of Migration in the Globalization Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Nicolas Economou / Shutterstock.com

About the author

Leila Simona Talani is a Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of European and International Studies at King’s College London.

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Global mobility ; Human mobility

Introduction

Migration, in a meaning of transnational human mobility, is an important aspect of globalization (Castles et al. 2013 ). In recent decades, globalization is usually taken to mean the “latest wave” of globalization rather than a longue durée process spanning centuries. In the former meaning, globalization is defined as the acceleration of global economic, political, cultural, and environmental interconnectedness and interdependency over the past several decades, with different authors placing different starting times to it. In any case, globalization became an unavoidable buzzword in social sciences during the 1980s, and in the 1990s, it entered the public vocabulary, at least in the West (Steger 2009 ). While the process of globalization is not limited to the global expansion of Western capitalism, it is primarily driven by capital’s inherent expansionism into new investment markets and new sources of cheap labor (Wallerstein 1979 ).

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Blumer H (1939) An appraisal of Thomas and Znaniecki’s the polish peasant in Europe and America. Social Science Research Council, New York. Bulletin No. 44 (with an summary and analysis by R. Bain)

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Colic-Peisker, V. (2017). Globalization and Migration. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3130-1

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• I Globalisation Unbound: Transnational Flows in the Digital Era By   Dominic Eggel   and   Marc Galvin Research Office The Graduate Institute, Geneva

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International Migration: A Canary in the Coalmine of Globalisation

International migration is inextricably linked with globalisation. On one hand, processes of globalisation drive international migration, including through disparities in development, demography and democracy; the global jobs crisis; the segmentation of global labour markets; revolutions in communications and transportation; and transnational social networks. On the other hand, international migration itself generates processes of globalisation, including the global transfer of money and goods; the emergence of global cities; and growing social and cultural diversity.

In comparison with trade and capital, however, the global movement of labour remains restricted. This is because international migration strikes at the heart of issues that are paramount to sovereignty, including national identity, economic competitiveness, and security. Hence the paradox that while most industrialised countries require more migrants to fill labour market gaps and address demographic trends, most are nevertheless restricting migration in response to political and populist pressures.

In comparison with trade and capital, however, the global movement of labour remains restricted   I n this way, international migration can be considered a canary in the coalmine of globalisation: it will either flourish as the forces of globalisation overcome nationalism, or its reduction may be an indication that globalisation has peaked and is retreating.

According to United Nations data, in 2015 244 million people had lived outside their country for more than one year (a figure that excludes people who move for shorter periods, for example as students, tourists or seasonal workers, and, of course, the many more who move inside their own country). This total includes about 20 million refugees – on one hand an historical high of people forced from their countries, on the other still a relatively small proportion of the totality of migration.

International migrants comprised about 2.8% of the world’s population in 2000, and 3.3% of a significantly larger world population by 2015. Most projections suggest that the proportion of migrants in a continually expanding world population will continue to grow over the next century, in particular as a result of steepening demographic gradients, and the effects of climate change. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is likely to further boost and complexify international migration, notably by altering the ratios between irregular to regular and unskilled to high-skilled migrants as well as improving the gender balance.

However, while such indicators suggest that international migration will likely continue to expand, they may not necessarily indicate the amplification of globalisation. First, international migration is not really global   international migration is not really global. While about 10% of the population in Europe, North America and Oceania are international migrants, only about 2% are so in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Most migrants move within their own region. Second, it is likely that a growing proportion of international migrants may be moving without authorisation, responding to global pull and push factors but in increasing contravention of national laws, policies and interests. Third, in many countries international migration is increasingly (and usually inaccurately) viewed as a threat, fuelling anti-globalisation sentiments.

There is one final arena where international migration has an uneasy relationship with globalisation, and that is global governance. Until the International Organization for Migration (IOM) became an associated agency of the UN in 2016, it had often been pointed out that international migration was one of the few truly global issues without a dedicated UN agency. Even now the integration of IOM in the UN system remains contested. It is still true that there is no single legal or normative framework that applies to all migrants – the rights of irregular migrants remain especially contested.

At the same time, the international community has rallied behind a new Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the zero draft of which has recently been published, and which will now be negotiated by states before its launch at the end of 2018. While the draft does not make bold propositions on global governance, it does identify a series of guiding principles – including the potential contradiction between “international cooperation” and “national sovereignty” – and 22 objectives – including the ambition to minimise the structural factors that compel people to leave their country of origin – that may promote more coherence in international responses to migration.

International migration is just one indicator for the future of globalisation, albeit an important one. Projections for the future of migration perhaps indicate a new era of reluctant globalisation. The global forces that drive migration will expand, but there will be increasing efforts to harness its patterns and outcomes. The canary will live, but may not sing.

The future treaty on the free movement of persons in Africa

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What is Globalisation?

The IMF identifies four basic aspects of globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people and the dissemination of knowledge. Further, environmental challenges such as climate change, cross-boundary water, air pollution, and over-fishing of the ocean are linked with globalization. Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization, economics, socio-cultural resources, and the natural environment.

Proponents of globalization argue that it allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their standards of living, while opponents of globalization claim that the creation of an unfettered international free market has benefited multinational corporations in the Western world at the expense of local enterprises, local cultures, and common people. Resistance to globalization has therefore taken shape both at a popular and at a governmental level as people and governments try to manage the flow of capital, labor, goods, and ideas that constitute the current wave of globalization.

Map: The expanding network of global flows

The Expanding Network of Global Flows

Source: McKinsey Global Institute

• Globalisation Unbound: Transnational Flows in the Digital Era I
• The Changing Paradigm of Trade in the 21st Century 1
• Energy Trading: An Uncertain Horizon 2
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• Public Policy in the Spiral of Universalising Education Standards 5
• The Global Threat of Epidemics One Century after the Spanish Influenza 6

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Handbook of Globalisation and Migration . Edited by Anna Triandafyllidou

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Agnieszka Weinar, Handbook of Globalisation and Migration . Edited by Anna Triandafyllidou, Migration Studies , Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022, Pages 334–337, https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mny044

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Migration in the globalised world has intensified and changed, both at the origin and destination ( Castles, Miller, and De Haas 2013 ). Over the last two decades there have been many studies of the correlation between globalisation and migration in economics, demography, sociology, geography, environmental studies, and political science (e.g. Sassen 1999 ; Light 2000 ; Tapinos and Delaunay 2000 ; Callister et al. 2006 ; Leman et al. 2007 ; Cholewinski and Taran 2009 ; Betts 2011 ; Black et al. 2011 ; Docquier and Rapoport 2012 ). Migration-globalisation nexus is indeed a growing interdisciplinary field of knowledge, which is difficult, if not impossible, to account for in its entirety by individual researchers, teachers and students. Still, it is crucial, in this very moment in history, to have access to an unbiased, broad view of the many linkages between globalisation and migration, not the least to be able to interpret the daily news.

