UN/POP/EGM/2006/11 11 May 2006 UNITED NATIONS EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE ARAB REGION Population Division Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations Secretariat Beirut, 15-17 May 2006 IMMIGRANTS FROM ARAB COUNTRIES TO THE OECD: FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE Jean-Christophe Dumont* ______________ *OECD, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, Division of Non-member Economies and International Migration,
[email protected]. Introduction For a number of reasons, migration from Arab countries is particularly significant to the OECD and will probably remain so in the future. One of these reasons is the importance of Arab countries in past and current immigration to several OECD countries, especially in Europe. Another argument can be found in the diverging demographic prospects of the European and North African labour forces (Fargues, 2005). The magnitude of trade relationships with OECD countries is also meaningful to understand these movements (OECD, 1998, 2000), as well as the nature and the intensity of past and current bilateral relationships. Over the last decades, the internationalisation of the highly skilled labour market (OECD, 2002), the diversification of international migration flows following the opening up of Eastern Europe and the economic development of Asian countries (e.g. China and India), the measures taken to step up border controls as a result of the international fight against terrorism, and the will of OECD countries to fight illegal migration and the recent adaptation of OECD labour migration policies, have tended to reshape the traditional international migration links. For all these reasons, it is important to better understand the scope, the characteristics and the recent changes in migration from Arab countries to the OECD area.