Opening up borders
As societies age, rich nations will have to take in more and more immigrants from developing countries - a win-win for both migrants and their host countries
© Desiree Palmen
Rose does not particularly enjoy standing in front of the students in her Munich-based language school. Yet, being the quickest to pick up on this morning’s game of charades, she comes to the front time and again to explain words via pantomime.
Having completed her professional training, 18-year-old Rose Awoussi is currently seeking work as a pharmaceutical assistant – an occupation she could never imagine herself doing when living in her native Togo. At the age of 15, she followed her mother to Germany, where she successfully completed her education. With Rose’s professional life about to start, her contribution is sorely needed in her adopted country. A lack of jobs in developing countries and a long-term lack of workers in the aging societies of developed countries are pressuring people to move – and countries to open up.
Yet many western nations do not readily embrace people like Rose. Migrants are “constrained by policy and economic barriers, which are much more difficult for poor people to surmount than for the relatively wealthy,” the report states. On top of that, would-be migrants have to cross more and more borders. Over the past century, the number of nation states has quadrupled to almost 200.
Immigration could help defuse the problems of aging societies. “Demographic trends argue in favor of relaxing barriers to migrants,” the report concludes. Nations “need to rethink the policy of restricting the entry of low-skilled workers” for their own sake. The demand for labor in developed countries will continue “even if it has been temporarily attenuated by the economic crisis.” However, immigration is not the only solution. The UN calls on countries to make structural changes in retirement systems as well and “greater labor scarcity can lead to a shift towards high technology.”
Still, the economic downturn should be used to reform immigration policies. “The question is not to open up for everybody, but to liberalize channels of regular migration,” says Dr. Isabel Pereira, policy specialist with the UN Human Development Report Office and co-author of the report. “Countries need to evaluate their real needs in migration and establish channels accordingly.” Immigrants and host countries will then share the benefit.
DECLINING POPULATIONS
In Germany, the number of births has steadily decreased since 1870. The fertility rate, as in many other European countries, is below 2.1, which means a declining population. The Federal Office of Statistics expects 14% of the German population to be 80 years and older. The need for people of working age is obvious. Without migrants, the populations in many other Western countries would also be declining today.
The reality is more complex. While incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants in the United States, data from the Council of Europe on 25 European countries shows there are more than twice as many foreign-born people in prison than local born. Offense rates are higher for foreigners in countries such as Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Spain.
It is unlikely that immigrants would be net contributors to the fiscal system of their host country in the short to mid-term, claims the UN report, while elderly immigrants will eventually cause costs. This “implies either the need to continually expand immigration or, more realistically, to raise social security contributions,” the Human Development Report concludes.
Policymakers face conflicting pressures: The local population often displays strong resentment to immigration, especially in times of economic strife. But according to the United Nations there are “sound economic and social rationales for the relaxation of entry barriers.” Rose Awoussi surely agrees.