In this context, Anna Triandafyllidou proposes a unique collection offering a robust state-of-the-art view of the field. The Handbook of Migration and Globalisation is the only currently available publication on the market that offers an in-depth review of the scholarship analysing the effects of globalising forces on the mobility of people. The Handbook presents the most debated sub-themes in this complex and vast research area, organising the content and contributing a clear overview of the current academic discussions. Chapters are organised around two axes: thematic and geographic. This approach underscores the simple fact that globalisation impacts migration, and vice versa, regardless of geographic or political space or sector of activity.

The Handbook approaches globalisation as interconnectedness characterised by extensity, intensity, velocity and impact (p. 4). And although the contributors to the Handbook mostly steer away from the normative stances, offering instead a ‘what-is’ scholarly description of the dynamics linking migration and globalisation processes, the picture they offer is that of staggering global stratifications. In the Handbook ’s optic, the ‘dangerous liaisons’ (p. 6) between globalisation (interconnectedness) and migration (movement) result in stratifying effects that touch most areas of human activity. This overarching narrative constitutes the significant contribution to the field of migrations studies, because it introduces a promising structure and analysing order to this otherwise convoluted field.

While the idea of stratification is not necessarily new ( Reich, Gordon, and Edwards 1973 ; Wallerstein 2000 , 2011 ), the studied extensity, intensity, velocity and impact of the forces of globalisation bring the classic concept to new levels. The Handbook strives to conceptualise it in the four areas of human experience: politics, economics (trade, development, global division of labour), culture and family life. This choice of the leading themes is in itself an innovation, as it swaps the logic of disciplinary order for an unorthodox approach capturing the impacts of globalisation where they really matter for individuals on the move.

The narrative of the Handbook focuses on on four fundamental stratifying dynamics.

The first is the increase of inequalities, in the era, when the world seems to become ever more equal: e.g. the rapid growth of the middle class and poverty reduction still do not counterbalance the fact that a still smaller group of people worldwide is growing more affluent, has better access to education, healthcare or culture. The globalisation of trade relations, labour markets and tools of production contribute to the growth of inequalities through unequal development; often correlated with migration (chapters by Rapoport, Weeraratne, Lahlou).

Second, migration itself has become very stratified: the migration flows are divided into various categories of people, with various socio-economic rights according to passports, skills, and gender. The regional arrangements (on mobility, trade or workers) facilitate movement within large regional labour markets of some while closing up to others (chapters by Molodikova, Acosta and Freier, Okyerefo and Setrana). Moreover, the success or failure largely depends on the value that the forces of globalisation assign to an individual. As aptly captured by many contributions to the Handbook , the gap between the rights of people with sought-after qualifications and without has been growing incessantly, putting the latter under more strain at home and abroad, with more and more people seen as dispensable (chapters by Zhyznomirska and Odynets, van Liempt). Labour market apart, the globalisation-fuelled stratification defines such a basic concept as the stability of the livelihood, endangered by the forces of the climate change, pushing more vulnerable populations towards mobility and migration (chapters by Campbell and Thornton). Gender cuts right through all these categories, driving increased vulnerability of women in all scenarios (chapter by Marchetti). A welcome inclusion is that of the transnational family dynamics (chapters by Baldassar et al. and Yeoh et al.) in the globalised context, an important and evolving field of study.

Third, related to this is the stratification of settlement prospects, in the context when mobility, rather than permanent migration, is the new normal. This dynamics might seem counterintuitive in the world of growing restrictions to migration, but these restrictions, coupled with economic opportunities, are precisely the cause of more temporary, non-linear movements (chapters by Geddes and by McAuliffe and Goossens). The human rights frameworks have been slow in capturing these new dynamics (the chapter by Atac) and in general linger behind the current changes in mobility. One of the most interesting contributions of the Handbook is the empirical assertion that theories and methods developed in the era of settler migrations are mostly incompatible with this new reality of stratified, globalised movements of people. Even the definition of migration is fluid in the contributions, reflecting the ambiguity of the term and difficulty applying the narrow UN official definition.

Fourth, migration and globalisation nexus leads to the stratification of policy responses replicated around the globe. Policy ideas are shared not only horizontally, i.e. between the national governments, but also vertically (down through to the local level) and along the policy networks that include a plethora of governmental and non-governmental actors, regardless of a country or a region (chapters by Fine and Pécoud, and by Korneev and Kluczewska).

The contributors collectively provide a text which reflects the depth and volume of the available scholarship; in addition, most of the 26 chapters identify the gaps and new lines of research, such as the need to re-think the boundaries of the State regulation of migration, also in a regional context; the need to broaden and deepen the research on non-state actors in migration; the need to further research on trade and migration; or the need to incorporate masculinity and sexuality in the broad work on gender, migration and globalisation.

Most importantly, the contributions are not limited to the Western-centred scholarship but reach out to incorporate the knowledge accumulated in other scholarly traditions, most notably Chinese, Indian and Eastern European. This is the necessary paradigm that should be applied rigorously in the future works of this format within the interdisciplinary and international studies of migration.

At the time when we have only started appreciating the ‘dangerous liaisons’ between globalisation and migration, the Handbook promises to stay for long a valuable and the most comprehensive resource for scholars of migration all over the world.

Betts A. ( 2011 ) Global Migration Governance . Oxford : Oxford University Press .

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Callister P. et al.  ( 2006 ) Globalisation, Gendered Migration and Labour Markets . Working Paper, Department of Labour, Wellington, NZ .

Castles S. , Miller M. J. , De Haas H. ( 2013 ) The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World . London : Palgrave Macmillan .

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Docquier F. , Rapoport H. ( 2012 ) ‘ Globalization, Brain Drain, and Development ’, Journal of Economic Literature , 50 / 3 : 681 – 730 .

