Politicians and the media expend inordinate amounts of energy debating migration, often using nativist, populist and xenophobic rhetoric. This is despite the fact that, as of 2017, only three out of every 100 people \u2013 a\u00a0mere 3.4%\u00a0of the world\u2019s population \u2013 have left their home nations to migrate to a new country.<\/p>\n
The message from people like US President Donald Trump and the UK\u2019s \u201cBrexiteers\u201d is that migrants should be kept out at all costs to \u201csave\u201d their economies. Yet many scholars have argued that attracting and keeping migrants is\u00a0essential to economic competitiveness\u00a0in a globalising world. Some countries are responding positively to such arguments, embracing the benefits migrants can offer to their economies. Others \u2013 African countries among them \u2013 are far behind the curve.<\/p>\n
Many developing countries are immigrant-sending countries which can have some negative effects. In 2017,\u00a074% of all immigrants\u00a0were of working age. It makes sense that losing this vital demographic can damage a country\u2019s economy \u2013 and that gaining these workers can help grow another\u2019s. This is borne out by history, too: in the 19th century, migrant-receiving countries like the US grew faster than migrant-sending countries like Italy and Ireland because these migrants added to their host country\u2019s workforce and left their home countries with fewer workers.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0my research\u00a0on migration I have found that countries like Vietnam, India and China are actively trying to recruit people from their diasporas \u2013 those living outside the region where they or their ancestors were born \u2013 to help build their economies.<\/p>\n
My research focuses on frontier migration: the movement of people, technology, ideas and capital from a \u201cdeveloped\u201d to a \u201cdeveloping\u201d economy. Among them are increasing numbers of frontier return migrants who were born and raised in one country, leave it for some time but are now opting to return home. Researchers used to assume that once people migrated to the West, they and their children would stay there. But this is increasingly not the case. Another category I focus on are frontier heritage migrants; those raised in the diaspora who return to the land of their ethnic heritage.<\/p>\n
Globalisation has spurred increasing numbers of all types of frontier migrants. One of the unexpected consequences is that developed countries might lose out as more and more frontier migrants set their sights on emerging market economies.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s most powerful country and its\u00a0largest economy, the US, was until recently known as a country of immigrants.<\/p>\n
Since 2017, the Trump administration has championed a number of measures to keep immigrants and refugees out: building a wall on the country\u2019s southern border with Mexico, limiting refugees and even deleting the phrase, \u201cnation of immigrants\u201d from\u00a0an official mission statement. But this shift didn\u2019t begin with Trump: it started\u00a0in earnest\u00a0after the events of 11 September, 2001.<\/p>\n
Migration and tech researcher Vivek Wadhwa\u00a0has warned\u00a0for years that putting up barriers to immigration will reduce the US\u2019s innovative, technological and economic edge. After all, many US businesses are started by immigrants, and just over half of the country\u2019s one billion dollar startup companies had\u00a0at least one immigrant founder.<\/p>\n
Wadwha\u2019s\u00a0research\u00a0among STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduate students who came to the US to study for advanced degrees revealed alarming shifts. Before 2001, most of these sorts of graduates would remain in the US after completing their degrees. After 2001, hostile immigration policies \u201cpushed\u201d them to become frontier return migrants, going home to countries like India and China.<\/p>\n
The US was forced to\u00a0change policy\u00a0to counter the trend towards STEM students\u2019 return migration.<\/p>\n
India and China, meanwhile, have also realised the value of attracting their own diasporas back home, and drawing talent from elsewhere in the world. They\u2019ve developed several\u00a0new policies\u00a0to make this easier.<\/p>\n
For example, China recently changed its\u00a0visa policy\u00a0so that \u201coverseas Chinese\u201d can have multiple-entry visas valid for five years instead of just one.\u00a0A number of other initiatives have also been introduced to entice skilled migrants to China.<\/p>\n
Robin Li, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the internet company Baidu \u2013 often referred to as China\u2019s Google \u2013 is one of those who\u2019ve pointed out that the US\u2019s loss could be his country\u2019s gain,\u00a0saying<\/p>\n
this is a good time that China stand up and say, \u2018Hey, come to us, we welcome immigrants\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
China and the US are in a battle over which nation will dominate the 21st-century technologically and immigration is at the heart of this battle.<\/p>\n
However, it is not only technology migrants who add value to an economy. Workers with all different skill sets are necessary. For example, US agriculture\u00a0largely relies\u00a0on foreign workers and Japan, a highly industrialised country with an ageing population, will need to bring in more and more young foreign workers\u00a0to survive.<\/p>\n
Policy benefits for Africa?<\/h4>\n
African countries are not seizing the opportunity presented by the migration-economic nexus.<\/p>\n
Only a handful of African countries \u2013 among them\u00a0Liberia\u00a0and\u00a0Ethiopia\u00a0\u2013 have actively worked to bring in more migrants.<\/p>\n
I have found that people in general and people of African descent in particular, both in Africa and the West, are particularly interested in moving to South Africa to work. This is because South Africa has a well-developed infrastructure and offers what many migrants refer to as \u201clifestyle\u201d \u2013 a good quality of life.<\/p>\n
South Africa is trying to position itself as the gateway to the African continent and needs a strong economy to do so. The country would therefore benefit tremendously from a more migrant-welcoming policy.<\/p>\n
Building a robust economy has always required migrant workers of all types. That\u2019s not going to change any time soon. The country with the most open immigration policy will be best positioned to succeed in the global economy.<\/p>\n
………………………………………<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
This article was originally published on\u00a0The Conversation<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Politicians and the media expend inordinate amounts of energy debating migration, often using nativist, populist and xenophobic rhetoric. This is despite the fact that, as of 2017, only three out of every 100 people \u2013 a\u00a0mere 3.4%\u00a0of the world\u2019s population \u2013 have left their home nations to migrate to a new country. The message from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}