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Mig ran ts
There is growing recognition that the number of economic migrants is growing to levels that
are of great concern to host countries and that the probable consequences of this might be
greater stress on host civil authorities to control outbreaks of civil disorder; due often to
competition for food and employment. This growth in economic migrants is out of line with
the historical need of seasonal migrants that has been part of the world economy for many
generations and these newer movements produce ‘non-viable’ migrants that have no
means of surviving in a host country and can be termed as ‘welfare parasites1’ in economies
that cannot hope to cater for the needs.
Throughout Asia, Africa, South America and Europe, low income families are on the move
and in the international economic problems of the first two decades of the 21 st century, it
can be expected that migration of low income and blue collar workers will only increase and
this will put great strain on the basic resources of host countries for housing, employment
and social services.
The majority of migrants that find work do so in the ‘black’ or ‘informal’ economy and
although this may be beneficial to some employers and temporary employees alike, it takes
a significant amount of prospective revenue away from the government purses. Revenues
that (in part) would be used to provide the social and other services that can be expected.
The map above shows the general pattern of migration as in 2008 (From the CIA ‘World
Fact-book) and gives clear indications from where migrants are leaving and the most
popular areas that they are heading towards.
As has been stated, seasonal migrants have benefitted certain industries (mostly
agriculture) at times when the labour requirement is high and disposable at the end of a
given season. Traditionally the seasonal migrant has returned to the traditional home area2
with sufficient income gained to be able to better ensure survival of the family.
A recent problem associated with this, is that the number of people offering themselves as
seasonal migrants has risen beyond the ability of the seasonal occupational opportunity
requirement and this leaves a surplus that do not have sufficient funds to be able to return
to the traditional home area. It is at this stage that a potential seasonal migrant becomes a
welfare parasite.
Usually married with children and struggling to financially provide for the family within a
home area and dependent on casual employment. Is attracted by opportunities heard of
through gossip or media speculation and takes a chance of gaining employment outside of
the traditional home area, with the intention of remitting monies home.
Should this form of migrant successfully gain employment, they send for their immediate
family,3 although the employment situation may not be termed as having longevity. The
situation may arise where the migrant is unable to provide sufficiently for the immediate
family and thus, ends up in the same situation as before they left the traditional home area;
Usually unmarried, having finished secondary or college level education and not seeing any
opportunity in the traditional home area for betterment. Freelance and may not have any
saleable skills in a new environment. For the most part the potential opportunities are for
self improvement with possibly, a secondary intention to remit monies to family in
traditional home area. In one perspective some of the opportunistic migrants could be
termed as ‘social migrants’.
Although reasonably educated this type of migrant may find that he/she is unable to
compete with the host population in jobs that would normally go to reasonably educated
people and he/she takes on menial tasks in order to provide an income for day-to-day living.
Determination to survive by any means may involve illegal activities although this type of
migrant is less likely to become a welfare parasite.
It is unsure if enlisting in one of the United States of America’s armed forces is still a way to
American citizenship, but this has been a way of migrating for many in favoured countries.
Contacts:
Many new migrants have family or other contacts in host countries and are encouraged by
these to join them and ‘start a new life’. The host may have endured a period of difficulty at
the start but has since accomplished a reasonable level of stability and expects the same
for the new migrant. However, as the recent economic problems have highlighted,
situations in host countries are not the same and competition for any level of work is very
high. From this, the migrant becomes a parasite; both on the host acquaintance and on the
host government and from this, can become involved within the black economy and illegal
activities.
Understanding the need to migrate is important as is the need to look at both rural and
urban migration. Although (Map ‘B’) shows the percentage of people living on less than
US$1.25 a day, many rural families are able to provide the basic food requirements on this
amount of money although there is no regular ‘disposable income’ nor is the amount of
money earned regular; often depending on the seasons. Where, as in the urban areas, there
is strong competition for employment opportunity and the ability to forage for food is
unavailable is where the greatest concerns lay. However, the inflationary cost of producing
food crops drives many rural (potential) wage earners into the urban areas to further add to
the competition for employment.
The basic need for employment is to put food on the table and be able to have disposable
income for the necessities of schooling, healthcare and other essentials and the high cost of
school requisites is a heavy burden.
Map ‘B’ shows areas where the populations live on less than US$1.25 a day and therefore
the most likely source of migrants. However, most migration in developing countries is
internal and this complicates the ability of developing economies to be able to respond to
the needs in social and other services. It is also in these areas where the informal economy
is more active that a formal economy and given a government’s poor ability to enforce
revenue collection this deprives these areas of social and other service provision.
The majority of economic migrants are to be found in the areas that house the poorest
members of society, frequenting the local markets for cheap food to be taken back to
crowded accommodation with few sanitary services. Many of these areas are volatile with
excesses in prostitution, alcohol abuse, petty violence, petty theft gambling and abuse of
women. In this situation it is often necessary to take a side in arguments and the migrants
become targets of abuse from others in the same economic situation and are usually
blamed for [a] causing a situation or [b] exacerbating a situation. Employment
opportunities, accommodation shortages, competition for education places for their children
and access to social and health services are examples of blame passed on by residents and
these create volatile situations. Although these are primary, in amongst these complaints is
food availability and price and the shortages and subsequent increases in price are often
blamed on the migrants as they have swelled the buyer’s market when basic food resources
(seller’s market) are limited. In these areas, other than a few charitable organisations,
healthcare and education are not free as is understood in developed countries and few if
any have medical insurance.
