Perspectives on migration for development in a globalised world system 

 

                                                                                          Aderanti ADEPOJU*                                                                                                                                  aadepoju@infoweb.abs.net

 

Of the estimated 150 million people who live, temporarily or permanently outside their countries of origin and about 137 million are migrants, including 40 million in irregular situations. At annual remittances of US$80 billion, remittances constitute the biggest foreign exchange earning industry for governments. The issue of migration, both of skilled and unskilled persons is of increasing concern to rich and poor countries from different perspectives.

 

Are migrants wanted, welcome? The real questions are: How can you convince a sceptical populace and politicians fearful of the sanction of the vote that countries need migrants as contributors to development, that migration is a win-win game; that migrants are in no way a homogeneous group, that skilled migrants are needed to engineer development globally especially in rich countries experiencing demographic deficit occasioned by an ageing population; that globalisation which facilitates movement of material components . capital, information, technology - but frowns on that of labour needs also to wear a human face; that strict restriction on legal immigration breeds illegal movements hence what is required is a comprehensive perspective and policy for orderly management of migration. Provide them with these compelling but simplified facts as I intend to do in this brief presentation and the world could be a more harmonious place for us all, migrants and locals alike.

 

Policy dialogue on migration is at a cross roads, not least because diverse actors and stakeholders in poor and rich countries, and a variety of interest groups within each block - the government (Ministries of Home Affairs/Interior; Employment/Trade, External/Foreign Affairs and Justice); Employers Associations/Chambers of Commerce; Trade Unions; the general public . the voters - and the politicians - have genuine, even if conflicting interests. But in poor and rich countries alike, economic and demographic factors underline current debate and policy on migration of skilled and unskilled persons.

 

Europe, for economic and demographic imperatives, needs  immigrants to make up for the demographic deficit occasioned by an ageing population. Rich countries need two categories of immigrants to cope with prevailing economic and demographic imperatives: one set to do poorly paid, dirty, and dangerous jobs which nationals scorn; and highly specialised professionals, especially software specialists, engineers, doctors and nurses, in short supply. Xenophobic public opinion against immigrants is therefore seem unhelpful

 

A wind of change, that of openness and transparency, is now blowing across Europe as government ministers . from British Home Secretary to German. s Interior Minister - openly acknowledge recently the need to import more foreign workers. Britain, caught up in a serious shortage of skilled labour - IT specialists for engineering and high tech industries and doctors and nurses for the public health, especially NHS sector, now proposes radical changes in its admission policy that since 1971 admitted only business people, relatives of residents and small numbers of workers issued with short-term work permit, mainly for highly skilled jobs, and seasonal labour contract workers. Henceforth foreign students could stay after graduating (as proposed by Germany); highly skilled persons could from 2002 move to Britain in search of employment, rather than after potential employers had secured work permits as in RSA, as long as they can support themselves hoping also to thereby dampen the damaging wage inflation. While labour unions cry wolf, on the pretext that immigrants snatch jobs and benefits, in reality, these unskilled jobs are simply not appealing to locals, even the unemployed. New quota system was proposed for construction and catering industries experiencing labour shortages. Pointedly, more seasonal workers in agriculture and tourism will be welcome. Politicians now talk boldly of  . the social, economic and cultural benefits. of immigration. The fact is immigrants bring benefits through their energy, determination, fresh ideas and entrepreneurship as was the case of the remarkable success of Ugandan Asians expelled in 1970s, and the ways in which they dramatically transformed commercial activities in Britain.

 

In Germany, the government, acting on Sussmuth. s Commission report, plans a points system (akin to Canada. s), for qualified foreign workers based on qualification, age and knowledge of German, who could move with or later bring their young children. But experience of the Green Card scheme introduced earlier, intended to attract about 20,000 computer experts especially from India, has not been very successful as most of these experts preferred to migrate instead to the USA where conditions are more attractive, boosted by the communality of the medium of communication there.  (Immigrants in Germany under the new scheme are required to undergo an . integration course. in German language and history or lose their work permits). Last summer, the suggestion for Indian and Pakistani doctors in Britain to undergo written English test was swiftly denied, fearing a mass emigration of these doctors to the USA.

