Optimum Population Trust: International Migration

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Migration: Earth

INCREASING INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION FLOWS

1. TOO MANY MIGRANTS

According to the United Nations, the number of migrants worldwide (people living outside their country of origin) more than doubled in the 35 years to 2005, reaching a estimated total of 191 million in 2005. One in 35 people - 2.9% of the world's population, are migrants. These increasing movements of people continue to flow mainly from poorer countries to richer ones, and by 2005 an estimated 75% of all international migrants were concentrated in just 12% of the world's nations. See World Migration Report 2005 [International Organisation for Migration, June 2005]. In western Europe, for example, the migrant population grew from 18.7 million to 32.8 million in the three decades to 2000, and net inward flows continue to increase. At the same time, migrant flows within Europe have become more marked, with substantial westward movements of people from the new eastern European EU member states to those at its western borders, particularly the UK.

2. DOES MIGRATION AFFECT THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM?

What is the impact of mass migration on population growth and the global environment? This question does not appear to have been addressed by the international organisations which deal with international migration issues and policy formulation - a tendency shared by many national governments. In its World Migration Report 2005, the Organisation for International Migration [IOM] produced an economic analysis of migration trends, but did not once mention the word environment.

One conventional response to the question is that migration has little effect on global population growth - migration simply involves the redistribution of populations from one area of the Earth to another. (Migration in this context means moving to another country for at least a year - not to be confused with temporary flows caused by tourism or other short-term visits; or the movements of people within their own national boundaries.) If migration does not fuel population growth, it is not seen to increase environmental impacts by increasing the number of environmental impactors. International migration affects the global environment, however, if it exacerbates world population growth (2.1 below); and migrant living standards rise to levels prevalent in their receiving country, in a way that increases their ecological footprint (2.2 below).

2.1 DOES MASS INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION SLOW POPULATION GROWTH?

Most analysts hold that migration reduces population growth rates: migrant birth rates usually fall as migrants move from developing countries to settle in developed countries. This is usually true, but:

Firstly, the usual definition of 'migrant' (a person living in a country which is not his/her country of birth) counts only a single generation. By doing so it understates the long-term impact of cumulative migration on population change.

Secondly, the underlying number of migrants at a given level of fertility must be taken into account, as well as their age. The impact on population growth in a receiving country of 100,000 women immigrants a year with a total fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman is clearly more significant than the impact of 1,000 younger women immigrants arriving each year with an average TFR per woman of 4.5 births. In the UK, births to immigrants accounted for 18.6 per cent of all births in England and Wales in 2003, and migration is expected to account for more than 80% of further UK population growth.

Thirdly, although it is accepted that the birth rates of migrants from developing countries tend to fall when they move to more developed ones, this change is slow. Falling migrant birth rates do little to curb the world's population growth.

Fourthly, there is evidence that allowing access to contraception in countries with high population growth rates enables women and men to reduce family size just as rapidly as they would by moving to another country. The impact varies in different countries. Thailand, for example, has succeeded in rapidly reducing its domestic birth rate and curbing population growth without relying on mass emigration. Giving widespread access to reproductive health and healthcare to prevent infant mortality helps couples to lower family size, give their children a better chance, improve their quality of life in their own countries, reduce national birth rates and population growth, help social and economic development and relieve pressure to emigrate. By helping to relieve these pressures, birth planning can also help to reduce destabilising mass migration flows and their damaging effects on both sending and receiving countries. (Other political, economic and environmental factors are clearly also important.) Several developing countries, including China and India, already have explicit population stabilisation targets. See Earth and Fertility.

2.2 DOES MASS INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION CHANGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS?

Fifty million Chinese who live outside China (including Taiwan), now earn an annual income equivalent to two-thirds of China's gross domestic product, with its domestic population at 1.3 billion. [World Migration Report 2005, IOM]. Would these 50 million migrants have the same ecological footprint (individual impact on the global environment) had they remained in China, working in China's rapidly expanding economy? The answer depends on the impact of migrants' lifestyles both on the environment of the country they leave and on the country they move to - and may occur even when populations are decreasing, as living standards increase. However:

Firstly, there are limits to the size of population that any country can environmentally sustain in the medium and long-term at any given per capita environmental impact. See Sustainable numbers for possible national sustainable population sizes based on ecological footprinting calculations and the need for equitably shared global carbon dioxide emissions reduction.

Secondly, excess immigration into countries which are already densely populated can cause substantial economic and environmental damage, the effects of which may not be seen until the resulting pressures on dwindling land and natural resources become intense. Projected population growth of more than 10 million in the UK by 2074 would involve the building of 57 more towns the size of Luton - before taking into account household fragmentation (see OPT Press Release 20 October 2005).

