“[W]hether demographic, democratic or cultural, the central tropes of the ‘looming crisis’ approach are monolithism—migrants are African for Smith, Muslim for Caldwell, Mexican for Huntington—and scale: the unprecedented numbers that are about to set forth.”
Some figures are crucial to dispel myths and misconceptions.
“[T]he latest figures for international migrants—defined as those who have been dwelling for at least a year outside their country of birth—is just over a quarter of a billion, or 3.6 per cent of the global population. Around 60 per cent of these are ‘labour migrants’, roughly 20 per cent are people displaced by war, repression or natural disaster, while 6 million are international students.
“[O]ver half the cross-border migrants in Europe—44 million, out of a total 87 million—come from other European countries, mainly in Eastern and Southeastern Europe; ‘irregular’ arrivals by land and sea totalled only 189,000 in 2022.
“Economic migration has grown and changed, but the greater part of it remains local or regional, while most refugees stay in neighbouring countries.
“The decision to leave home in search of a livelihood elsewhere is rarely monocausal. Our hypothesis is that among the better-off social strata, the ambition to progress is paramount; a broader middle zone is anxious to forestall economic deterioration and downward social mobility, while a still lower segment, closer to the bottom, is driven by the need to escape an advancing subsistence deficit. The latter predicament constantly menaces members of households sunk in local poverty.”
Full article is not free to access
Jan Breman and Marc van der Linden explore migration through a different lens.
Comments