Poverty, International Migration and Asylum

In recent years, substantial numbers of people have migrated – or sought to migrate – from regions that are afflicted by poverty and insecurity to more prosperous and stable parts of the world. By the year 2002, the United Nations estimated that about 180 million persons – or roughly 3 per cent of the world’s population – were living in a country where they were not born. Nearly 12.5 per cent of the population in Austria, 19.3 per cent in Canada, 10 per cent in France, 22.4 per cent in Switzerland and 12.3 per cent in the United States was foreign-born. Even Japan, which is thought of as being very homogeneous and geographically immune to immigrants, now reports major problems with illegal immigration.

Stories about foreign migrants — legal, illegal and asylum seekers — appear almost daily in the news. Governments in Europe, North America and Australia note these events with alarm and grapple with policy reforms aimed at selecting certain migrants and keeping out others. Economists appear to be well armed to advise the debate since they are responsible for an impressive literature that examines the characteristics of individual immigrants, their absorption and the consequences of their migration on the sending and receiving regions involved. Economists are, however, much less well armed to speak to the determinants of the migration flows that give rise to public alarm.

This chapter outlines trends and patterns in movements of asylum seekers to Western, industrialized countries from 1990 to 2001. The receiving countries covered are the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe (which here comprises the Member States of the EU in 2002, Norway and Switzerland). Other industrialized states such as Japan and New Zealand have not been included since the numbers of asylum seekers involved are relatively small. All sending countries are included in the data, but our discussion will focus mainly on the countries of origin of the largest numbers – generally the ‘top ten’ sending countries for each receiving area. The aims of the desk study reported here are largely descriptive, and its main substance is contained in the tables and charts (the latter are in the Appendix). However, the chapter also has analytical aspects, as it is not possible to describe the evolution of the movements without examining the causes of migratory patterns and the factors responsible for change.

For much of the post-war period, ‘asylum’ and ‘immigration’ were distinct concepts and processes. Throughout the West, asylum was bound up with the Cold War: ‘protection’ meant protection from Communism, and the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘defector’ were synonymous. When the public thought about refugees, to the extent it thought about them at all, it associated them with Hungarian freedom fighters or Soviet ballet dancers, both of whom were popular figures. As for immigration, it meant different things in different countries: in the settler societies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it was a permanent movement of people who sought to try their luck in the New World. In the traditional emigration countries of Europe, it referred to the putatively temporary movement of guest workers who were expected to feed the European economic machine for a few years before returning home. The important point is that, in both cases, the two movements were everywhere separate.

The number of long-term international migrants (that is, those residing in foreign countries for more than one year) has grown steadily since the 1960s. According to the UN Population Division, in 1965, only 75 million persons fitted the definition, rising to 84 million by 1975 and 105 million by 1985. There were an estimated 120 million international migrants in 1990. As of 2000 there are 175 million international migrants (UNPD, 2002).

There is a substantial literature on the implications for countries of origin of voluntary migration. In broad terms, there are three main approaches. One considers the effects of the absence of migrants, with a particular focus on the concept of ‘brain drain’, whereby the educated and skilled dominate outmigration (for example, Adepoju, 1991). Another considers the ways that migrants continue to interact with their country of origin from abroad, with a focus on economic remittances (for example, Lim, 1992). The third approach considers the potential benefits of return migration for countries of origin (for example, Diatta and Mbow, 1999).

Human migration has been, and still is, intimately connected with the transformations of the world economy. Mass migrations were a common phenomenon in pre-modern world politics, in which they shaped the fates of empires and entire civilizations. Only in a rather late historical phase did the rise of territorial and national states start to impose constraints on migration flows (Koslowski, 2002).

In the nineteenth century, migration flows played a key role in fostering income convergence between Europe and the United States (O’Rourke et al., 1996). In the present globalization episode, however, the role of migration is much more limited (Faini et al., 1999). This is not because of lack of economic incentives. If anything, income differentials between sending and receiving countries are significantly larger than they were less than a century ago (Pritchett, 1997).