 

One more example: Ireland, historically a country of emigration, having fed North America and Australia with millions of settler emigrants, is now a major recipient of skilled immigrants thanks to its booming economy and flexible immigration programme. Boosted by a favourable investment climate, it has attracted investors in high-tech companies from Europe, America and Japan. Early in the year the country launched a talent hunt for 30,000 nurses, accountants, engineers etc, attracting skilled immigrants from poor countries, while also  pulling some immigrants already settled in Germany and France.

 

Many American and European companies are turning to Indian business-school graduates willing to begin their careers at lower entry-level positions than their locally available counterparts. The good news is that Indian experts are adaptable and able to function in multicultural environments, as most grew up speaking two or more languages. The two-year MBA course at India. s top institutes cots 200,000 rupees, a hefty investment that guarantees annual incomes of between 710,000 to 760,000 rupees when graduates are employed locally; when employed abroad, the wages jump to between $74,000 and $120,000 for graduates as young as 25 years. Engineers are the hot cakes: about three quarters of students enrolled in India. s top six Institutes of Management are engineers who must undergo the expensive and gruelling academic programme. That these students are versed in mathematics is an advantage over their colleagues in rich countries.

 

Africans with professional, technical and managerial skills have used the diversity visa programme, designed to liberalise immigration law by creating avenues for entry for new sources of immigration to the USA, heavily to enter that country. Between 1990 and 1998 these numbered 52,000 or 7 percent of the total of professional, technical and managerial immigrants to the USA. People of foreign origin represent 12 per cent of the highly qualified component of the labour force in the USA, and this may well be true of many countries of Europe today. Probably one third of researchers and engineers from poor countries work in OECD countries, and this is a significant number indeed. These are skills embodied in nationals produced at great cost to poor countries.

 

Why are workers in rich countries sluggish to adjust to structural changes in skills requirements of the new labour market? Let me first turn to the situation of poor countries.

 

At independence, poor, especially African, countries devoted about 40 percent of their budget to education to train skilled nationals to fill the gap created by the departing colonialists, focussing on education as the main vehicle for rapid development. In the series of education reform, the ratio of students in the humanities to science subjects was systematically altered from 60:40 to 40:60. Mathematics and some basic science courses were made compulsory, contrasting sharply with the liberal education programme in rich countries where students. performance in Mathematics and science subjects, the foundation for IT specialization, remains unimpressive). The investment and the policy paid off handsomely. Within a generation, these poor countries were able to produce engineers, technologists and recently IT specialists. Others were trained abroad, building on their foundation of science and maths courses. However, these countries were trapped in immense demographic momentum in a situation of sluggish economic growth and employment generation.

 

As it turned out, education expanded faster than the absorptive capacity of these countries. s economies. The small private sector and the public sector . the main employers of labour . could absorb fewer graduates from the tertiary institutions. Many students that went abroad often with government scholarship to do post graduate studies in technology, science and engineering stayed back at the end of their studies. Thus, the migration of highly skilled African manpower has its antecedents in the 60s when African countries engaged in unprecedented educational expansion, and latter spurred by a combination of economic and political factors. In the 1970s, highly qualified and experienced workers in trades and professions have been migrating from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda to South Africa and outside Africa. Since the 1980s, such emigration to Europe, North America and the oil-rich Gulf States intensified. It was estimated, for instance, that 30 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa. s highly skilled nationals emigrated between 1960 and 1987, mostly to the European Community. Between 1986 and 1990, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 middle and high-level African managers emigrated in response to the deteriorating socio-economic and political conditions, including heavily devalued national currencies, in the region.

 

As political and economic crises deepened, highly skilled professionals, pressured to leave their countries by the uncertain economic conditions, found a new South Africa, and the booming economies of Gabon and Botswana (two resource-rich but labour-short countries) attractive destinations, transforming the erstwhile brain drain from, into brain circulation within, the region. Migration to RSA increased further since 1994, and the spectacular political transformation in the country. The migrants were mostly skilled professionals - professors, doctors, lawyers, nurses and engineers - unlike the traditional immigrants from Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique, whose nationals were mostly unskilled mine workers and farm labourers.

 

The challenge facing Africa now is how to retain, effectively utilise and attract back the rare skills of its nationals required for national development. IOM and World Bank estimate that 3.6 million Africans live in Europe and North America, including more than 100,000 professionals; that about 23,000 African university graduates and 50,000 executives leave the region annually. Significantly, about 40,000 Ph.D holders live outside Africa.