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• Journal of Economic Literature
• December 2015

Immigration and Globalization: A Review Essay

• George J. Borjas
• Article Information

Additional Materials

• Author Disclosure Statement(s) (22.21 KB)

JEL Classification

• J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

Global migration’s impact and opportunity

Migration is a key feature of our increasingly interconnected world . It has also become a flashpoint for debate in many countries, which underscores the importance of understanding the patterns of global migration and the economic impact that is created when people move across the world’s borders. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), People on the move: Global migration’s impact and opportunity , aims to fill this need.

Refugees might be the face of migration in the media, but 90 percent of the world’s 247 million migrants have moved across borders voluntarily, usually for economic reasons. Voluntary migration flows are typically gradual, placing less stress on logistics and on the social fabric of destination countries than refugee flows. Most voluntary migrants are working-age adults, a characteristic that helps raise the share of the population that is economically active in destination countries.

By contrast, the remaining 10 percent are refugees and asylum seekers who have fled to another country to escape conflict and persecution. Roughly half of the world’s 24 million refugees are in the Middle East and North Africa, reflecting the dominant pattern of flight to a neighboring country. But the recent surge of arrivals in Europe has focused the developed world’s attention on this issue. A companion report, Europe’s new refugees: A road map for better integration outcomes , examines the challenges and opportunities confronting individual countries.

While some migrants travel long distances from their origin countries, most migration still involves people moving to neighboring countries or to countries in the same part of the world (exhibit). About half of all migrants globally have moved from developing to developed countries—indeed, this is the fastest-growing type of movement. Almost two-thirds of the world’s migrants reside in developed countries, where they often fill key occupational shortages . From 2000 to 2014, immigrants contributed 40 to 80 percent of labor-force growth in major destination countries.

Moving more labor to higher-productivity settings boosts global GDP. Migrants of all skill levels contribute to this effect, whether through innovation and entrepreneurship or through freeing up natives for higher-value work. In fact, migrants make up just 3.4 percent of the world’s population, but MGI’s research finds that they contribute nearly 10 percent of global GDP. They contributed roughly $6.7 trillion to global GDP in 2015—some $3 trillion more than they would have produced in their origin countries. Developed nations realize more than 90 percent of this effect.

Would you like to learn more about the McKinsey Global Institute ?

Employment rates are slightly lower for immigrants than for native workers in top destinations, but this varies by skill level and by region of origin. Extensive academic evidence shows that immigration does not harm native employment or wages, although there can be short-term negative effects if there is a large inflow of migrants to a small region, if migrants are close substitutes for native workers, or if the destination economy is experiencing a downturn.

Realizing the benefits of immigration hinges on how well new arrivals are integrated into their destination country’s labor market and into society. Today immigrants tend to earn 20 to 30 percent less than native-born workers. But if countries narrow that wage gap to just 5 to 10 percent by integrating immigrants more effectively across various aspects of education, housing, health, and community engagement, they could generate an additional boost of $800 billion to $1 trillion to worldwide economic output annually. This is a relatively conservative goal, but it can nevertheless produce broader positive effects, including lower poverty rates and higher overall productivity in destination economies.

People on the move: Migrant voices

A series of portraits tells migrants’ stories—part of the 'i am a migrant' campaign.

The economic, social, and civic dimensions of integration need to be addressed holistically. MGI looked at how the leading destinations perform on 18 indicators and found that no country has achieved strong integration outcomes across all of these dimensions, though some do better than others. But in destinations around the world, many stakeholders are trying new approaches. We identify more than 180 promising interventions that offer useful models for improving integration. The private sector has a central role to play in this effort—and incentives to do so. When companies participate, they stand to gain access to new markets and pools of new talent.

The stakes are high. The success or failure of integration can reverberate for many years, influencing whether second-generation immigrants become fully participating citizens who reach their full productive potential or remain in a poverty trap.

Lola Woetzel , Jacques Bughin , and James Manyika are directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, where Anu Madgavkar is a partner and Ashwin Hasyagar is a fellow; Khaled Rifai is a partner in McKinsey’s New York office, Frank Mattern is a senior partner in the Frankfurt office, and Tarek Elmasry and Amadeo Di Lodovico are senior partners in the Dubai office.

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The impact of Globalization and Migration processes today

The essay-type article demonstrates all benefits and negative sides brought by globalization and migration in contemporary world and predictions for a future.

Related Papers

Ali Mohammed Khalel Al-Shawaf

About three per cent of the world's population, 200 million people, is living in countries which are not their country of birth. Many homogeneous societies have been changed into multicultural communities where people from different cultural backgrounds and language live together. Globalization is referred to as the increased in links across the globe. There are four links as identified by IMF which are trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people and the dissemination of knowledge. Globalization may not be the cause of migration, but it is definitely a catalyst that increases migrations to many parts of the world. There are several theories to why migration takes place. So these are the questions that come to mind, how does globalization influence the occurrence of international migration? What aspects or dimensions of globalization influence international migration? This paper would also provide an insight to how migration brings about economic and development growth of the host country and the country of origin.

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GERMAN ZARAMA

The principal purpose of this paper is to make an approach on global migration and why it represent a very important issue to discuss in these days, and also explore the different mechanisms to respond at the global immigration concern, specially the one that takes part from pour countries to rich countries.

RUDN Journal of Sociology

RUDN Journal of Sociology , I. Aleshkovski

In the second half of the XX century, the humankind witnessed the insurmountable and irreversible power of globalization processes, which influence all spheres of social life and establish a global system of interdependency between countries and nations. Globalization within impetuous changes in global political, social and economic systems has determined dramatic shifts in the international migration processes that lead to the new stage of migration history. In nowadays globalized world, international migration has become a reality for almost all corners of the globe. The author considers features of the recent trends of international migration: the unprecedented growth of the international migration flows; the widening geography of international migration that involves nearly all countries of the world; qualitative changes in the structure of international migration flows; the key role of economic migration; the permanent growth and structural intricateness of irregular migration; the increasing scale and geographical widening of forced migration; the growing importance of international migration for the demographic development of the world, countries of both origin and destination. All these trends combined prove that the international migration patterns have become more complex. The author analyzes the legal framework of the international migration processes, and gives recommendations on the ways to improve the control and regulation of migration processes. Specific issues related to the social challenges of international migration are also discussed in the article. International migration has accelerated over the last fifty years. Globalization processes have set in motion vast and often uncontrolled international migration flows and, thus, turned the international migration into the most important global phenomena, which influences the world economy and international security. Today, more people live outside their countries of origin than ever before, and international migration has become much more diverse in terms of origins and destinations of migrants.