The classic economic argument in favour of labour migration is that people move in search of higher wages, thus increasing their own productivity.¹ However, as indicated by Layard et al. (1992), the decision to migrate also depends on other economic, social and political considerations. Among the economic aspects, migrants may take into account comparative wage levels (actual and expected); comparative unemployment rates and unemployment benefits; the availability of housing; and the cost of migration, which includes travel expenses, information costs, and the psychological cost of leaving friends and family. Weyerbrock (1995) also indicates that political instability and civil war may cause larger emigration flows than economic or demographic pressures.

International migration is like a barometer of the economic and social conditions in home countries with respect to the rest of the world. Poor economic performance, lack of employment and of wealth-creation opportunities, and little respect for the civil and economic rights of the population prompt the emigration of nationals, while, good economic opportunities, jobs and open policies towards migrants act as a magnet for immigration from abroad.

Most regional and international regimes – systems in which national governments yield power to a supranational authority that grants member nations rights and imposes obligations on them – emerge from crisis. For example, after wars end, security regimes are often created: nations pledge mutual support via NATO and similar organizations to prevent or deal with future conflicts. Similarly, economic crises may be followed by trade regimes that require member states to lower barriers to goods from all member nations, as with the WTO. Finally, there can be financial regimes, such as the IMF establishing rules for fiscal and monetary policies before providing loans to governments.

Behind the anxiety relating to refugees and asylum seekers lies the issue of irregular migration. As with regular migration, irregular relocation in the Caribbean includes different types of movement. One is the illegal entry into the Caribbean of people from other regions. Currently, such immigrants are chiefly from China, entering the Caribbean countries with the intention of moving on to the United States. A second type of irregular migrant leaves the Caribbean countries to go directly to destinations outside the region, mainly the United States, Canada and countries in Europe. Finally, a third type of irregular migrant originates in the Caribbean and moves to other locations within the region. Thus irregular relocation affecting the Caribbean concerns both immigrant and emigrant, and is both intra- and extra-regional with regard to the source and destination of movement. In general, irregular migration parallels the patterns of regular migration flows, and could be considered to represent the ‘informal sector’ of the migration process.

In recent decades, low-skilled immigration to the rich OECD countries has been of increasing importance. Many European OECD countries were open to immigration by people from outside the rich OECD area until the first oil price shock in the mid-1970s. At that time, many countries, including Denmark and Sweden, enacted legislation to stop the flow of guest workers, and this has been in effect since then.

The cumulative effect of ten years of European Union (EU) policies on migration has been an overriding emphasis on control at the borders, and beyond the borders, of EU states through a series of measures: carriers’ liability, stricter visa requirements, readmission treaties with Central and Eastern European states, and electronically fortified borders. As several case studies have shown, trying to keep economic migrants out has had, among others effects, the result of allowing the development of networks of human smugglers (Koser, 1997; McDowell, 1997; Salt and Stein, 1997; Ghosh, 1998; Messe et al., 1998; Morrison, 1998; Van Hear, 1998; Koslowski, 2000; Peter, 2000; Salt and Hogarth, 2000; Snyder, 2000). Migration control policies have affected asylum seekers in much the same way as other groups of migrants, forcing them to resort to illegal migration to reach Western Europe, and therefore criminalizing them in blatant contradiction of international law governing the status of refugees (Engbersen and van der Lun, 1998; Van Hear, 1998).

The year 2001 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Refugee Convention (hereafter the Refugee Convention), which articulates most directly the grounds for protection that should be offered to those fleeing persecution. The majority of countries in the world do have substantive obligations to people who claim to be refugees, as signatories to the Refugee Convention and its Protocol of 1967. In the fifty-year period since the establishment of the Refugee Convention, the idea of (some) rights being universal, thereby applicable to all of humanity rather than the members of a particular state, has been given political efficacy through the vehicle of human rights. Rights, such as those embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, privilege no particular concept of human life, or of cultural traits, beliefs or practices. The consolidation of human rights gathered momentum in the later half of the twentieth century through the proliferation of human rights institutions and the efficacy of the idea that protecting such rights is of intrinsic value across and between cultures and nations.

In May 2004, ten new Member States, namely Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) joined the EU. Around the year 2007, Bulgaria and Romania will probably also join. Previous enlargements have taken place,1 but the accession of ten countries, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, is unprecedented not only in terms of scale, but also for its political symbolism. For these states, EU membership confirms the success of their democratic and economic transition efforts and represents their (re-)integration to the European family after decades of political isolation.