 

Let me turn for a moment to the situation of unskilled migrants. The notion of excess or unwanted largely unskilled workers needs to be reexamined in light of the reality in Europe. In southern Spain, immigrants from Morocco pick tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables in hot and unpleasant conditions; thousands of Poles harvest vegetables in Germany; Indians pick fruits in Belgium. Russians harvest crops in Ireland. In Britain, Latvian, Ukranian, and Lithuanian youths are recruited seasonally to cut, wash, and pack spring onions for the supermarket chain. These are vital to the thriving local economy and the authorities as well as locals simply turn a blind eye to their presence. As living conditions in Europe improve, the aspiration of locals, especially youths, to do only clean, sedentary, well-paid jobs is constantly on the rise, prompting the Minister responsible for employment in Spain to exclaim: . We need people to do the jobs Spaniards no longer want to do.

 

This scenario is not a preserve of the rich countries. Migrants doing the dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs, which the local population is unwilling or unable to do, are often accused of depressing the wages for locals. Despite widespread unemployment in South Africa (we were told yesterday at 40%), locals would not pick asparagus fruits, leaving the demeaning jobs to migrant workers from neighbouring Lesotho. Undocumented immigrants there are exploited and are vulnerable, compelled to accept jobs irrespective of the risk, physical demands, low and irregular wages, and the long working hours. It is not uncommon for some unscrupulous employers to lay off undocumented migrants at the end of their contract without paying them even threatening them with expulsion, conscious of the fact that these illegal workers can neither unionise nor approach the authorities for redress

 

What does all these tell us from a policy and pragmatic point of view? First, that the forces of demand will pull professionals whose skills are internationally competitive into the markets of the rich countries where such skills are needed. In so doing, the receiving countries . and the migrants as well . stand to gain from the migration in terms of the contribution of such skills to national development and enhanced income potentials, respectively. Second, that the origin country that  initially invests in human capital stands to lose at the macro level, at least in the short run as we elaborate below. Third, that remittances may help offset part of the loss, but do not compensate for potential contribution of the skilled emigrants through training and transfer of expertise to younger cohorts at home.

 

Simply put, the migration market is a monopsonistic market allowing the rich countries to unilaterally and freely select who should be admitted, what skill combination, when, for how long and under what income profile, without recourse to the countries of origin that incurred the human capital investment in the migrants, nor with the migrants themselves that embody the capital investment

 

While grinding poverty prompts some unskilled persons to emigrate, the highly qualified professional whose skills are internationally marketable are a small proportion of the emigrants but nevertheless cost the origin countries in a variety of ways, not least being the lost opportunity for the training of replacement cohorts. To cite one example, the exodus of doctors has impacted negatively on the training of new doctors in Nigeria (where about 600 first generation medical specialists work in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and up to 12000 are in the USA), South Africa (where white doctors emigrated to Canada, Australia, USA and UK attracted by higher incomes there, while also disdaining the government policy to serve in rural areas, and fearful of the rise in crime) and Zimbabwe (where an estimated 60 percent of doctors moved to Botswana and South Africa as their country. s economy collapsed).

 

Emigration of skilled professionals poses a critical problem of replacement of the skilled émigrés, the loss of transfer of experience to younger cohorts and creates a huge vacuum in tertiary educational institutions of poor countries, of experienced leaders in research for development and training of the manpower required for a variety of development activities. One immediate impact is the lack of capacity to undertake cutting edge research, or to adapt findings of such research for development. In many African countries today, students are being churned out without the requisite rigour of learning.  This development has stalled development activities and accelerated a breakdown in institutions bereft of trained manpower to manage them in an era of globalised economies. In the meantime, aid programmes paradoxically import about 100,00 expatriate professionals with the same skills possessed by Africans in diaspora, at a cost to the region of about $4billion yearly. The region thereby pays the price of producing the human capital for use by the rich countries; at the same time, it is denied the realisation of development goals by the outflow of scarce skilled manpower.