This essay, drawing from Scholte’s (2005) definition of globalisation, shows how the interactions between economic, political, technological, social, and environmental elements of globalisation have changed global migration. The central argument is that migration has been integral to the success of the globalisation project, but that the scope, behaviour, and expansion of migration has begun to exceed expectations, and is becoming more difficult to control and predict, with climate change and conflict being the possible tipping point in years to come.

GLOBALIZATION PROS AND CONS OF MODERN MIGRATION RIGHTS PROCESSES AS A SOCIO-PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECT

The article examines the pros and cons of globalization of modern migration and legal processes from a socio-philosophical perspective. It is well known that the history of mass migration dates to ancient times. Philosophical, legal, and political studies have already addressed the problems of numerous waves of migration in societies. Social science concepts help to explore the causes and consequences of migration in global society. Methods of social allows research to allow us to study the causes and consequences, political and legal aspects of contemporary global issues that we face in the academic sphere. I consider the topic, based on research approaches, as a process of modernity and in connection with multicultural synthesis. The work has managed to conceptualize aspects of describing migration processes, which makes it possible to systematize them in terms of socialization and the transition of society from traditional to modern in times of conflict and war, as well as the peculiarities of social transformations in times of social upheaval. Aspects of migration in the globalized world are related to acculturation and assimilation, which are problems of modern societies where migrants can preserve their religious and cultural identity.

Robson Valdez

Panorama Internacional FEE brings to the debate, in its third edition, the issue of international migration. The phenomenon of human migration has been recurrent in the evolutionary process of societies. Its dimensions, its causes and its effects lie in the fields of politics, economics, religion, the history of climate change, etc. The complexity of the issue is extremely important for the understanding of other historical, political, economic and social phenomena. How can one understand, for example, the formation of national states and their political and economic systems throughout history without taking into account the role of migration flows in the context of all these processes? Given the complexity inherent to the dynamics of migration movements, assigning Global migrations: a constant challenge for the international community |

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ReviseSociology

A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

Globalisation and migration

Table of Contents

This post examines some of the sociological concepts sociologists have developed to describe the global patterns of migration

Globalisation is the idea that barriers between societies are disappearing and people are becoming increasingly interconnected across national boundaries.

Globalisation is the result of many processes including the growth of communication systems and global media, the creation of global markets, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the expansion of the European Union.

Many see globalisation as producing rapid social changes. One such change is increased international migration – the movement of people across borders. We can identify several trends in global migration.

Acceleration

There has been a speeding up of the rate of migration. For example according to the United Nations between 2000 and 2013 international migration increase by 33%, to reach 232 million, or 3.2% of the world’s population. In the same year, almost a million people either entered or left the UK.

Differentiation 

There are many types of migrant. These include permanent settlers, temporary workers, spouses or forced migrants such as refugees. Before the 1990s immigration to the UK came from a narrow range of former British colonies and these migrants tended to form a small number of stable, geographically concentrated and homogeneous ethnic communities.

However, since the 1990s globalisation has led to what Steven Vertovec (2007) has called super-diversity: even within a single ethnic group individuals may differ in terms of their legal status, culture or religion and be widely dispersed throughout the UK.

There are also class differences among migrants. Robin Cohen (2006) distinguishes three types of migrant:

• Citizens -with full citizenship rights such as voting rights
• Denizens – who are privileged people welcomed by the state – such as billionaire ‘oligarchs’ or highly paid employees of Transnational companies
• Helots – the most exploited group – states and employers regard them as disposable units of labour power, a reserve army of labour. They are found in unskilled, poorly paid work and include illegally trafficked workers and legal workers such as domestic servants.

The Feminisation of migration

Almost half of all global migrants are female and the types of job they do tend to fit patriarchal stereotypes such that there is a global gendered division of labour.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild (2003) observe that care work, domestic work and sex work in the UK is increasingly done by women from poor countries. This is a result of western women increasingly joining the labour force and the failure of the state to provide adequate child care.

The resulting gap has been filled by women from poor countries. For example, 40% of adult care nurses in the UK are migrants and most of these are female.

There is also a global transfer of women’s emotional labour. For example, migrant nannies provide care and affection for their employers’ children at the expense of their own children left behind in their home country.

Migrant women also enter western countries as ‘mail order brides’ and some as the victims of sex-trafficking.

Transnational Identities

According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen(2007), globalisation has created more diverse migration patters, with back and forth movements of people through networks rather than permanent settlement in another country.

This results in such migrants being less likely to see themselves as belonging to one culture or another and instead they may develop transnational neither/ nor identities and loyalties. The globalised economy means that economic migrants may have more links to other migrants than to their country of origin or the country they are currently settled in. Such migrants are less likely to want to assimilate into the ‘host country’.

Sources used to write the above include information fromRob Webb et al’s  AS level Sociology book for the AQA.

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Global Migration and Economic Globalization Essay

The question about the process of how global migration ties to economic globalization is burning for today. Before analyzing the very problem one should clearly understand the meaning of the two terms: migration and globalization. Migration can be explained as any movement of individuals from one location to another. Nowadays it is quite an ordinary thing for people to move over long distances alone or in large groups.

Sociologists single out three main reasons for migration. According to the first one people who are capable to work come to economically well-developed countries as cheap manpower. For example, in Washington, the number of foreign taxi drivers has increased from 25 to 85 percent for the last twenty-five years. As usual, migrants live in bad conditions and occupy low-paid positions. Still, they earn more money than in their native countries. So migrants and the country they work for have mutual benefits (Cohen, 1996, p. 51). The second important component of global migration is the departure of highly qualified and educated professionals to other economically stable countries. Nowadays Africa and the countries of Eastern Europe are on the top concerning the process of so-called “brain drain”.

Every year twenty thousand highly educated and skilled professionals leave Africa for Western and Northern Europe, the USA, and Canada. The third reason for global migration deals with the demographic situation. The population of well-developed countries is steadily growing older. That’s why the country needs new foreign manpower in different branches of the local economy. Globalization in its general sense denotes international integration.

This process presupposes the unification of people of the world into one whole society. Such acting together helps people to improve the economic, political, industrial, technological, and sociocultural spheres of every country’s development. Globalization in its specific understanding often refers to economic globalization, which means the interaction of national economies on the way of creating the international economy. Such a high level of the global economy can be achieved due to trade, the spread of technology, foreign direct investments, and capital flows. Also, the migration of people plays a very important role in this unification. So we can speak about global migration and how it influences economic globalization.