Thirdly, mass migration for settlement masks the underlying population problems of 'sending' countries - by encouraging the belief that there will always be another region to emigrate to or expand into, it allows governments (including that of the UK) to postpone tackling their own political, economic, ecological, population and other problems. It allows poorer countries to be drained of their high-skilled citizens by richer ones, and thus may undermine their own chances of green development - unless migrants return with relevant skills.

Fourthly, where environmentally sustainable population limits can be measured and a country's population has already exceeded that limit, it becomes clear that job creation for perpetual population growth is self-defeating. The ratio of global employment to population (the share of working age population that is in work) fell only slightly from 1995-2005, but sharply (from 51.7% to 46.7%) among the burgeoning young aged 15-24. In spite of robust 4.3% world economic (GDP) growth in 2005, the number of people unemployed reached its highest point ever. In the decade to 2005, according to the International Labour Organisation, 192 million were officially unemployed - up by more than a quarter, or some 6% of the global workforce. Of the 192 million, 86 million were aged 15-24. Providing additional jobs for growing populations thus reinforces the vicious circle of environmental degradation as well as posing a growing economic challenge.

Finally, and most importantly, is the role played by international migration in masking global population and environment problems. When a ship is heading for the environmental rocks, the best policy is to steer it away - not to encourage everyone to escape to areas they perceive to be lifeboats, sink them and drown. If Calcutta were drowned by rising sea levels, for example, London and New York would be inundated soon after. If London's flood defences were breached, large parts of the city could then be six feet under water. Population size and growth cannot be ignored in framing environmental policy, and the migration component of population policy must be tackled.

These are the reasons why OPT believes it is better policy for all countries to work out what populations their environments may be able to sustain in the long term, with the best possible quality of life and without damaging the environmental prospects of other countries or the world as a whole. This requires population policies as well as fundamental changes in consumption patterns, yet allows for international migration flows which do not incur national population growth. Decrease in the populations of high-consuming countries can bring reductions in environmentally damaging consumption. Decrease in the populations of developing countries can enable green growth. And environmentally sustainable aid and trade between rich and poor countries can benefit all.

3. MIGRATORY PRESSURES ARE LIKELY TO GROW

The pressure to emigrate in search of work is therefore not likely to ease. Add to this the mounting pressures caused by environmental degradation such as soil erosion, water depletion and climate change, and it is clear that current levels of international migration cannot continue, for reasons of national security as well other economic, social and environmental reasons. The root causes, including population growth and global warming, need to be addressed.

4. NATIONAL MIGRATION POLICIES

The number of countries with active population policies is increasing, as well as the number of countries introducing policies to reduce immigration flows as a component of population policy. For full details, see World Population Policies 2005 , published by the United Nations.

One notable exception is the UK, which despite being the third most densely populated country in Europe still had a 'no upper limits' migration policy at the end of 2005. Although it has introduced measures to reduce illegal immigration, gross inward migration flows are running at more than 500,000 a year - directly responsible for two-thirds of current population growth of more than 300,000 a year, and projected to account for more than 80% of future UK population growth if natural increase and increased life expectancy among migrants is taken into account. See UK Population Growth 1750-2005.

AN ENDLESS SUPPLY OF MIGRANTS

On 28 January 2004 the United Nations Population Division indicated that "The numbers of migrants needed by developed receiving countries and the potential numbers willing to leave poorer sending countries are out of balance... the supply of the potential migrants who are free to leave their homelands simply exceeds manifold the demand which is set by the receiving countries...population growth in the 15 member countries of the European Union was 300,000 for 2003, but in India a similar population increase of 294,000 took just seven days." [Migration has moved to forefront of population policy discussion, UN, 28 Jan 2004.]

5. RECEIVING COUNTRIES CANNOT CONTINUE TO ACCEPT RISING MIGRANT FLOWS

Measures to curb legal immigration as well as illegal immigration appear necessary in countries whose population growth has become environmentally unsustainable. A country's population can increase rapidly by the excessive granting of legal work permits to migrants, or of settlement rights or citizenships to legal migrants. The European Union has begun to take practical collective measures to reduce illegal immigration, but not to reduce legal immigration, nor to prevent the heavy concentration of migrant flows into particular EU member states such as the UK. (EU citizens can move freely within the EU to seek work as they do not require work permits to work in the UK.) These measures have already reduced the scope for individual member countries to set limits on inflows. In the UK there is also an increasing flow of migrants from the EU (mainly Eastern Europe), and renegotiation of EU treaties may be necessary to set upper limits. See UK Migration.

Background briefing by Rosamund McDougall, Advisory Council, Optimum Population Trust

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This page last modified 13 February 2007