Human migration

Human migration refers to the phenomenon of people making a long-term or permanent move from their location of origin to a new destination. People migrate both as individuals or families and as part of small or large groups. According to the World Migration Report 2022, produced by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the United Nations (UN), there were approximately 281 million international migrants worldwide in 2020. According to IOM estimates, the total represents approximately 3.6 percent of the global population (IOM 2021).

Migration has been a defining feature of human society from its beginnings. Scientists have documented the purposeful relocation of early humans from their origins in Africa into Eurasia and beyond. Experts continue to debate the details of these initial waves of human migration, and associated research questions are not settled. The oldest known fossils of anatomically modern Homo sapienswere discovered in present-day Ethiopia and have been dated to an approximate age of two hundred thousand years. A consensus of scientists endorses a hypothesis widely known as the “out of Africa theory,” which suggests that Homo sapiensmigrated from Africa into Eurasia approximately sixty thousand years ago and subsequently became the dominant and then the only remaining human species. However, emerging evidence suggests that these first-wave migrations began much earlier, possibly as early as 120,000 years ago. Homo sapienssubsequently spread from Eurasia into Southeast Asia, and from there to Australia, Europe, and the Americas.

Overview

Early forms of human migration were likely motivated by primal factors related to survival as primitive peoples sought more favorable climate conditions and better food security. As human society evolved and complexified, it generally trended toward lower levels of nomadism in favor of greater levels of location permanence. This, in turn, accelerated the development of distinct cultures within specific geographic regions. Over time, some particularly powerful cultures and civilizations began embracing imperialism and expansionism, seeking to spread their influence and control over vast areas. This introduced political and economic dimensions to the phenomenon of human migration, which continue to inform and motivate its contemporary iterations.

Another key historical trend links human migration to violent conflict, enslavement, and other forms of persecution. The Jewish exodus from its traditional homeland in historical Israel during the era of antiquity constitutes a well-known example, while the transatlantic slave trade (ca. 1500–ca. 1860) marks another. Additional examples of mass migration include the exploration and settlement of the New World by European colonists from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, including the associated practice of importing indentured laborers from faraway source countries into European colonies. Industrialization also triggered major waves of migration to North America and particularly the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The postwar period of the twentieth century was also defined by the mass movement of populations across international borders as Europe imported laborers to aid its rebuilding efforts, Jewish people flocked to the newly created modern state of Israel, and Western countries liberalized their immigration policies.

In the twenty-first century, the broad categories of refugees, asylum-seekers, and economic migrants are used to describe migrants and their underlying motivations. Refugees are people who have been displaced from their homes by events such as war or natural disasters and require the protection and assistance of an external country for their safety and security. Refugee rights are enshrined in international law and guaranteed by binding agreements such as the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, to which 149 countries and states are signatory to one or both as of 2022. Asylum-seekers are individuals who leave their country of origin due to a credible fear of persecution and because of actual or potential violations of their human rights. Most refugees and asylum-seekers permanently resettle in their host countries.

Economic migrants represent a class of people who travel across international borders in search of better education and employment prospects. They do not qualify for legal status as refugees or asylum-seekers, though in many cases their experiences in their countries of origin include elements of persecution, human rights abuses, and other serious hardships. Economic migration is usually voluntary, though involuntary factors and external constraints may influence their actions. Experts who track economic migration note a pronounced trend in which migrants leave lesser-developed and developing countries and seek to establish residency in a developed country.

According to the World Migration Report 2022, more than 40 percent of all documented migrants in 2020 originally came from Asia, with India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan representing the six largest source countries. The report also identified India as the single largest source country of economic migrants in the world, followed by Mexico and Russia. The United States continues to lead all countries globally as the world’s top migration destination, followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom (UK), France, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, and Spain (IOM 2021).

Experts widely discuss the impacts of the so-called “lottery of birth” (or “lottery of life”), which notes that the accessibility and practicality of emigration options depend largely on where a person was born—a characteristic over which individuals have no control. The Henley Passport Index is a widely used analytical model for quantifying the availability of migration options for citizens of each of the world’s nations. It tracks the relative ease with which citizens of specific countries can enter other countries, with trends linking citizens of economically prosperous and politically stable countries with greater levels of access. Migrants who hold passports from lower-ranking countries on the Henley Passport Index are considered significantly more likely to resort to irregular migration channels than those who hold passports from higher-ranking countries.

Another method of tracking economic migration patterns involves analyzing the most common destination countries of international remittances, which are payments sent by migrants back to family members and loved ones in their country of origin. According to statistics compiled and published by the Migration Data Portal for the 2020 calendar year, the five leading destination countries for international remittances were India (US$83 billion in remittances), China ($60 billion), Mexico ($43 billion), the Philippines ($35 billion), and Egypt ($30 billion). The Migration Data Portal also notes that India has led all destination countries in international remittances since 2008 (Migration Data Portal, 2021).

Issues

Migration—including the arrival and integration of refugees, asylum-seekers, and economic migrants in their destination countries—is linked with multiple social, political, and economic issues. For migrants themselves, key issues revolve primarily around their acclimatization to the destination country. Poverty is a major example affecting many migrants, especially during the early phases of their journey toward integration. It can be particularly problematic for migrants with low levels of proficiency in the locally spoken language(s), which can significantly limit their employment and entrepreneurship prospects. Many migrants also experience similar challenges securing housing, enrolling in education, and adapting to the culture of the destination country. Additionally, individual migrants and migrant families may struggle in the absence of the support structures once provided by the extended family and social networks they had in their country of origin. Others experience shocks related to differing social values and human rights standards, which sometimes mark a dramatic departure from those to which they are accustomed.