The process of global migration is as old as the hills. Prominent sociologist Peter Stalker (2000, p. 83) distinguished two historical stages in it. The first period was from the end of the nineteenth century till the beginning of the twentieth century up to World War I. The United States of America and Europe were two main economic poles during that period. In Europe, the prices were much higher and salaries much lower than in the USA. Analyzing the situation P. Stalker (2000, p. 112) showed that by economic theory the stream of goods was directed to Europe and a lot of migrants rushed to America. It was calculated that from 1846 to 1924 fifty million people moved from Europe to America and Australia.

As a result, there was a sizable equation of living standards on both sides of the ocean, which was seen in the convergence of prices and real incomes of the population. The second stage of migration began in the middle of the twentieth century. The changes in the legislation of the USA, Canada, and Australia dealing with the cancellation of racial and ethnic barriers lead to an increment of migrants several times in the second half of the twentieth century.

P. Stalker proves that global migration is an integral part of the modern “globalized world”. Such world globalization is characterized by the mobile transference of capital, goods, and people and the appearance of international nets of social, political, and economical character. So the interaction of global migration and globalization in the future will lead to economic equalization of life standards in all countries of the world.

Cohen, Robin. (1996). Sociology of Migration . Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Cohen, Robin. (1996). Theories of Migration . Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Stalker, P. (2000). Workers without Frontiers. The Impact of Globalization on International Migration . Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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IvyPanda. (2021, August 17). Global Migration and Economic Globalization. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-migration-and-economic-globalization/

"Global Migration and Economic Globalization." IvyPanda , 17 Aug. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/global-migration-and-economic-globalization/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Global Migration and Economic Globalization'. 17 August.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Global Migration and Economic Globalization." August 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-migration-and-economic-globalization/.

1. IvyPanda . "Global Migration and Economic Globalization." August 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-migration-and-economic-globalization/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Global Migration and Economic Globalization." August 17, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-migration-and-economic-globalization/.

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World Migration Report 2024 Reveals Latest Global Trends and Challenges in Human Mobility 

• International remittances surged by 650 per cent, from USD 128 billion to USD 831 billion between 2000 and 2022. 
• Migrant remittances surpass foreign direct investment in boosting the GDP of developing nations. 
• 281 million international migrants globally; number of those displaced hit a record high by the end of 2022 at 117 million.  

Dhaka/Geneva, 7 May – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) today launched the World Migration Report 2024 , which reveals significant shifts in global migration patterns, including a record number of displaced people and a major increase in international remittances.  

IOM Director General Amy Pope formally released the report in Bangladesh, which stands at the forefront of migration challenges, including emigration, immigration and displacement.   

“The World Migration Report 2024 helps demystify the complexity of human mobility through evidence-based data and analysis,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said at the launch. “In a world grappling with uncertainty, understanding migration dynamics is essential for informed decision-making and effective policy responses, and the World Migration Report advances this understanding by shedding light on longstanding trends and emerging challenges.” 

The report highlights that international migration remains a driver of human development and economic growth, highlighted by a more than 650 per cent increase in international remittances from 2000 to 2022, rising from USD 128 billion to USD 831 billion. The growth continued despite predictions from many analysts that remittances would decrease substantially because of COVID-19.  

Of that 831 billion in remittances, 647 billion were sent by migrants to low– and middle-income countries. These remittances can constitute a significant portion of those countries' GDPs, and globally, these remittances now surpass foreign direct investment in those countries. 

Highlighting key findings, the report reveals that while international migration continues to drive human development, challenges persist. With an estimated 281 million international migrants worldwide, the number of displaced individuals due to conflict, violence, disaster, and other reasons has surged to the highest levels in modern-day records, reaching 117 million, underscoring the urgency of addressing displacement crises.  

Migration, an intrinsic part of human history, is often overshadowed by sensationalized narratives. However, the reality is far more nuanced than what captures headlines. Most migration is regular, safe, and regionally focused, directly linked to opportunities and livelihoods. Yet, misinformation and politicization have clouded public discourse, necessitating a clear and accurate portrayal of migration dynamics.  

By choosing Dhaka as the report's launch site, IOM not only highlights the country's efforts in supporting vulnerable migrants and fostering pathways for regular migration but also recognizes Bangladesh's important role in shaping global migration discourse and policy.  

As a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration Champion country, Bangladesh has demonstrated a strong commitment to addressing migration issues and implementing policies that safeguard migrants' rights. This proactive engagement aligns with IOM's strategic objectives, making Bangladesh an ideal location to launch the 2024 World Migration Report.  

IOM’s World Migration Report, with its innovative digital tools and comprehensive analysis, aims to help dispel myths, provide critical insights, and inspire meaningful action in addressing the challenges and opportunities of human mobility.  

"We hope the report inspires collaborative efforts to harness the potential of migration as a driver for human development and global prosperity," DG Pope said. 

“As one of the GCM champion countries, Bangladesh will not only continue to act upon the pledges it has made for its domestic context but would also take up emerging issues and challenges pertaining to migration and development for informed deliberations at the international level,” said Dr. Hasan Mahmud, Honourable Foreign Minister, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Notes to editors: 

This launch is part of IOM Director General’s first three-day visit to Bangladesh. 

For more information, please contact: 

Marie McAuliffe, World Migration Report Editor at [email protected]  

For media requests: Florence Kim at [email protected]  

RELATED NEWS

Iom's world migration report shows global displacement rising despite covid-19 mobility limits, iom’s world migration report 2020  wins  international  design  awards , world migration report launches dynamic new data visualization platform, world migration report 2020 launched.

