The Global Financial and Economic Crisis and Migration Governance

Abstract

WITH THE WORLD ECONOMY NOW SHOWING SOME FLEDGLING SIGNS OF positive growth, the policy debate on the financial and economic crisis is quickly shifting toward the shape and sustainability of recovery. (1) Issues of stimulus funding and retreat strategy, public debt and fiscal deficit, job creation, rebalancing the world economy, and the like are dominating the global agenda. The long litany of issues on the agenda does not, however, include the postrecession challenge of migration and its governance. And so far policymakers have taken little notice of it. A few analysts who have marginally touched on the issue have argued that the effects of the recession on migration are temporal and that over time they will continue to be shaped as usual by structural factors, including labor market and demographic asymmetry between countries and trends in the world economy. This may be largely true. And yet it could be perilous to foresee a business as usual scenario for migration in the postrecession years. There are several interrelated reasons for this. Some of the seemingly short-tem policy measures taken during a crisis could have an enduring effect. It took several decades for international migration to recover from the impact of the restrictive immigration measures that countries like the United States and France had taken just before and during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the social climate created by these actions. (2) The present crisis has already unleashed some restrictionist trends in both rich and poor destination countries. If these trends take hold or, worse still, gather further momentum, this could weaken the network links between potential migrants and diasporas abroad, and cut off the channels of labor market information, inhibiting orderly flows in future even when labor demand increases following recovery. Likewise, if migration is badly managed during an economic crisis leading to abuse of migrants' labor and human rights alongside a rise in irregular flows, it could become a source of social conflicts and interstate tension. Host countries could then be unduly reticent to admit new immigrants for many years to come: the scars may not disappear soon. Migration has always closely interacted with the surrounding social and economic realities. This time will be no different. Among the changing new realities that are set to have a singular impact on the future configuration of international migration are the ravages of the crisis on labor markets, affecting jobs and wages. In January 2010, the International Labour Organization (ILO) announced that global unemployment had hit a record in 2009 and was likely to remain high in 2010. (3) Since the end of 2007, the number of jobless worldwide had soared to 212 million. Yet some 90 million additional people will join the labor force in 2010. In 2009, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated the unemployment rate in its thirty member countries could reach 10 percent, involving 25 million by the end of 2010. (4) In both the United States and the euro area, unemployment is hovering around 10 percent, and is not likely to reduce significantly any time soon. If the different forms of disguised and underemployment are taken into account, these headline unemployment figures would increase sharply--in the case of the United States, for example, the rate could be as high as 17.5 percent. Even some of the fastest growing economies like China and India have been unable to escape the joblessness ravage. Unemployment and precarious employment go hand in hand with poverty. The president of the World Bank has estimated that a 1 percent decline in economic growth will drive an additional 20 million people to poverty in developing countries, and suggested that a total of 65 million additional people may have already fallen below the US$2 a day poverty line in 2009. (5) Between 40 percent and 50 percent of men and women globally may have failed to earn enough to lift themselves above the poverty line of $2 a day, according to the ILO. …