Migration - a person's relocation from one place to another within or outside of

their country, either temporarily or permanently.

Types of Migration
●​ Internal Migration - This refers to people moving from one area to another
within their own country. E.g. Mindanao to Luzon, particularly Manila.
●​ International Migration - This refers to people moving from one country to
another. E.g. Philippines to United States.

Types of Migrants
●​ Immigrants - These are people who permanently transfer to another country.
●​ Workers - These are people who temporarily stay in another country for a
fixed period due to work reasons.
●​ Illegal Immigrants - These are people who did not go through a legal process
of papers to migrate.
●​ Petitioned Migrants - These are people who formally request citizenship and
immigration services for their family to a particular country.
●​ Refugees - AKA asylum seekers, people who are unable or reluctant to return
to their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution on account of
race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or
political opinion.

The current global estimate is that there were around 281 million international
migrants in the world in 2020, which equates to 3.6 percent of the global population
(World Migration Report, 2024). In the book Contemporary World by Claudio & P.
Abinales (2018), they stated that 90% of immigrants moved due to economic
reasons and 10% were refugees and asylum-seekers.

The top three regions of origin are Latin America (18% of global total), followed by
Eastern Europe and Central Asia (16%), and the Middle East and North Africa (14%).
On a per country basis, India, Mexico, and China are leading, with the Philippines,
together with Afghanistan, only ranking 6th in the world. The top 10 destinations of
these immigrants are in the West and Middle East, with the United States topping
the list since 1970. 50% of global migrants moved from developing countries to the
developed zones in the world and contribute anywhere from 40%-80% of their
labor force.
Our World in Data (Spooner, et al, 2020)

On the contrary, anti-immigrant groups and nationalists argue that governments

must control legal immigration and put a stop to the illegal entry of foreigners.
Many of these anti-immigrant groups are gaining influence through political
leaders who share their beliefs. However, a 2011 Harvard Business School survey on
the impact of immigration concluded that the “likelihood and magnitude of adverse
labor market effects for natives from immigration are substantially weaker than
often perceived”. Furthermore, the 2013 report on government welfare spending by
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) clearly
shows that native-born citizens still receive higher support compared to
immigrants.

Benefits and Detriments for the Sending Countries

Remittance
-​ Remittances change the economic and social standing of migrants, as shown
by new or renovated homes and their relatives’ access to new consumer
goods. The purchasing power of a migrants’ family doubles and makes it
possible for children to start or continue their education. However, the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) observes that in countries like the Philippines,
remittances “do not have a significant influence on other key items of
consumption or investment such as spending on education and health care.
 Remittances, therefore, may help in lifting “households out of poverty…but
not in rebalancing growth, especially in the long run”.

Brain drain
-​ Global migration is “siphoning qualified personnel, and removing dynamic
young workers”. According to McKinsey Global Institute, countries in
sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have lost one-third of their college graduates.
52% of Filipinos who leave for work in the developed world have tertiary
education, which is more than double the 23% of the overall Filipino
population.
-​ The governments are aware of this long-term handicap, but have no choice
but to continue promoting migrant work as a part of state policy because of
remittances’ impact on GDP. They are equally “concerned with generating
jobs for an underutilized workforce and in getting the maximum possible
inflow of worker remittances”. Governments are thus actively involved in the
recruitment of and deployment like the Bureau of Manpower, Employment
and Training in Bangladesh; the Office of the Protector of Immigrants within
the Indian Labor Ministry; and the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency
(POEA). The sustainability of migrant-dependent economies will partially
depend on the strength of these institutions.

Human Trafficking
-​ The United States Federal Bureau lists human trafficking as the third largest
criminal activity worldwide. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime global report on trafficking in person in 2024, trafficking for
forced labor is relatively more detected in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa,
and The Middle (South America and South Asia & countries in: Eastern and
Southern (Europe and East Asia also detect more victims for forced labor
than for sexual exploitation men are more frequently reported to be
trafficked for forced labor while only about one-third of these victims are
females, both women and girls in 2022. Human trafficking has been very
profitable, earning syndicates, smugglers, and corrupt state officials profits
 of as high as $150 billion a year in 2014.

Integration
-​ Migrants may contribute significantly to a host nation’s GDP, but their access
to housing, health care, and education is not easy. However, there is
considerable variation in the economic integration of migrants. In the US and
Singapore, there are blue-collar workers as well as white-collar workers,
Filipinos, and it is professional, oftentimes easier to integrate.
-​ Democratic states assimilate immigrants and their children by granting them
citizenship and the right to go with it, especially public education. Linguistic
difficulties, customs from the “old country”, and of late, differing regions may
create cleavages between migrants and citizens of receiving countries,
particularly in the West. Crucially, the lack of integration gives xenophobic
and anti-immigrant groups more ammunition to argue that these “new
citizens are often not nationals in the sense of sharing the dominant culture.