Migration Arnold T01957 00 pre 1 10/10/2011 08:58 Arnold T01957 00 pre 2 10/10/2011 08:58 MIGRATION Changing the World Guy Arnold Arnold T01957 00 pre 3 10/10/2011 08:58 First published 2012 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © Guy Arnold 2012 The right of Guy Arnold to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 2906 2 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 2905 5 Paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America Arnold T01957 00 pre 4 10/10/2011 08:58 Contents Introduction 1 PART I THE AMERICAS 1 The United States 21 2 Mexico 30 3 Canada and the Caribbean 35 4 South America 43 PART II EUROPE 5 The European Union 53 6 Britain 64 7 France and Germany 79 8 Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece 90 9 Europe’s Small Developed States 106 10 East Europe, Turkey 117 11 Russia 129 PART III AFRICA 12 Africa and Europe 139 13 Sudan and the Horn of Africa 150 14 The Congo, Rwanda, Burundi 159 15 West Africa 170 16 Southern Africa 181 PART IV ASIA 17 China 199 18 India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka 210 19 Southeast Asia 220 20 Southwest Asia: The Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran 234 21 The Asian Periphery: Japan, South Korea and Australia 244 22 Tentative Conclusions 253 Notes 265 Select Bibliography 273 Index 275 Arnold T01957 00 pre 5 10/10/2011 08:58 Arnold T01957 00 pre 6 10/10/2011 08:58 Introduction For centuries the River Danube acted as the frontier of Rome. In 104 CE the Emperor Trajan built a great bridge across the river below the gorge of the Iron Gates to make possible the conquest of Dacia (modern Romania) and Roman military camps along the river later developed into cities. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–80) spent eight bitter winters on the frozen banks of the Danube facing the barbarians who threatened Rome. The severity of the final winter killed him. The Empire faced the most serious threat to its internal security for more than two and a half centuries during the years 166 to 180, when Roman armies had to mount four campaigns – at huge cost in wealth and lives – to hold the frontier. These Marcommanic wars marked the end of a long period of relative peace and stable relations between the Roman Empire and the peoples of Central Europe and signalled the coming of two centuries of growing external threats to Rome. The Emperor Septimus Severus (193–211) controlled twelve legions along the Danube – nearly half the Empire’s permanent regular army – when in 193 he made his bid for supreme power. The Emperor Aurelian (270–75) had faced the fury of the Goths many times as a general before he became emperor and his experience in the field persuaded him to reorder the Danubian frontier; he did this by relinquishing Roman control over Dacia, which he saw as a reasonable price to pay for peace, and a century of peace followed. However, in 376 the Emperor Valens agreed to allow Goths to cross the river to escape the pressure of the Huns, a move that proved fatal to Rome’s control of the Danube frontier, for, once across the river, the Goths turned against the Romans and in August of that year a Roman army led by Valens was defeated at the battle of Adrianople with the loss of 20,000 men as well as the Emperor himself. Twenty years later, when the Danube had frozen over (394–5) the Hun cavalry crossed the river into the Empire. These and subsequent migrations in the fifth century brought an end to the Roman Empire of the West. A NEW DIMENSION In the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century the world faced huge movements of people, both within and between countries, that were both proportionately and absolutely the largest migrations in history. Europe and the United States, which have historically long been migrant target areas, faced new waves of incomers but the scale of these was dwarfed by the massive internal movement of migrants inside China, as people moved from the countryside to the cities to provide workers for the country’s huge industrial and commercial development revolution. The great majority of all these movers are motivated by economic considerations, the search for a 1 Arnold T01957 01 text 1 10/10/2011 08:58 2 MIGRATION better life. One non-economic result of these mass movements is the creation of huge social strains. In addition to the economic movers are the people who have been displaced by famine and war or those who seek political asylum. The economics of migration are demonstrated by the example of Ireland. One of the poorest countries in Europe when it joined the European Union (EU) in 1973 it then saw its people, especially the young, migrating in search of work and it was a net loser of people up to 1993, when unemployment stood at 16 per cent of the work force. Then its economic recovery took off and by 1995 it had become a net gainer of people, many of them returning citizens. Ireland was to enjoy a decade of growth and near full employment as the Celtic Tiger. But the ‘miracle’ came to an end abruptly in 2008 when the country entered into recession. Depending upon how long the recession lasts Ireland may again find that it is a net loser of people. The Irish example illustrates how economic fortunes control migration patterns. DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS According to United Nations (UN) projections the world population is likely to increase by 2.5 billion over the next 41 years, growing from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. Most of this increase will be absorbed by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050, while the developed regions will remain largely unchanged at 1.2 billion – and this figure will depend upon net migration from the developing to the developed countries, which is expected to average 2.3 million persons a year. The more developed regions will see a near doubling of those over 60 years of age from 245 million in 2005 to 406 million in 2050, while those under age 60 will decline from 971 million in 2005 to 839 million in 2050. Thus, while the global population as a whole is increasing, with virtually all population growth occurring in the developing regions, the population of the more developed regions will hardly increase at all. These predictions, however, will depend upon upward or downward trends in the fertility rate, which in 2008 stood at 2.55 children per woman. Population ageing as well as reductions in fertility rates will have a significant impact upon the developed regions. At the present time 20 per cent of the population in the developed regions is already aged 60 years or more and by 2050 this figure is expected to reach 33 per cent. Moreover, by 2050 there will be more than twice as many older persons in developed countries as persons under 15. A number of the least developed countries will experience particularly high population growth rates: for example, the populations of Afghanistan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Timor-Leste and Uganda are expected at least to triple by 2050. By contrast, in 46 countries or areas that include Germany, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea and most of the successor states of the USSR, populations are expected to be lower in 2050 than in 2005. During the period 2005–50 eight countries are expected to account for half the world’s population increase: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Arnold T01957 01 text 2 10/10/2011 08:58 INTRODUCTION 3 Ethiopia, the United States, Bangladesh and China. The world median age, which can be taken as an indicator of population ageing, is expected to reach 38 years in 2050, but in Europe, where the median age is now 39 years, it is expected to reach 47 by 2050. The higher the median age the greater the ageing that has taken place. These figures form a necessary background to the migration of people. The UN estimates that the net receivers of international migrants in terms of annual averages will be: the United States (1.1 million annually), Canada (200,000), Germany (150,000), Italy (139,000), the United Kingdom (130,000), Spain (123,000), Australia (100,000). The countries with the highest levels of net migration are projected to be: China (–329,000 annually), Mexico (–306,000), India (–241,000), Philippines (–180,000), Pakistan (–167,000) and Indonesia (–164,000).1 REPLACEMENT MIGRATION Western countries must face the vital question of whether replacement migration provides a solution to population decline and population ageing.