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Many More to Come? Migration from and Within Africa

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Many More to Come? Migration from and Within Africa EUR 29106 EN MANY MORE TO COME? MIGRATION FROM AND WITHIN AFRICA Joint Research Centre This publication is a Science for Policy report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process. The scientific output expressed does not imply a policy position of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of this publication. Manuscript completed in March 2018 JRC Science Hub https://ec.europa.eu/jrc JRC 110703 EUR 29106 EN PDF ISBN 978-92-79-79363-9 ISSN 1831-9424 doi: 10.2760/1702 Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2018 © European Union, 2018 Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. The reuse policy of European Commission documents is regulated by Decision 2011/833/EU (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not under the EU copyright, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders. How to cite this report: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Many more to come? Migration from and within Africa, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2018 ISBN 978-92-79-79363-9, doi 10.2760/1702, JRC 110703 Many more to come? Migration from and within Africa This paper analyses past and present migration patterns from and within Africa and the main drivers explaining African migration flows. It then looks at individual characteristics of Africans who prepare for a move abroad. Finally, it develops three scenarios to forecast how many Africans might leave their home countries in the decades to come. Printed by Imprimerie Centrale in Luxembourg 3 MANY MORE TO COME? MIGRATION FROM AND WITHIN AFRICA Contents Overview 5 From Europeans in Africa to Africans in Europe 7 The share of Africans living abroad is not increasing 9 More than half of all African migrants live in other African countries 10 Africa hosts 21.7 million migrants and refugees 13 Less legal and more irregular migration from Africa to Europe 15 Individual intentions: the gap between wish and reality 17 Macro drivers of African migration: diaspora, income differentials, 21 urbanisation and development Scenarios for the 21st century: how demography, development and climate 25 change will shape migration within and from Africa Notes, References and Contributors 31 Are the forces “that drive Africans to migrate across international borders the same as those that drove poor Europeans to seek a better life in the New World a century“ ago? Are these forces likely to intensify or weaken in the future? - Hatton and Williamson, 2003 - 5 Overview This paper analyses past and present migration • Available data do not suggest an imminent patterns from and within Africa and the main drivers mass exodus of Africans. However, our scenarios and characteristics explaining African migration flows. make it clear that socio-economic development, demographic shifts and climate change are likely to On this basis, it develops three scenarios to forecast increase the number of African migrants. Even at an how many Africans might leave their home countries in accelerated speed of socio-economic development, the decades to come. African countries will experience more emigration than immigration during the next 30-40 years. The main findings are: Development will reduce population growth, but it will also increase the ability of young people to • African migration has so far grown in line with migrate. overall population growth. • Climate change and its potentially destabilising • More than one in two African migrants moved to effects will accelerate future migration within another African country, while the other moved Africa and eventually also to neighbouring parts of mostly to Europe, Western Asia or North America. the world. • A number of distinct migration patterns can be • It is not possible to predict the extent to which identified: gradually increasing or additional migratory flows will take place mostly within Africa or to Africa’s • From Maghreb to Europe (mostly family reunion); geopolitical neighbourhood – Europe, the Middle • From Egypt to the Gulf States (mostly East and the Gulf States. This will not only depend temporary workers); on future migration pressures, but also on migration • From Eastern Africa to the Gulf States (mostly policies of receiving countries. temporary workers) and to neighbouring countries (mostly refugees); In sending countries, migration pressure will depend • From Western Africa to neighbouring countries much on policy decisions in three key areas. Investing (mostly temporary workers and long-term in a serious manner in education, especially of younger labour migrants) and to Europe (mostly family women, will slow down population growth. Boosting reunion and irregular migrants); job creation, as well as reinforcing efforts aimed at • From Central Africa to neighbouring countries reducing climate change will help to structurally reduce (for temporary work and refuge); pressures on people to leave their homes. At the same • From Southern Africa to neighbouring countries time though, as GDP per capita increases, so does the (temporary workers and long-tern labour ability of people to migrate. migrants) and to overseas destinations (mostly permanent migrants). • The number of African immigrants settling legally in EU Member States has dropped significantly in the past decade. In counterpart, irregular migration flows across the Mediterranean have increased. 7 From Europeans in Africa to Africans in Europe Links between Africa and Europe are determined The last big wave of post-imperial return comprised both by geographic proximity and by cultural, social, at least half a million colonial settlers of Portuguese economic, post-colonial and migratory ties. Between ascent moving to the ‘motherland’ in 1974-1975.13 the 16th and the 18th centuries, several European Other minorities emigrated, including many people of nations1 established civilian and military outposts2 in Indian origin who were discriminated against after the Africa to facilitate commodity and slave trade3 as part independence in Eastern Africa. Similarly, members of the emerging Atlantic economy, with links to the of the centuries-old Jewish communities of Egypt, already established Arab and Ottoman trade systems. Libya and the Maghreb emigrated as a consequence Until 1800, European presence in Africa was limited of the Arab-Israeli conflict, moving both to Israel and to a handful of traders, adventurers and pioneers. to European countries.14 In the 1970s Israel organised Turkey was the only European country with an extended the emigration of Jewish Falashas and Yemenite colonial presence on the continent. communities from Ethiopia.15 It was only during the 19th and early 20th centuries Aside from these return flows, post-colonial that western and southern European nations4 migration patterns also included an increasing really expanded into Africa, sending civil servants, number of Africans migrating to Europe as soldiers and colonial settlers, as they integrated most workers, students or dependent family members. parts of Africa into their colonial empires.5 Large Indeed, even after gaining independence most countries numbers of Europeans settled in Northern Africa, in northern and Sub-Saharan Africa remained oriented namely in Algeria,6 as well as in Southern Africa7 and to towards the former colonial powers as a result of a smaller extent in Eastern Africa. Until World War I established economic relations, but also cultural and Europe was the main global source of large-scale linguistic ties. In 1960, an estimated 1.3 million African- emigration. Europeans were not alone – the British born people were residents of one of today’s 28 EU colonial administration facilitated the recruitment of Member States.16 Indian labour through agricultural producers and mining companies in eastern and southern Africa,8 leading to European countries attracted (and still continue to the emergence of politically and economically dominant attract) considerable numbers of African students, many minority populations of both European and South Asian of whom did not return to their home countries after descent in some parts of Africa.9 finishing their studies, but remained in Europe or moved on to Australia, Canada or the United States. As of the During the 20th century, the direction of flows 1950s, migrants from Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa changed dramatically. Immigration to Europe took were also often recruited as skilled or unskilled off in earnest in the early part of the century when labour, by Western European destination countries and France started to recruit labour and draft soldiers in industries based on bilateral agreements or individual northern Africa, in particular from Algeria.10 Then, as employment contracts. Such labour recruitment African nations gained independence in the second half agreements17 were concluded with Algeria,18 Morocco19 of the 20th century, European civil servants and and Tunisia.20 However, this recruitment ended quite soldiers moved back to their countries of origin, abruptly in 1972-1974 with the first oil price shock, accompanied by considerable numbers of African- as a consequence of which many migrant workers born descendants of colonial settlers. returned to their countries of origin. Nonetheless, those who remained were
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