Bangladeshi workers at a Singapore construction site. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne/IPS

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2013 (IPS)

New international migration figures released by the United Nations Wednesday show that more people than ever are living abroad. Around 232 million of the global population of seven billion are considered international migrants, simply defined as persons living outside their country of birth.

The statistics collected by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs show that despite having been dampened by the international economic crisis, international migration has weathered the storm and is still on the rise – if at a slower rate than in 2008 when figures were last released.

In a statement, Wu Hongbo, U.N. under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs, stressed the positive impact of migration on development, saying “migration broadens the opportunities available to individuals and is a crucial means of broadening access to resources and reducing poverty.”

The U.N. team has been preparing estimates for the last four years, with a majority of the data being drawn from national censuses. When data is missing for a country, estimates are made by extrapolating a trend based on previous censuses. This can be difficult – for example in Lebanon, the last census was taken in 1930. In Afghanistan, the government is currently trying to collect data, but it has been decades since the last census.

The United States is still the world’s most popular destination, with around 45.8 million migrants, having gained around one million migrants per year since 1990. The second largest gain since 1990 has been Saudi Arabia which has received seven million. Europe and Asia are the continents with the largest migrant populations hosting around two-thirds of all international migrants worldwide.

In 2013, 72 million international migrants were residing in Europe, compared to 71 million in Asia. The statistics show that migration is highly concentrated in 10 countries, including the U.S., Russia, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

According to Bela Hovy, chief of the Migration Section at U.N. DESA, a strong trend has been the rise in movement from countries in the Southern Asian region to countries in Western Asia.

“What’s new is enormous construction activity in West Asia, causing movement from developing countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, to move to those areas,” he told IPS. “Saudi Arabia is the biggest recipient, along with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.”

Currently, there are 2.9 million people from India living in the UAE.

This has implications for development in that remittances are becoming a big factor for people in those South Asian countries. “It’s good for migrant families and their countries. The kids staying behind are able to go to school and get healthcare,” said Hovy.

However, there have been issues with rights violations of workers in the West Asian destination countries, notably for domestic workers, often women. Human Rights Watch has expressed concern that workers are especially vulnerable in the Middle East.

“The failure to properly regulate paid domestic work facilitates egregious abuse and exploitation, and means domestic workers who encounter such abuse have few or no means for seeking redress,” the group notes.

A landmark change has been the recent drafting of the International Labour Organisation’s Domestic Workers Convention, which came into effect last week.

Hovy explained the changing face of international migration in terms of population migration from developing to developed countries.

“In 1990, most international migration was global South to global South, but since 2000 this has changed,” he said. “Now, South-North has become as common as South-South. Most international migrants originate in developing countries, but they are settling almost equally in countries of the global South as the global North.”

Nowadays, six out of 10 international migrants reside in the global North.

The population of working-age people among international migrants proved to be significantly higher than in the global population, reflecting the large movement of workers to West Asian countries. Some 74 percent of all international migrants are aged 20-64, compared to only 58 percent of the global population.

In Europe, Germany, France and the United Kingdom host the largest migrant communities. However, as a percentage of their total populations, relative to other European countries their figures were among the lowest.

Worldwide, refugees accounted for a small part of the migrant population, according to the report. The UN-DESA works closely in conjunction with The U.N. Refugee Agency to incorporate accurate figures for refugees in its migration data. Asia hosts the largest number of refugees at 10.4 million, with this number affected in recent years by conflicts and unrest in the Middle East.

The increasingly precarious financial situation in Europe remains the biggest threat to the world economy, warns a U.N. report released here.

The “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2012” (WESP 2012) released Friday focuses on the need to avoid austerity measures and promote growth and job creation.

Rob Vos, director of Development Policy and Analysis Division of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told IPS, “The debt problems and financial sector fragility in Europe, but also in the United States, continue to be a source of ‘de-leveraging’ whereby businesses, households and banks are trying to restore their balance sheets, but this is holding back consumption and investment demand as well as normal credit flows.”

Vos told reporters last week that Europe is struggling with a “vicious circle” based on high unemployment, banks’ exposure to sovereign debts and fiscal austerity.

“The situation is very fragile and we could fairly easily fall into a trap,” he said.

On Jun. 9, Spain accepted a 125-billion-dollar bailout from the European Union to rescue the failed banking system.

It is the fourth country in Europe to accept emergency assistance, after Portugal, Greece and Ireland. In March, Spain’s unemployment rate was a whopping 24.1 percent.

However, Europe is not the only region facing these challenges.

Although there has been some economic improvement in the U.S., the world’s biggest economy, the unemployment rate remains over eight percent, according to the report.

“Developing countries are already being affected through slower trade and more volatile capital and commodity markets,” Vos told IPS.

The 48 least developed countries (LDCs) grew almost two percent less than originally projected in the WESP report of January 2012, making the growth rate 4.1 percent.

Emerging nations are affected by the weakening of the international trade not only from developed countries but also among developing countries.

“World trade growth already started slowing in 2011 and this slowdown has continued this year. Manufacturing production in China is already showing signs of stagnation over the past few months and this is also bringing trade among developing countries to a halt,” Vos said.

To all of this is added uncertainty in markets and political instability in areas such as the Middle East, which creates a risky world economic situation.

The report concludes that the current policies chosen by the developed countries, especially Europe, are heading in the “wrong direction”. The fiscal austerity programmes implemented in several European countries are ineffective to help the economy emerge from crisis, it said.

Jomo Kwama Sundaram, U.N. assistant secretary-general of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told reporters Thursday, “There is a strong recognition all over the world that fiscal austerity pursued by many governments has been the main cause for the protracted economic downturn.”

The updated report recommends avoiding fiscal austerity measures and encourages policies that help to create direct jobs and promote green growth.

The debate over green growth and sustainable development goals has gained new momentum with the major Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development later this month.

According to Vos, official development aid fell for the first time in many years, but it is unclear to what extent this will affect the funding of proposals in Rio, such as the Global Environmental Facility (GEF.)

However, is it clear that “the economic problems in developed countries may affect willingness to agree on costly adjustments for cleaner energy, sustainable agriculture and other costly adjustments to their economies,” he added.

This should not tarnish the event. On the contrary, Vos told IPS, green growth may be the solution to the crisis and “investing in sustainable development has a great potential for job creation and poverty reduction.”

“Rio+20 provides a great opportunity for the world to come together to find a solution for both crises,” Vos said.