Migration and Economic and Social Realities

Migration has always closely interacted with the prevailing social and economic realities in countries of origin and destination. The movements invariably entail both benefits and costs, and these are often differentially shared between and within countries. Generally, however, in times of prosperity or economic reconstruction, destination countries welcome migrants. Migration allows destination countries to meet the rising labour demand, restrain wage-push inflation, boost consumption and place the economy on an upward swing. And with some rare, and largely ineffective, exceptions as experienced in the past, labour-abundant sending countries respond positively to such demand in order to lessen their burden of unemployment and earn much-needed foreign exchange in the form of remittances. Driven by the supply-push of labour, they tend to become more proactive in times of economic distress and high unemployment, but less so when times are bad in destination countries, and try to reabsorb the returnees.