2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: The Possible Economic Developments of Migration Inclusion

Despite the significance of migration as a lived reality among millions of individuals and as a development challenge among the world’s economies, it was notably omitted from the millennium development goals (MDGs). With the introduction of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development replacing the previous fifteen year’s global development interventions, migration has, for the first time, been somewhat included in the development framework. With seven solid references throughout the document, the potential contribution of well-managed migration to sustainable development is recognised. However, relying on the SDGs which are still a ‘work in progress’ lacking concrete details on implementation and measurement to tackle the complex challenges in the migration field would prove naive. Migration is still not considered a key area in the SDG framework, allowing states to manoeuvre in various directions without connecting it to all possible goals and risking letting migration targets fall behind on the overarching commitment to ‘leave no-one behind’. This paper aims to analyse the economic evidence for migration liberalisation and examine the place of migration in the 2030 Agenda.

Background and Key Concepts:

Current Dynamics

Although not a new phenomenon, with migration dating back to the earliest periods of human history, it has emerged in the last number of years as a critical political and policy challenge. In 2015 there were approximately 244 million international migrants globally, constituting 3.3% of the world’s population (IOM, 2018). The UNCHR finds that those forcibly displaced internationally, those escaping war, persecution or terror, stands at 68.5 million people (Edwards, 2018). In examining flows, the vast majority of migration takes place from South to North at 35%, among the Global South at 37% and the majority of the world’s forcibly displaced are also hosted in the Global South (IOM, 2015). This mobility is inherently linked to globalisation with an ever increasing “death of distance” in our world (Cairncross, 1997). With this occurrence, de-territorialisation is also an outcome. Elden (2005) argues a reconfiguration with existing notions of territory with human actions taking place ‘spatially unfixed’ rather than embodied in localities. When it comes to examining the concept of ‘intentional development’ though, efforts aimed at stipulating progress through various interventions or international policies, it is often territorialised. The development of specific localities and the inhabitants of these localities is often the goal (Bakewell, 2007 and Zoomers et al., 2016). With conceptualisations of development based on furthering the quality of one’s life in a country of origin, migration is then viewed as an indicator of development failure.

The MDGs and Migration

The MDGs of 2000 have long been criticised for their exclusion of the role of international migration in their development agenda (Saith, 2006). Within the discourse migration was to be viewed as a marginal issue within development. When migration was considered in relation to the MDG project it was territorialised and was a complicating factor for the attainment of progress toward reaching the goals. Migration was an issue which needed to be overcome, rather than focusing on the conditions under which migration occurs and allowing for the voice of the migrant. There was also a high degree of concern around the concept of ‘brain drain’ with the belief that developing countries would be divested of their most qualifying citizens in favour of more favourable job offers abroad. Jayaweera (2015) demonstrates how 22% of nurses and 35% of medical practitioners were born abroad in the UK in 2012. The argument stands that this ‘brain drain’ can lead to a weakening of institutions in developing countries, such as with healthcare systems. Disadvantages rested on low-skilled non-emigrants whose skills were complementary to those of high skilled emigrants ultimately experiencing wage decreases and a country becoming less productive in the long term due to the loss of educated workers (Elsner, 2015). Research into domestic and care labour had also created what Hochschild (2000) has coined a ‘global care chain’. It is “a series of links between people across the world based on the paid and unpaid work of caring” (Wojczewski et al., 2015). The chain effect is created as the demand for care work, mostly in the global north, increases due to aging populations. The need is then created for other relatives to care for the family of those who migrate and fill these positions. Usually female relatives, this unpaid domestic work often limits their own ability to seek education or other paid opportunities. The relationship between development and migration has undergone a much more positive transformation in recent years, with greater attention given to optimising its management to ensure optimal development outcomes are attained. Literature produced is increasingly seeing migration as a solution, or indeed part of a solution, of development issues (Geiger and Pecoud, 2013) and the advocation for the inclusion of migration matters into the next set of development goals was ongoing for a number of years (Laczko and Lonnback 2013).

The Economic Arguments for Migration:

Gross World Product

While boosting the working-age population, filling niches in fast growing and declining sectors of the economy and contributing to human capital development, migration has many benefits to the economy (OECD, 2014). Research posits that a liberalisation of migration could be also be both redistributive and globally efficient. This rests on the possibility of offsetting efficiency gains from the relocation of labour from low to high productivity places. Certain studies assume that workers from lower developed regions are less productive than natives in high-developed countries, with economic theory suggesting that a worker’s wage is closely linked to productivity. For example, Keenan (2013) outlines how using the 2000 Census the wage of a worker in Mexico is roughly 40% of that of a comparable Mexican worker who after being educated in Mexico travelled to work in the United States. As a result, “this is taken to mean that Mexican workers have 0.4 efficiency units of labour, so that a Mexican worker who crosses the United States border becomes as productive as 2.5 Mexican workers who stayed at home.” The assumption here is that the variables that reduce productivity in Mexico are specific to the location and not to the people who work in that location, with more capital and better infrastructure in the United States. Keenan (2013) finds that under such theory “the estimated net gains from open borders are about the same as the gains from a growth miracle that more than doubles the income level in less-developed countries.” Studies show global gross domestic product (GWP) increasing in the range of 50-150%, with a summary of these predictions provided in Clemens (2011). Examining common environments with constant physical capital and considering a lack of difference in the productivity of people, migration liberalisation increases GWP by 147.3% in Hamilton and Whalley (1984), 96.5% in Moses and Letnes (2004) and 122% in Klein and Ventura (2007). Iregui (2005) considers differences in workers’ educational attainments and finds an overall GWP increase of 67%. Further studies by Walmsley and Winters (2005) simulated the effects of increasing developed countries immigration quotas, such that high and low-skilled migrants accounted for 3% of the workforce. In such instances, a $150 billion increase was predicted for the GWP. Burchardi et. al (2016) evaluates the casual effect migration has on foreign direct investment (FDI). They find that for a US county “doubling the number of individuals with ancestry from a given origin country increases by 4 percentage points the probability that at least one firm from this US county engages in FDI with that origin country” and furthermore “increases by 29% the number of local jobs at subsidiaries of firms headquartered in that origin country.” Although differing in their methods and assumptions, these studies all seem to suggest barriers to migration leaving “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk” and that even partial liberalisation could yield massive gains (Clemens, 2011).

