This volume uses recent research from the World Bank to document and analyze the bidirectional relationship between poverty and migration in developing countries. The case studies chapters compiled in this book (from Tanzania, Nepal, Albania and Nicaragua), as well as the last, policy-oriented chapter illustrate the diversity of migration experience and tackle the complicated nexus between migration and poverty reduction. Two main messages emerge: Although evidence indicates that migration reduces poverty, it also shows that migration opportunities of the poor differ from that of the rest. In general, the evidence suggests that the poor either migrate less or migrate to low return destinations. As a consequence, many developing countries are not maximizing the poverty-reducing potential of migration. The main reason behind this outcome is difficulties in access to remunerative migration opportunities and the high costs associated with migrating. It is shown, for example, that reducing migration costs makes migration more pro-poor. The volume shows that developing countries governments are not without means to improve this situation. Several of the country examples offer a few policy recommendations towards this end.
Migration presents a stark policy dilemma. Research repeatedly confirms that migrants, their families back home, and the countries that welcome them experience large economic and social gains. Easing immigration restrictions is one of the most effective tools for ending poverty and sharing prosperity across the globe. Yet, we see widespread opposition in destination countries, where migrants are depicted as the primary cause of many of their economic problems, from high unemployment to declining social services. Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets addresses this dilemma. In addition to providing comprehensive data and empirical analysis of migration patterns and their impact, the report argues for a series of policies that work with, rather than against, labor market forces. Policy makers should aim to ease short-run dislocations and adjustment costs so that the substantial long-term benefits are shared more evenly. Only then can we avoid draconian migration restrictions that will hurt everybody. Moving for Prosperity aims to inform and stimulate policy debate, facilitate further research, and identify prominent knowledge gaps. It demonstrates why existing income gaps, demographic differences, and rapidly declining transportation costs mean that global mobility will continue to be a key feature of our lives for generations to come. Its audience includes anyone interested in one of the most controversial policy debates of our time.
The rapid rise in the proportion of foreign-born residents in the United States since the mid-1960s is one of the most important demographic events of the past fifty years. The increase in immigration, especially among the less-skilled and less-educated, has prompted fears that the newcomers may have depressed the wages and employment of the native-born, burdened state and local budgets, and slowed the U.S. economy as a whole. Would the poverty rate be lower in the absence of immigration? How does the undocumented status of an increasing segment of the foreign-born population impact wages in the United States? In Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality, noted labor economists David Card and Steven Raphael and an interdisciplinary team of scholars provide a comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits of the latest era of immigration to the United States Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality rigorously explores shifts in population trends, labor market competition, and socioeconomic segregation to investigate how the recent rise in immigration affects economic disadvantage in the United States. Giovanni Peri analyzes the changing skill composition of immigrants to the United States over the past two decades to assess their impact on the labor market outcomes of native-born workers. Despite concerns over labor market competition, he shows that the overall effect has been benign for most native groups. Moreover, immigration appears to have had negligible impacts on native poverty rates. Ethan Lewis examines whether differences in English proficiency explain this lack of competition between immigrant and native-born workers. He finds that parallel Spanish-speaking labor markets emerge in areas where Spanish speakers are sufficiently numerous, thereby limiting the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born residents. While the increase in the number of immigrants may not necessarily hurt the job prospects of native-born workers, low-skilled migration appears to suppress the wages of immigrants themselves. Michael Stoll shows that linguistic isolation and residential crowding in specific metropolitan areas has contributed to high poverty rates among immigrants. Have these economic disadvantages among low-skilled immigrants increased their dependence on the U.S. social safety net? Marianne Bitler and Hilary Hoynes analyze the consequences of welfare reform, which limited eligibility for major cash assistance programs. Their analysis documents sizable declines in program participation for foreign-born families since the 1990s and suggests that the safety net has become less effective in lowering child poverty among immigrant households. As the debate over immigration reform reemerges on the national agenda, Immigration, Poverty, and Socioeconomic Inequality provides a timely and authoritative review of the immigrant experience in the United States. With its wealth of data and intriguing hypotheses, the volume is an essential addition to the field of immigration studies. A Volume in the National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy
DIVStudies poor and working-class Mexicans in the USA, showing how migration influences the creation of identity, family, and community and how it affects even those who don't themselves actually migrate./div
One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year "A remarkable book...indispensable."--The Boston Globe "A sweeping, deeply reported tale of international migration...DeParle's understanding of migration is refreshingly clear-eyed and nuanced."--The New York Times "This is epic reporting, nonfiction on a whole other level...One of the best books on immigration written in a generation."--Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted The definitive chronicle of our new age of global migration, told through the multi-generational saga of a Filipino family, by a veteran New York Times reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age--the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism," DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class. At the heart of the story is Tita's daughter, Rosalie. Beating the odds, she struggles through nursing school and works her way across the Middle East until a Texas hospital fulfills her dreams with a job offer in the States. Migration is changing the world--reordering politics, economics, and cultures across the globe. With nearly 45 million immigrants in the United States, few issues are as polarizing. But if the politics of immigration is broken, immigration itself--tens of millions of people gathered from every corner of the globe--remains an underappreciated American success. Expertly combining the personal and panoramic, DeParle presents a family saga and a global phenomenon. Restarting her life in Galveston, Rosalie brings her reluctant husband and three young children with whom she has rarely lived. They must learn to become a family, even as they learn a new country. Ordinary and extraordinary at once, their journey is a twenty-first-century classic, rendered in gripping detail.
American agriculture employs some 2.5 million workers during a typical year. Three fourths of these farm workers are immigrants, half are unauthorized, and most will leave seasonal farm work within a decade. This book looks at what these statistics mean for farmers, labourers, and rural America.
Citizenship implies exclusion of non-members. Migrations, processes and policies of first admission and incorporation of ethnically and culturally diverse newcomers are among the most hotly contested political issues, especially in a world of gross inequalities. This comparative and interdisciplinary collection sees distinguished moral and political philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists from America, Australia and Europe criticize existing institutions and increasingly restrictive policies and look for alternatives more in line with principles and constitutions of liberal democratic welfare states.
The report argues that internal migration can play an important role in poverty reduction and economic development; internal migration should therefore not be controlled or actively discouraged. Policy should instead concern itself with ways of maximizing the potential benefits of migration to the individual concerned and society at large. While there have been few formal efforts to estimate the economic contribution of migrant labour, it is evident that many developing countries would probably not have had the roads, buildings, manufacturing and trade centres that they have today had it not been for migration.
This volume is the first in a new Springer series to examine one of humanity’s most pressing concerns: global migration and its implications for development. As population mobility grows in an ever more crowded world, the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) has emerged as the most important global mechanism to deal with the urgent challenges it presents. This book explores fresh strategies proposed by the GFMD in its fourth year of operation in Mexico and beyond. Interrogating the relationship between migration and development, the papers advance the Global Forum’s aims of reducing poverty and empowering low-income families everywhere. In 2010, there were 214 million international migrants worldwide, nearly two and a half times the number in 1965. By 2050, international migration is likely to expand sharply in scale, reach and complexity, due to growing demographic disparities, environmental change, shifting global political and economic dynamics, technological innovations and social networks. Migration can bring substantial gains to families in less-developed countries, and mobile labor is an axiomatic feature of the global economy. Yet outward migration of skilled workers can seriously retard development at home, and exert pressure on wages in host nations. Balancing these and other conflicting concerns requires the substantive and expert discourse offered in this book. Contributors discuss, and propose concrete solutions to, vital issues such as the debilitating costs of cross-border labor recruitment and the provision of social and income protection for foreign contract workers. With suggestions on how to facilitate connections between transnational families, and gender- and family-sensitive immigration regimes, this book aims to foster collaborative intergovernmental links as well as partnerships between governments, civil society and international organizations. It shows how the GFMD can positively influence policy and institutional behavior while addressing wider systemic factors in protecting mobile workers.