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Associated Press images of migrants’ struggle are recognized with a Pulitzer Prize

A woman carries her child after she and other migrants crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

AP photographers, from left, Eduardo Verdugo, Marco Ugarte and Fernando Llano pose for photos after winning the Pulitzer for feature photography, for their images of the migration crisis, at the Associated Press office in Mexico City, Monday, May 6, 2024. Eight AP staff and freelance photographers, six from Latin America and two from the U.S., were awarded this year’s Pulitzer for feature photography for images taken in 2023 that documented the anxiety, heartbreak and even the brief moments of joy that mark the migrants’ journey. (AP Photo/Megan Janetsky)

Migrants, mainly from Central America, who were traveling to the U.S. inside a tractor-trailer, are detained by Mexican immigration agents and National Guard members, in Veracruz, Mexico, Sunday, July 23, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

Migrants reach through a border wall for clothing handed out by volunteers as they wait between two border walls to apply for asylum Friday, May 12, 2023, in San Diego. Hundreds of migrants remain waiting between the two walls, many for days. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Migrants sit under a sign marking the Panama-Colombia border during their trek across the Darien Gap, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Migrants planning to start walking across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S. gather at the trailhead camp in Acandi, Colombia, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Haitian migrants wade through water as they cross the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Migrants walk across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in hopes of reaching the U.S., Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A Venezuelan migrant laughs as she jokes with her husband, who gave her a few flowers he picked in the grass, as they wait along the rail lines in hopes of boarding a freight train heading north in Huehuetoca, Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Migrants travel inside train cars of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A Venezuelan migrant stands covered in a wrap while texting, on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Saturday, May 13, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Migrants who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico pass under concertina wire along the Rio Grande river, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Migrants cross the Rio Bravo on an inflatable mattress into the United States from Matamoros, Mexico, on May 9, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A group of migrants sleep in a makeshift campsite as they wait to apply for asylum after crossing the border, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, near Jacumba, Calif. The group had been camping just across the border for days, waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Migrants cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

Venezuelan migrants wave a U.S. flag at a television helicopter that flew over the Rio Grande, in Matamoros, Mexico, Friday, May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. The image was part of a series by Associated Press photographers Ivan Valencia, Eduardo Verdugo, Felix Marquez, Marco Ugarte Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Gregory Bull and Christian Chavez that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

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NEW YORK (AP) — The images, captured by Associated Press photographers throughout 2023 and recognized Monday with a Pulitzer Prize, spotlight the humanity of an unprecedented global migration story often overlooked in a storm of statistics and political rhetoric.

In the middle of the Central American jungle, a woman fleeing upheaval in her native Haiti struggles to cross a river while holding a girl on her shoulders. After weeks of desperation, migrants pass a toddler under a tangle of concertina wire strung across the edge of U.S. soil.

Migrants reach through a border wall for clothing handed out by volunteers as they wait between two border walls to apply for asylum Friday, May 12, 2023, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Well before the year began, AP’s journalists knew that surging migration through the Americas was a major story. But to tell it fully, they focused on showing that “migration is more than numbers. It has to do with people, with the stories behind the reasons for them to leave their countries,” said Eduardo Castillo, AP’s news director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

On Monday, eight AP staff and freelance photographers – six from Latin America and two from the U.S. – were awarded this year’s Pulitzer for feature photography for images documenting the anxiety, heartbreak and even the brief moments of joy that mark the migrants’ journey.

“Simply put, this was AP at its best – leveraging our global footprint and deep expertise to cover a fast-moving story with high impact,” Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a note sent to the news staff Monday. “It’s also particularly heartening that the Pulitzers have recognized AP’s work on international migration given that this has been a global coverage priority for us for the past several years.”

The AP was also a Pulitzer finalist in 2019 for its coverage of family separation during the Trump administration.

Migrants sit under a sign marking the Panama-Colombia border during their trek across the Darien Gap, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

While the award came in the feature category, the work was all part of everyday news coverage, Castillo said. The images, he said, are a testament to efforts by the journalists — staff photographers Greg Bull, Eric Gay, Fernando Llano, Marco Ugarte and Eduardo Verdugo, and longtime AP freelance photographers Christian Chavez, Felix Marquez and Ivan Valencia — to connect with migrants.

“I’d just like to thank people on the way, the migrants themselves ... the folks who allowed us to be with them in this tense moment of their life and allowed us, entrusted us to tell their stories,” Bull said in remarks to other AP staffers shortly after the award was announced.

Migrants travel inside train cars of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The photos reflect a recognition by the AP that surging migration was drawing increased attention from the public and policymakers, and warranted increased coverage. Taking advantage of its staffing throughout Latin America and along the U.S.-Mexico border, the news agency assigned journalists to document the poverty, violence, persecution and natural disasters that are driving the surge of departures and shaping the migrants’ path.

The result was a series of “poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants in their arduous journey north,” Pulitzer Administrator Marjorie Miller said in announcing the award.

The photos were taken at several pivotal moments, including the end of pandemic-era restrictions last May that had allowed the U.S. to quickly turn away migrants and a large increase in border arrivals last September that overwhelmed immigration authorities and communities.

The U.S. alone has seen more than 10 million migrants arrive at its borders over the last five years. Many come from countries including Venezuela and Ecuador that had not been large drivers of immigration in earlier years.

The photographers worked to show how many of those migrants embark on their journey through the Darien Gap, the dense and roadless jungle that stands between South and Central America.

Other images show migrants crowded onto a northbound freight train in the middle of a Mexican night as it winds toward the U.S. border, and others in a makeshift camp of brush and branches near the U.S. border.

In totality, they show one of the biggest stories of our time, requiring the AP photographers spread across multiple countries to work with both great diligence and empathy, said Ricardo Mazalán, Latin America deputy director of storytelling and photos.

“It was their ability to emotionally grasp the experience of others and connect with the migrants,” Mazalán said, “that enabled them to convey the profoundly intimate moments they captured.”

Venezuelan migrants wave a U.S. flag at a television helicopter that flew over the Rio Grande, in Matamoros, Mexico, Friday, May 12, 2023, a day after pandemic-related asylum restrictions called Title 42 were lifted. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Misinformation and politicisation of migration is ‘clouding public discourse’

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Money sent home by migrants abroad has surpassed foreign direct investment in boosting the gross domestic product (GDP) of developing countries, UN migration agency IOM said in the latest edition of its flagship report, released on Tuesday.  

World Migration Report 2024 reveals a significant shift in global migration patterns, including a record number of people displaced due to conflict, violence, natural and other disasters.  

Speaking at the launch in Dhaka, Bangladesh, IOM Director General Amy Pope said the report aims to “ demystify the complexity of human mobility through evidence-based data and analysis”. 

UNmigration

Driving development and growth 

International migration remains a driver of human development and economic growth, as highlighted by a more than 650 per cent increase in international remittances from 2000 to 2022 , rising from $128 billion to $831 billion.

Growth continued despite predictions that remittances would decrease substantially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the money, $647 billion, was sent to low and middle-income countries, constituting a significant portion of their GDP – that is, the amount of money earned from the sale of all goods and services. 

Globally, these remittances now surpass foreign direct investment in those countries.