Within migrant families, intergenerational relationship dynamics can become strained and complicated. Researchers have noted that such issues commonly arise as the result of conflicting desires among family members, in which some members seek to retain stronger ties to their native cultures and social values while others integrate more readily into the cultures and social values of the destination country. Iterations of these issues are typified by conflict between older generations with stronger ties to their home countries and younger generations who lack strong ties to their country of origin, its culture, and its traditional values.

Some countries experience struggles integrating migrants into their societies, which can result in immigrants clustering together in tight, closed communities that can, in extreme cases, resemble a form of unofficial segregation. The banlieuesof France represent an oft-cited example. Banlieues are suburban neighborhoods often located on the periphery of major cities where recent immigrants tend to settle in large numbers. Many such communities struggle with poverty, crime, and other forms of social unrest with the potential to create conflict between their residents and members of native-born populations.

The United States and other developed countries that attract immigrants in large numbers also regularly struggle to navigate economic concerns associated with mass migration. A frequent fixture of such debates includes concerns that immigrants deprive native-born citizens of job opportunities and represent an unnecessary strain on public resources. As noted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), such concerns often magnify during periods of economic uncertainty. In the United States and other developed countries around the world, such anxieties have accelerated during the twenty-first century as a combination of domestic immigration policy and geopolitical instability have combined to accelerate the rate of emigration from lesser-developed and developing countries to developed ones.

Climate change has also emerged as an issue with the potential to significantly impact the global migration landscape in both the near-term and long-term future. Food and water scarcity, changing precipitation patterns, loss of arable land, and increasing conflict over dwindling and limited resources have all been linked to climate change. Expert observers believe that these factors have already begun to motivate migration and influence prevailing migration patterns, and many believe these trends will accelerate rapidly as climate change impacts continue to intensify in the years and decades ahead. However, other analysts believe these concerns have been magnified to unrealistic degrees due to the ongoing politicization of the climate change issue.

Viewpoints

Competing viewpoints on the issue of migration revolve mainly around whether mass migration represents a net benefit or a net detriment to destination countries, from both economic and sociocultural perspectives. Other discussions focus on governance issues surrounding migration—and economic migration in particular—and whether popular destination countries should liberalize or restrict their immigration policies and raise or reduce their immigration quotas.

Long-term studies focused on national economies have shown that economic benefits typically follow sharp, sudden increases in immigration. Research published in the June 2018 edition of the peer-reviewed Science Advancesjournal found that such situations tend to make national economies stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable while simultaneously reducing unemployment rates (D’Albis, Boubtane, and Coulilbaly 2018). The study was published in the aftermath of an intense and polarizing debate in the European Union (EU) over concerns about the economic impacts of the massive influx of asylum-seekers and refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war (2011– ), who arrived in Europe in large numbers during the mid-2010s. Economists and expert analysts also note that immigrants make many other positive contributions to their host countries. As the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) notes, all classes of migrants increase the size of a country’s labor pool, contribute to public funds through taxation, and fill underserved labor-market and economic niches.

Counterarguments tend to focus on some of the narrow but potentially impactful economic effects of immigration. For instance, some observers believe that immigrants fill jobs that would otherwise be occupied by native-born citizens, especially in low-skilled roles. This, they argue, runs the risk of pushing displaced members of the labor market toward social safety nets at increased rates, creating a strain on public finances. Another common concern centers on immigration’s impact on local wages. Some analysts argue that because immigrants are often willing to work for lower wages than native-born members of the labor market, their over-presence in the labor market can cause wage depression and stunted rates of wage growth.

Debates over the sociocultural effects of immigration often focus on questions of cultural compatibility, especially when immigrants come from cultural backgrounds with social values that starkly depart from those of the host country. These debates broadly align along opposing poles, with one faction contending that immigrants from diverse backgrounds enrich the cultural tapestry of the host country and the opposite faction opposing the importation of social and cultural values that conflict with the established values of the host country.

These discussions continue to unfold as voters and governments in many popular immigration destinations debate whether to liberalize or restrict their immigration policies and increase or decrease their immigration quotas. An emerging consensus view among experts is that immigration will be a necessary tool for many countries with advanced economies in the near- to medium-term future, given a set of generalized trends across much of the developed world involving a combination of aging populations, declining labor force participation, and low birth rates.

Migration to the United States through its southern border has been a contentious issue for decades. By the mid-2020s not only had the political rhetoric become more heated, the makeup of migrants themselves had fundamentally changed. Historically, most undocumented migrants arriving in the United States have been from Mexico. This progressively changed as poor economic conditions and strife in the “Northern Triangle” of countries in Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) led to greater migration from these areas. Before the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, 90% of migrants coming through the U.S. southern border were from these four countries. Beginning in about 2018, larger numbers of Cubans and Haitians began migrating to the U.S. The economic collapse in Venezuela has led to a diaspora of its citizens to the United States. This dynamic once again shifted as the pandemic waned. In 2023, 50% of all migrants now coming to the U.S. southern border originate from other global locations. Migrants now include those from almost all continents including Africa, Asia, and Europe. The number of migrants from China in 2023 was estimated at over 20,000. Entire smuggling networks now exist to move Chinese migrants from their home country to Ecuador where they join thousands of other migrants who move overland to the United States. Many of these networks are controlled by criminal syndicates. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia has prompted increased migration by both these countries into the United States. By 2024, the U.S. has accepted approximately 250,000 Ukrainian migrants. Russian citizens are now appearing at the U.S. southern border to gain entry.

About the Author

Jim Greene is a freelance writer, editor, content developer, and researcher. Born in Canada and widely traveled, he has extensive firsthand experience as an emigrant to multiple destination countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and France. Jim holds a BA in English, a BFA in film studies, and an MFA in creative writing. He currently resides in Europe with his wife and two bicultural and bilingual daughters.

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