The Welfare State

Given that immigration is heavily restricted in developed countries, gains accruing to immigrants are perceived as offset to disadvantages to natives. Kancs and Leca (2016) examine the long-term effects of immigration on the EU economically and fiscally. Their study shows that while refugee integration is indeed costly for public budgets, in the long-run benefits may significantly outweigh initial costs. They find that “depending on the integration policy scenario and policy financing method, the annual long-run GDP effect would be 0.2% to 1.4% above the baseline growth, and the full repayment of the integration policy investment (positive the net present value) would be achieved after 9 to 19 years”. Furthermore, the long-term costs of non-integration is likely to be considerably higher than short-term investment costs. A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017) finds that over a period of ten years or more, the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers is relatively small. Any negative impacts are most likely to be found for those with low education although positive wage effects are also seen for some. Furthermore, in sending countries, Elsner (2015) finds that the bargaining power of emigration and labour shortages leads to wage boosts for non-emigrants. In looking at the Ireland as a case study, research finds a lower probability of migrants being in receipt of cash benefits relative to natives and do not appear to be a ‘burden’ on the welfare state (Barrett and McCarthy, 2007 and 2008). Similarly, in the UK, Brucker et al. (2002) found no significant migrant-native welfare gap when examining unemployment benefits. More recent research backs this up in finding the probability of immigrants in the UK receiving benefits is less likely than that of natives and immigrants have “made substantial net contributions to its public finances, a reality that contrasts starkly with the view often maintained in public debate” (Dustmann and Frattinni, 2014).

The 2030 Agenda and Migration:

With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015, migration was, for the first time, explicitly incorporated into global development policy. The SDG target 10.7, to be achieved by the year 2030 is titled “facilitating orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation planned and well-managed migration policies.” Other than the management of migration, other key contributions of the SDGs in relation to migration include: decent work for all (Goal 8.3), recognising and valuing unpaid and domestic work which highlights the feminisation of migration (Goal 5.4), the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies (Goal 16). Remittances are also recognised as a contributor to human development and the SDGs aim to eradicate remittance corridors where transaction costs are above 5% (Goal 10c). From our review of the literature of the economic arguments for migration and assuming a connection between human development and economic growth, migration targets are extremely important. Despite this, the consensus of the extent to which the SDGs confront inequalities and exclusions faced by migrants remains limited.

El-Zein et. al (2016) find that still “some of the most marginalised people around the world—refugees and international migrant-workers, especially women—are at serious risk of being excluded from the SDG process.” Although the SDGs seem to represent a correction of previous ignorance of migratory issues in the global development agenda, as with the MDGs, the inclusion remains partial. The final list of proposed indictors to measure the progress of the goals has yielded a minimal consideration of the importance of analysing migration and migrant issues. Furthermore, there is no clear indication within the documents as to what ‘well-managed migration policies’ should actually entail. For Sexsmith and McMichael (2015), the “reductionist framing of migrants as mere reserves of labor and remittances undermines the need to address more complicated questions about their political, economic, and social rights”. In order to make a positive contribution to global development and for the realisation of such economic opportunities as discussed previously, the rights of migrants ought to be respected at every part of the migration journey with greater commitments and protections put in place. The vision of development expressed in the SDGs continues to depend upon understanding migration in very narrow ways.

Conclusion

Current ‘migration management’ discourse remains linked to increasing concerns over securitisation in a world preoccupied with terrorism and international crime. Critiques of such discourses are based on the disregard and side-lining of human and labour rights issues which have rendered many migrants unable to develop into agents of development, as discussed under the potential gains from easing migration flows. In relation to the SDGs, the marginal considerations of migration within the goals and targets fails to “redress the conditions by which migration has been integrated into the global economy through its exclusion from the formal global politics of development” (Suliman, 2017). The rejection of state-centrism and the development episteme in favour of the full realisation of the rights and entitlements of migrants for sustainable development is needed for equitable mobility and economic justice to prevail. A balance is still necessary in which migrants are recognised by their economic contributions and as a vulnerable category to fully advance the development process.

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