Record displacement

The report also reveals ongoing challenges. Although most people continue to live in the country where they were born, an estimated 281 million people worldwide are international migrants , or roughly 3.6 per cent of the global population.  Of this number, 117 million are displaced - the highest level yet.

IOM said migration is an intrinsic part of human history, but it is often overshadowed by sensationalized narratives and headlines that belie the reality on the ground. 

“Most migration is regular, safe, and regionally focused, directly linked to opportunities and livelihoods,” the UN agency affirmed. “Yet, misinformation and politicisation have clouded public discourse , necessitating a clear and accurate portrayal of migration dynamics.”

Spotlight on Bangladesh

IOM chose Dhaka as the site for the report’s launch to both highlight Bangladesh’s efforts to support vulnerable migrants and promote pathways to regular migration and to recognize the country’s important role in shaping global migration discourse and policy. 

As a champion of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration , adopted in December 2018, Bangladesh has demonstrated a strong commitment to addressing migration issues and implementing policies that safeguard migrants' rights, IOM said.  

The country’s Foreign Minister, Dr. Hasan Mahmud, said “Bangladesh will not only continue to act upon the pledges it has made for its domestic context but would also take up emerging issues and challenges pertaining to migration and development for informed deliberations at the international level.”

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'The world has changed': WeChat, snakeheads and the new era of global migration

JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, Calif. — Shortly after dawn, in the desert east of San Diego, a group of migrants huddled around a campfire. They had come together on this desolate stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border from four different continents: Young men from India shared snacks with women from Nicaragua, while a man from Georgia stood next to a family from Brazil.

A volunteer with a local humanitarian group hauled over a beverage cooler filled with papers: legal information printed in 22 different languages. As he handed them out — in Gujarati, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian — he said, “Welcome to the United States.”

This is the new normal of migration to the southern border: What was once mostly a regional phenomenon has become truly global, with the share of migrants coming from the four closest countries dropping and the number from elsewhere around the world increasing.

An NBC News analysis of newly released data from the Department of Homeland Security shows a fundamental shift. Before the pandemic, roughly 9 in 10 migrants crossing the border illegally (that is, between ports of entry) came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the four countries closest to the border. Those countries no longer hold the majority: As of 2023, for the first time since the U.S. has collected such data, half of all migrants who cross the border now come from elsewhere globally.

The greatest numbers have come from countries farther away in the Americas that have never before sent migrants to the border at this scale. In the 2019 fiscal year, for example, the number of Colombians apprehended illegally crossing the border was 400. In fiscal 2023, it exploded to 154,080 — a nearly four-hundred-fold increase.

But they come, too, from countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and every region in Asia. There have been dramatic increases in the number of migrants from the world’s most populous countries: Between fiscal 2019 and 2023, the number of migrants from China and India grew more than elevenfold and fivefold, respectively. And some countries that previously sent negligible numbers of migrants to the U.S. border have seen staggering increases. In fiscal 2019, the total number of people from the northwest African nation of Mauritania apprehended at the border was 20. Four years later, that number was 15,260. For migrants from Turkey, the number went from 60 to 15,430. The list goes on: More than 50 nationalities saw apprehensions multiplied by a hundred or more.

Experts and U.S. government officials attribute this explosive growth in large part to the pandemic, which provoked mass migration around the world, adding serious challenges to an immigration system already beleaguered by a decade of severe backlogs. Another major factor is the massive expansion of transcontinental smuggling networks, itself fueled by widespread digital technology.These shifting migration flows account for a significant portion of the record-breaking numbers at the border that have dominated this year’s election cycle. They amount to a major reorganization of global migration patterns — and a paradigm shift for U.S. immigration policy and international relations.

“Fundamentally, our system is not equipped to deal with migration as it exists now, not just this year and last year and the year before, but for years preceding us,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with NBC News. “We have a system that was last modified in 1996. We’re in 2024 now. The world has changed.”

A sophisticated Chinese snakehead network illustrates a new era in migration

The landscape around Jacumba Hot Springs, a town of fewer than 600 people near the eastern edge of San Diego County, is rocky and mountainous. The steel border fence stops at several points where the ground rises into sharp, ragged inclines dotted with boulders, leaving spaces easy for migrants to squeeze through. Border authorities routinely block these gaps with razor wire only for smugglers to snip them open again.

One afternoon in March, a group of about 30 migrants from China clambered through one such gap and into the United States. Among them was Wei Bin, a middle-aged man from the port city of Tianjin who traveled with his 14-year-old son. Wei said the economic damage wrought by the pandemic, coupled with China’s repressive zero-Covid policies, had led him to the conclusion that his home country offered no viable future for his son.So they took off for the United States. In an interview with NBC News, Wei described their 45-day journey: They flew first to Ecuador, one of the few countries in the Americas that accept visa-free travel from China, and from there they moved painstakingly north.

The trip was arranged by Chinese smugglers known as snakeheads. Wei never saw his snakeheads, and he knew nothing about them — he communicated with them exclusively via WeChat and paid for everything online. The smugglers’ services cost him around $10,000 per person, and in return, he received precise instructions on where and how to meet with an interlocking series of local contacts, often members of pre-existing criminal smuggling networks based in each of the countries he traveled through. It was these smugglers — Ecuadorians, Colombians, Mexicans — who did the actual work of moving Wei and his son from one place to another.

The journey was not easy. Somewhere in Colombia, the first snakehead stopped responding to Wei’s messages, scamming him out of thousands of dollars and leaving him stranded until he got the contact for a new snakehead from another Chinese migrant on the trail. And while Wei and his son were in a small boat circumventing a portion of the infamous Darien Gap — a dense stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama — they watched another boat full of migrants capsize.

“I would not recommend anyone undertake the route that we just took,” Wei said. “It’s too perilous.”

China offers one of the most illustrative examples of this new era of global migration. Between 2014 and 2022, the average number of Chinese citizens who crossed the southern border without papers in a given year was around 1,400. In 2023, that number grew to 24,050.This would not have been possible without transcontinental smuggling networks like the ones used by Wei and his son. Though these networks have existed in some form for decades, they have grown dramatically in scale and organization.

“Different networks often specialize in specific nationalities,” said Adam Isacson, an expert on migration to the U.S.-Mexico border at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. “So if you’re Somali, you arrive in Quito and join a group of Somalis that’s already underway. One smuggler hands you off to another, and the network of relationships goes all the way up to the U.S.-Mexico border.”

