According to the International Organization for Migration's World Migration Report 2010, the number of international migrants was estimated at 214 million in 2010. If this number continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years, it could reach 405 million by 2050.
Immigration is defined as the flow of people into a land, country or dominion; the imported people are not native to that country. While emigration is the flow of people from a land, country or dominion; the exported people are native to that country.
While the pace of migration had accelerated since the 18th century already, it would increase further in the 19th century. There are three major types of migration: labor migration, refugee migrations, and urbanization. Millions of agricultural workers left the countryside and moved to the cities causing unprecedented levels of urbanization. This phenomenon began in Britain in the late 18th century and spread around the world and continues to this day in many areas.
Industrialization encouraged migration wherever it appeared. The increasingly global economy globalized the labour market.
Migration for work in the 21st century has become a popular way for individuals from impoverished developing countries to obtain sufficient income for survival. This income is sent home to family members in the form of remittances and has become an economic staple in a number of developing countries, namely the Philippines and those in Latin America.
Around 9.5 million to 12.5 million overseas Filipinos are the estimated count worldwide or about 11% of the total population of the Philippines as of 2010.
The World Bank expects remittances to the Philippines to hit $23 billion in 2011 on the account of rising demand for Filipino workers despite the unfavorable global economic climate. With the bank’s projection, it said the Philippines would likely remain as the fourth-largest remittance recipient country following India (seen to get $58 billion), China ($57 billion), and Mexico ($24 billion). For all developing countries, remittances are expected to hit a total amount of $351 billion, which represents an 8-percent increase from last year’s $323 billion.
Remittances are a closely watched economic indicator. In the case of the Philippines, remittances from the more than 10 million overseas Filipino workers are deemed vital because these significantly help fuel consumption of Filipino households that in turn is a key growth driver for the domestic economy.
While every country's economy reaps the benefits brought about by the remittances of their own citizens, the very fibre of every migrant worker's family is getting loose. And the most affected are the children. It may be beneficial financially in the short term, but it also has social implications in the long term.
The difference between immigrant workers from the developing nation and the Irish that chooses to work outside of Ireland is, the Irish always has the option to bring their families wherever they chooses to work, while the former has limited options, vis-a-vis their own families.
Below is an article by Dan O'Brien of the Irish Times on March 22, 2012 entitled “Irish emigration a fact of life but not as bad as it could be". (The full article is available at www.irishtimes.ie)
“OVER THE past two centuries, the population dynamics of this island have been utterly unique. After 1800 the world experienced a demographic explosion the like of which had never been seen before in human history.
In every country on every continent for which figures or estimates exist, the numbers of people soared. Even the slowest-growing countries experienced more than a doubling of their populations over the 19th and 20th centuries.
But not Ireland. It is the only country – without exception – to have experienced depopulation. This unparalleled decline continued for 120 years, from the Great Famine to the 1960s. Many factors contributed. None did so more than emigration – and now that phenomenon is back.
This is profoundly depressing, but is it not surprising. The shock to the economy and employment over the past four years – a shock incomparably more severe than that of the 1980s, when emigration was last prevalent – has resulted in one in seven jobs disappearing. A decline in the numbers at work of that magnitude – 300,000 jobs – would have led to emigration in any open economy. In one with a historically mobile native population and a large recently arrived immigrant community, it could have been expected to trigger a stampede to airport departure lounges.
That has not happened, however. The surprising aspect of the post-crash emigration phenomenon is how limited it has been, according to statisticians’ (pre-census) figures.
A change was slow in coming after the crash. Despite 2009 being by far the worst year of the recession, not least because it was the year in which most jobs were lost, Irish emigration increased only very slightly. It grew in each subsequent year and now appears to be on an upward trajectory.
But at an estimated 40,000 people last year, emigration still remains much below that of the late 1980s, when more than 70,000 people left in a single year (that figure is for total emigration which, given how few foreigners lived in Ireland at that time, can be assumed to have been overwhelmingly Irish).
To see why the numbers leaving now are lower than one might have thought, consider the three years before and after the crash.
The total number of Irish people emigrating in the 2006-08 period was 42,000. In 2009-11, it was 86,000.
During the former period, jobs were plentiful. It is safe to assume that all Irish people leaving during those years did so out of choice. Even if one assumes that the overwhelming majority, say 80 per cent, of the increase in emigration since the crash is involuntary, it still suggests that more Irish people who have left since 2009 have done so by choice rather than because they felt forced to leave. That, incidentally, is exactly what a recently published Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI survey found.
Why has Irish emigration been less than might have been expected?
One reason is likely to have been the suddenness of the change. Up to 2008, boom conditions had prevailed for a decade and a half. Many people had come to believe the good times would never end. But within a year the economy was in a depression. It takes time to internalise such a shift and incorporate it and its consequences into one’s life plans.
The more recent rise in Irish emigration may reflect more people gradually reaching the conclusion that after almost four years of recession and a number of false dawns, things are not about to get better any time soon. If more people reach this gloomy (and not implausible) conclusion, the numbers uprooting themselves will rise.
It is likely – all things considered – that more Irish people will leave in the short term. But that is far from certain. The most important influencing factor will be conditions in the Irish jobs market.
Happily, there are signs that employment prospects are improving. At the end of 2011, the first post-crash increase in the number of jobs in the economy was recorded. If more opportunities open up at home, then the rise of emigration could be halted.
At the beginning of the recession, foreigners suffered most job losses. Reflecting the tendency of immigrants everywhere to have less job security than locals, non-Irish were more likely than natives to become unemployed during the jobs haemorrhage in late 2008 and into 2009.
With fewer attachments to Ireland, they were also more inclined to leave than Irish people at that low point.
But since 2010, emigration among foreigners has been falling (just as the trend among Irish people is going the other way).
Predicting patterns of migration is very difficult. Whether emigration rises or falls will depend on many factors. But one thing is sure – movements on to and off this island continue to be unusually large compared to those in other European countries. That is not about to change. Ireland’s 200-year history as a demographic curiosity looks set to continue.”
(Dan O’Brien is Economics Editor, Irish Times).
According to the Irish Central Statistics Office, there are 4.59 million people (of which a little over 10% are immigrants) living in present day Ireland. And it is also a fact that there are an estimated 20 million of Irish descent scattered throughout the world. There are so many 'what ifs' in my mind that I wanted to get answers from, but these following two questions comes out on top. What if the likes of the Kennedy's and the Obama's did not migrate to the US of A, will John F. Kennedy's famous speech of “Ask not what the country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your county”, could have been delivered in the Houses of the Oireachtas rather than the halls of US Congress? Or, will Barack Obama ends up saying "Is Féidir Lin" in his inauguration as the new Taoiseach instead of pushing for quantitative easing to solve America's current economic woes?
This topic is not a laughing matter, at least for myself and millions more like me around the world. Being born youngest in the brood of 13, orphaned from my parent at the early age of 12, grew up under Martial Law rule of the 'conjugal dictatorship', I knew exacly what survival is all about. For some people, immigration and emigration may be a matter of choice, but for me, having worked and lived accross 6 countries . . . . . it's the only choice.
