International Migration: Can It Improve Living Standards among Poor and Vulnerable Populations?

T he migration of labor across international boundaries has increased rapidly since 1990. More than 190 million individuals now live outside the countries of their birth, and the majority of migrants leave developing countries for countries with higher living standards than those of their home countries. Remittance flows have risen quickly over the same time frame, and in 2007 aggregate official remittance flows were double the amount of official development assistance. Participating in the growing wave of international migration is therefore a potential way for poor or vulnerable households to increase their living standards. Nevertheless, constraints against migration can prevent members of poor or vulnerable households from reaping its potential benefits. Costs are the most obvious constraint, but policies in both the home and the destination countries can also hinder migration. For example, in some countries passports cost more than 10 percent of per capita gross domestic product, making them prohibitively expensive for the poor. Similarly, migrant destinations often have policy preferences for highly skilled migrants, which can preclude migration by members of vulnerable households, who tend to be low-skilled. Developed countries also use visa quotas to avoid absorbing too many low-skilled migrants, in part because of perceptions that such migrants will strain their social welfare systems. Costs and constraints combine to drive some migration underground; for example, it is estimated that 12 million immigrants to the United States are here illegally, and there are concerns related to other migrant flows about migrants being forced into bonded labor or prostitution.