Migration – Threat or opportunity ?

1. Migration – Threat or opportunity ? “ElieRadu” Technical College Ploiesti, Romania Students: CrinaAloman Victor Constantin SimonaCurtasu AlexandruManea

2. Human migration: basic notions and facts • human migration - a movement of humans from one place to another, with the intention of settling in the new location.  • some modern migration - a byproduct of wars, political conflicts, and natural disasters. • contemporary migration is predominantly economically motivated. • number of international migrants - 220 million in 2013; it could reach 405 million by 2050. • 1 of every 35 persons in the world is a migrant.

3. Pre-modern migrations • Historical migration of human populations: • begins with the movement of Homo erectus out of Africa across Eurasia about a million years ago; • Homo sapiens appear to have occupied all of Africa about 150,000 years ago; • Homo sapiens moved out of Africa 70,000 years ago, and had spread across Australia, Asia and Europe by 40,000 years BC; • migration to the Americas took place 20,000 to 15,000 years ago; • by 2,000 years ago, most of the Pacific Islands were colonized.

4. Modern migrations: why do people migrate? • Reasons for migrating: • Economic Migrants – few opportunities to earn money in their own country. Leave to seek higher paid and more regular wages in more developed countries. • Political Migrants – refugees from civil wars, or a persecuted minority within their own country; seeking safety. • Social Migrants – seeking a better opportunity for their future lifestyle. Often affects families seeking a future with more opportunities for their children.

5. Factors causing migrations • Push Factors: not enough jobs ■ few opportunities ■ primitive conditions■ • ■ desertification ■ famine or drought ■ political fear or persecution ■ slavery or forced labour■ poor medical care ■ loss of wealth ■ natural disasters ■ death threats ■ pollution ■ bullying ■ war ■ discrimination. Pull factors: job opportunities ■ better living conditions ■ political and/or religious freedom ■ enjoyment ■ education ■ better medical care ■ attractive climates ■ security ■ family links ■ industry ■ better chances of marrying.

6. Impacts of migration • human migration affects: • population patterns and characteristics, • social and cultural patterns, • processes, economies, and physical environments; • as people move, their cultural traits and ideas diffuse along with them, creating and modifying cultural landscapes; • there are many arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of migration and how it has affected us locally.

7. Positive impacts on host countries (1) • job vacancies and skills gaps can be filled; • economic growth can be sustained; • services to an ageing population can be maintained when there are insufficient young people locally; • the pension gap can be filled by the contributions of new young workers and they also pay taxes; • immigrants bring energy and innovation; • host countries are enriched by cultural diversity;

8. Positive impacts on host countries (2) • facilitated growth in the economy; • brought benefits to the tourism industry through the development of new air routes; • had a positive influence on the productivity or efficiency of local workers; • contributed new ideas and a fresh approach to firms; • and greater cultural links with developing nations that will prove useful in growing international trade. • In addition to these economic benefits: • incomers have helped the health and care services to continue functioning; • contributed to cultural diversity; • increased the vitality, especially of some rural schools.

9. Negative impacts on host countries • depression of wages may occur but this seems to be temporary; • having workers willing to work for relatively low pay may allow employers to ignore productivity, training and innovation; • migrants may be exploited; • increases in population can put pressure on public services; • unemployment may rise if there are unrestricted numbers of incomers; • there may be integration difficulties and friction with local people; • large movements of people lead to more security monitoring; • ease of movement may facilitate organised crime and people trafficking.

10. Impacts on countries of origin • Positive • developing countries benefit from remittances (payments sent home by migrants); • unemployment is reduced and young migrants enhance their life prospects; • returning migrants bring savings, skills and international contacts. • Negative • economic disadvantage through the loss of young workers; • loss of highly trained people, especially health workers; • social problems for children left behind or growing up without a wider family circle.

11. Is migration a threat or an opportunity? • rapid increase in the number of immigrants worldwide → perception of immigration as a threat to security • In the most general sense of the term, security refers to the absence of threats. • The following slides → investigate the claim that immigration is a threat to security by focusing on: • social, • economic • public security, • arguing that immigration is a constructed and perceived threat rather than a real, objective danger.

12. Immigration and social security • social security - ways in which members of a state perceive their cultural, linguistic, religious or national identity to be threatened by immigrants. • inability of immigrants to integrate or assimilate → argument for having a negative effect on the society and government’s stability. • On the other hand: • an immigrant-receiving state may hold a different notion of national identity → may be more tolerant and accepting different languages, cultures, and religions, supporting its policy of multiculturalism.

13. Immigration and economic security • labour migration →can be argued to pose a threat to the economic security of both the sending and the receiving state; • the emigration of highly skilled and qualified workers from developing countries: • “brain drain” in the sending country, • undesirable economic consequences in the receiving country. • On the other hand: • immigration often has a positive impact on the employment levels of the host state. • effect of temporary unemployment → dissipates over time, as the state’s economy begins to adjust to the increase in labour supply.

14. Immigration and public security • immigration has been related to increased criminality → perception that immigration is a threat to public security. • there has been a connection between increased immigration flows and increased crime rates; • there is a trend showing that cities and countries that have high crime rates tend to have a higher immigrant population; • On the other hand: • an abundance of evidence demonstrates that the correlation between immigration and criminality is very weak or non-existent; • some studies report: • neither wave of immigrants impacted rates of violent crime; • immigrant arrest rates were no higher than native arrest rates.

15. Summary and conclusion (1) • immigration poses a number of challenges to receiving states; • it is inevitable that immigration would be viewed as a threat to society and the economy, as well as to internal security and public order; • however, immigration is a perceived threat rather than an objective one. • ideas of national identity and notions of which cultural and ethnic groups can be accepted into a community inevitably change over time; • the act of labeling immigration as a security threat does more to harm society than it does to protect it; • it often results in xenophobic and racist attitudes, the exclusion of immigrant groups, and the perception of the immigrant as the enemy.

16. Summary and conclusion (2) • immigration can be beneficial for migrants, but only if their rights are protected properly; • immigration can be economically beneficial for both countries of origin and host countries; • however, with present economic and trading structures it is the rich and powerful countries that benefit most; • migration brings social and cultural pressures that need to be taken into account in planning for future services; • migration has the potential for bringing peoples together culturally but friction occurs if efforts are not made to dispel the myths held by local people; • it is also essential to provide good information about the local way of life to newcomers and ensure opportunities for people to mix and integrate; • where the economic preconditions exist, migration is inevitable. When people try to prevent immigration it just goes underground.

17. References • International Organization for Migration: http://www.iom.int/jahia/page3.html • http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/e-library/documents/policies/immigration/pdf/general/emn_immigration_2006_en.pdf • http://www.embraceni.org/migration/the-pros-and-cons-of-migration/ • The Economic, Labour Market and Skills Impacts of Migrant Workers www.delni.gov.uk/skillsimpactsmigrantworkers • United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Available at url: http://www.unhcr.org/ • http://www.e-ir.info/2013/08/24/is-immigration-a-threat-to-security/ • International Labour Organization: www.ilo.org