Dilemmas in international migration: a global perspective.

Abstract

The impacts of the international migration process both on receiving and on sending societies are evaluated in this paper. For the former, the issue has become increasingly politicized and a mood of restriction is in evidence. This mood, in turn, and the policies which it spawns, clashes with the interests of individuals and of state actors among the less-developed countries who seek to expand access to ‘desirable’ destinations among advanced industrial societies—in spite of mounting evidence that emigration, in its current forms, has only marginally positive developmental effects. Also in this paper, international migration is placed in a theoretical context through a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of two major competing schools: The classical-liberal one and the Marxist-neo-Marxist one. It is concluded that for labor importers, resort to international migration has been a tentative economic success, though, increasingly, a social and political liability. Results are equally mixed for labor senders. Policy recommendations focus mostly on avenues through which the costs of the migration process can be contained while the benefits are enhanced.