 

Without unskilled migrant workers who do the unglamorous jobs which indigenous people are increasingly reluctant to take up some services in rich countries cannot function. It is for this reason that some countries often turn a blind eye to low-skilled immigrants seeking temporary work

 

On the positive side, migrants remit money home as is the case of nationals of Egypt, Philippines, Pakistan, Lesotho, Eritrea working abroad who remit huge sums of money to their home countries, remittances that parallel export earnings, official ODA, and in the case of Lesotho, account for one-half of the GNP. Not all remittances are routed via official channels. Migrants, depending on their legal status at destination countries, use a variety of channels to send money home. (For instance Senegalese immigrants in the USA have adapted the indigenous, traditional human courier system and network of visiting relations and associates to send money home)

 

The use of remittances varies widely . as lifeline for poor relations left behind, investment in real estate; to pay for basic services, health care in particular; education of siblings and children; to set up enterprises; and to enhance agricultural production through improved irrigation schemes, as in Mali and Senegal. Eritreans in the diaspora had consistently remitted up to 30 per cent of their earnings home initially to prosecute the war of liberation from Ethiopia, and later for reconstruction and development; as do Palestinians.

 

Indeed, immigrants rarely severe their ties with home and hope to return home at the nearest opportunity. Informed by this scenario, some foreign firms have recently launched a programme to recruit Africans in the diaspora in France to work in their multinational corporations in Africa. Thousands of graduates have trooped out to enroll in this programme. Another strategy focuses on building networks of scientists in the diaspora with their colleagues at home: these are able to contribute to the development of their countries of origin without residential relocation. In some instances, the stiff immigration policies of rich countries preclude scientists willing to relocate the flexibility to do so.

 

Indian IT specialists-turned-entrepreneurs in the USA have set up IT training institutions in India. s remote provinces giving hope to underprivileged youngsters denied access to quality education. These entrepreneurs also contribute to charity and development programmes in countries of origin. The conducive working environment in the rich countries has helped enhance the productivity of these skilled persons many-folds when viewed in terms of the situation in their countries of origin.

 

At the policy level, the short-term solution to curtailing so-called . unwanted. migration at destination has been anchored on strict border patrol, in spite of the shortcomings of such approach. The long-term solution should emphasise economic growth and employment generation, promotion of human rights and security and related policy measures, factors that generate such emigration from poor countries. The importation of skills from poor countries is but a short-term solution to the acute skilled shortage problem in rich countries; in the long-term, the solution lies in improving training and educational opportunities locally. The trend where students from North America, Africa, Asia and China dominate the graduate schools in Europe should be reversed.

 

The networking amongst professionals in diaspora and their counterparts in training, technology transfer, information exchange and research projects principally via the Internet should be encouraged. But the challenges are daunting poor countries especially in Africa are inadequately serviced by the requisite infrastructure; poverty, corruption and mismanagement hike the cost of setting up and maintaining needed infrastructures. Brain circulation has taken over brain drain in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Indian IT specialists are working for American companies in India without physical dislocation, but at considerable economic mobility for the experts. Such examples should be replicated elsewhere. Given favourable working conditions, skilled professionals in diaspora would prefer to return home to contribute to the development of their countries. Thus when Germany offered to retain foreign graduates, less than a third of the quota was taken up at the expiration of the scheme. Few foreign students especially from Turkey, Africa and the Gulf States who graduated from German universities, took advantage of the offer, preferring instead to go back home or, in the alternative move on to the USA.

 

The World Bank estimates that the high tariffs and technical barriers to trade cost sub-Saharan African countries about US$20 billion yearly in lost exports. Hence a viable strategy to enhance economic growth and generate employment is to open the markets of the rich to poor countries. exports and remove tariffs on imports. Preferential trade between them can affect emigrant pressure from poor countries through its indirect effects on economic activity, employment and wages. Donors should use ODAs constructively to improve infrastructure for human capital and related development, and support growth policies to influence the pressure to emigrate from poor countries. Unless economic and other opportunities are created in these countries, pressures for international migration would intensify.

 

Finally, the xenophobic reactions to immigrants in rich countries miss the salient point: that immigrants are not a homogeneous group. In fact rich countries have a moral responsibility to assist programmes for the orderly return and reintegration of migrants to their countries of origin. This is particularly the case of highly skilled professionals whose expertise has been productively utilised in rich countries, but the initial investment in such rare human capital was in fact borne by poor countries.