The industry owes much of its growth to technology. The world’s migrants are now equipped with cheap smartphones that allow for frictionless communication and payments. Smugglers advertise widely on TikTok, WeChat, WhatsApp or whichever platform is popular in the country they’re targeting.

NBC News obtained access to the WeChat profile of one Chinese snakehead who claims to have moved over 100 people to the U.S. in the last year. He regularly posts videos of migrants on the trail meant to entice new customers. The videos make the journey look easy: smiling men flashing a thumbs-up outside hotels in Mexico, families riding calmly on buses. In one video, a woman crosses the border into the U.S. and shouts, “We finally crossed!” in Mandarin as her small child shouts joyfully in the background.

Experts and U.S. law enforcement officials describe these networks as loosely but intricately connected, comprising both illicit actors and legitimate businesses like travel agencies and bus lines. At certain key junctures, they are controlled by the most powerful criminal organizations in the Americas.

The Colombian side of the Darien Gap , for example, was recently taken over by the Gulf Clan, a notoriously violent narco-paramilitary cartel widely thought to be the largest cocaine exporter in the world. As a result, the Darien jungle, once considered nearly impassable, is now a route for mass migration traversed by hundreds of thousands of people a year. The opening up of this stretch of jungle alone likely accounts for a substantial share of the rise in global arrivals at the border.

“In 2021, the gateway to the Darien was just local Afro-Colombian and Indigenous people working as guides.” Isacson said. “By 2022, the Gulf Clan took over, and you suddenly had a clear route. They were advertising, there were people there ready to take your money, and it was all much more organized.”

It was this vast, global network of interlocking smugglers that moved Wei and his son along their way to the U.S. They eventually made it to Tapachula, in southernmost Mexico, where they boarded a domestic flight to Tijuana. There, once again, they were in the hands of powerful criminal organizations: According to U.S. officials, the smuggling business on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border is currently dominated by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Along with the larger group of about 30 Chinese migrants, Wei and his son spent the night in a run-down safehouse minutes from the border. “Conditions were very poor, and we only got the basics, like water and soup,” Wei said. “If we wanted anything more, we had to pay.”

The next day, smugglers piled them into a three-row van, drove them to the border, pointed at the gap in the fence, and told them to walk across.

An inflection point to overhaul an ill-equipped system

In the last decade, there have been two paradigm shifts on the border, according to current and former U.S. immigration officials. The first began in 2014, with the arrival of unprecedented numbers of families and children from the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador).

In a break from decades’ worth of migration coming almost entirely from Mexico, these migrants did not attempt to evade the Border Patrol. Instead, they willingly surrendered in order to apply for asylum — and they quickly overwhelmed a system designed for something else entirely.

“Our existing infrastructure, processes and personnel were no longer matching what was happening on the ground,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former longtime official with DHS and Customs and Border Protection.

The system was optimized to apprehend and quickly deport single adults from Mexico. It was badly ill-equipped to process families and children and move them through complex legal asylum proceedings. Immigration courts were soon bogged down in yearslong backlogs.

The second paradigm shift is happening now. Beginning around 2018, there were spikes in the number of migrants from Cuba, then Haiti, then Venezuela. Then the pandemic happened: Economies cratered and borders closed, and when they reopened, it unleashed pent-up waves of migration across the globe. And that initial surge triggered by the pandemic is now sustained by the smuggling networks that greatly expanded to facilitate it.

This has piled more weight onto an already buckling system. The U.S. only has the capacity to deport people quickly and in large numbers to Mexico and the Northern Triangle, according to a senior CBP official who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. Deportations are expensive and logistically challenging — they require airplanes, personnel and time to arrange for travel documents, and so on — and there is no such infrastructure in place, the official said, to deport people en masse to Africa, Asia or even South America.

The position of Mayorkas and the Biden administration is that these problems can only be meaningfully addressed by a congressional overhaul of the immigration system, such as the one proposed in February in a now defunct bipartisan Senate bill.

“We cannot process these individuals through immigration enforcement proceedings very quickly — it actually takes sometimes more than seven years,” Mayorkas told NBC News. “The proposed bipartisan legislation would reduce that seven-plus-year waiting period to sometimes less than 90 days. That’s transformative.”

Even with a reformed system, the U.S. would remain a single country confronting a phenomenon that directly involves a large share of the world.

“To manage regional migration flows, you need to get the cooperation of a few countries,” Brown said. “To deal with hemispheric migration flows, you need about 20 countries. To deal with global migration flows — now you’re talking about hundreds of countries.”

Those countries need persuading to do anything from restricting visas to physically interdicting migrants with armies and police forces. And many countries, especially those historically hostile to the U.S., are reluctant to be persuaded.

Nicaragua, for example, allows visa-free travel from more than two dozen African countries and several from Asia as well; that makes it a major point of arrival in the Americas for migrants who then move north to the U.S.-Mexico border. And some geopolitical adversaries — notably China — do not routinely accept deportees from the U.S. Though Mayorkas told NBC News he is engaged in high-level talks with Chinese officials to change that, such an agreement would only partially fix a small part of a much bigger problem.

“We’re at an inflection point,” Brown said. “We have to recognize that what’s happening at our border is a microcosm of what’s happening everywhere. This is not a U.S.-Mexico border problem. This is now a worldwide issue.”

Crackdowns and Loopholes

Shortly after Christmas, when border crossings once again hit record highs, Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an official state visit to Mexico City. In the weeks that followed, Mexico’s National Guard cracked down on migrant routes.

This immediately and substantially reduced the number of people who managed to get across the border. But average daily crossings remain high compared to prior years, and in the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, the drop was negligible.

Sam Schultz, a humanitarian volunteer who lives near the border and delivers supplies to migrants every day, said smugglers now simply avoid the National Guard patrols and send migrants to more remote and rugged crossings.

In the last few months, Schultz has learned a lot about how people the world over find their way to these isolated mountains.

“They’re very aware of what they’re getting into and where they’re going,” he said. “This was never true before everybody had a phone in their pocket.”

Schultz said crackdowns — whether by American or Mexican authorities — ultimately do little to deter migrants from attempting to cross into the U.S.

“Any person on American soil — and it doesn’t matter how they got here — is allowed to start due process on an asylum case,” Schultz said. “Anyone. So as long as that is true, people are going to attempt to cross the border and get on American soil. Why would it ever be any other way?”

David Noriega is an NBC News correspondent based in Los Angeles.

Aarne Heikkila is a producer and digital journalist for NBC News. 

Adiel Kaplan is a reporter with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

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