These areas have their own economic structures with a dependence on black market
economies dealing with drugs, prostitution and petty crime and in general, few authorities
have any interest in the communities and the police usually steer a wide path around them;
unless there is an outbreak of violence, which they tend to react to with violence. It is of
little wonder then that these communities are volatile and become anti-establishment and
open to anti-authority groups.
As in any concern, there are causes and effects and both have economic consequences and
also economic roots. One type of economic migrant leaves a home area to seek
opportunities of employment and the ability to provide for a family, be the family with them
or remaining in the traditional home area. Another type is single and seeks opportunities in
order to [a] improve their personal status or [b], to help provide for family members in the
traditional home area. The single migrant is highly mobile and able to follow up potential
opportunities for employment. Many of the single migrants have received a secondary level
of education and the migrant has recognised that by staying in the traditional home area,
their chance of progression is very limited and thus, in some way, an improved level of
education may be responsible for the desire to migrate. A good example of this is the
number of Filipinos that take up foreign domestic service posts in order to [a] gain a
foothold in foreign places and [b] to support a family back in the Philippines. The number of
Filipinos that have stayed abroad after the completion of a contract is not known, but part of
the Philippines economy depends on the remittances sent home. These remittances pay for
For decades seasonal migrants have provided labourers in agriculture and this has
benefitted all and has provided cheap labour as and when required. Traditional migration
has provided middle class urban areas with domestic and retail workers which have usually
regulated its own numbers by the number of employment opportunities available. Likewise
industry has, in the past benefitted from migrant labour in the low income sectors in mining,
construction, heavy industry, domestic services and others and until recently these numbers
have also been self regulating due to opportunities available for employment.
During the last two decades, the number of professional (white collar workers) have added
to the mass migration numbers, seeking greater opportunities in areas where their skills
have usually found a market and these are usually welcomed by host communities. The
problems associated with the migration of professional migrants have been two-fold; [a]
they have drained home communities of their skills and left a hole in the development
potential of their home areas and [b], as their numbers have increased in the host
communities, they have created competition in professional labour markets for resident
professionals and for newly graduated university students, seeking to get a foot on the
professional ladder. In this, the most worrying factor is the drain on professional skills in a
home country and many governments are concerned about this and have put restrictions on
those that have benefitted from a government’s education system. As an example, many
doctors and nurses have left developing countries to work in America and Europe leaving
their home country health systems with major shortages in trained personnel, with the
subsequent decline in service provision for the poorest sectors of communities.
Add also the assortment of conflict migrants fleeing various areas of hostility throughout the
world and the stress levels to local governments become conspicuous and these authorities
will have to use increasingly limited resources to address the problems. One of the resulting
consequences of the increase in all types of migrants is the perceived threat to security and
security services. There is no doubt that migrants cause economical and civil stress in host
communities and there is little that the host governments can do to counteract the
problems that arise.
Overall there is a high level of competition for employment, housing and where they exist,
social services and there have been an increasing number clashes between migrants and
residents for the finite employment opportunities and the social services. The presence of
large numbers of migrants has also had an effect on the price of basic foods in areas where
there are food shortages and these have created the most civil disorders and violence has
erupted on several occasions and fatalities have occurred. Africa, Asia, South America, the
Caribbean and other places have experienced these and are now highly concerned that
these will increase and that civil authorities may need to take stronger action to not only
avoid but also to control these outbreaks.
It is to be expected that as the increasing effect of climate change takes a stronger hold,
mass migration will occur and again the frailty of employment markets, basic food supplies,
housing availability and limited social services will come under very great stress. The full
effects of climate change will not be seen for many decades but changes in national
The growing number of impoverished families that migrate to and settle in the urban areas
will cause great pressure and those communities that rely on rice as a major part of their
staple food will find great shortages until such a time that improved varieties are made
available to counteract the temperature rises and saltwater flooding that will destroy some
areas of rice production areas.
In the age of terrorism and subversive groups, a great fear of security services is the
infiltration into migrant groups by members of terrorism groups. Posing as economic or
conflict migrants it would be reasonably simple for subversives enter host countries and
given the multitude of conflicts all over the world, security services are stretched to cover
all immigrants.
The threat to governments of infiltration by subversive groups increases stress on the small
communities where migrants settle, as these areas are already under stress from the lack of
employment opportunity and social services provision and are areas where subversives
could support civil disturbances against governments.
The occurrences of food related civil disorders are becoming more noticeable as headlines
throughout the world and to some extent, are self feeding due to the publicity that they
engender although the problems of food insecurity are the root cause. The rights of access
to food and clean water are written into the United Nations bill of rights and yet there is still
one third of the world’s population that does not have sufficient access and to this end,
governments are responding more to the need to control riots than to the need to ensure
reliable yet low cost sources of food. Although it is correct that the civil authorities must
control any civil unrest situation, it is also correct to question the amount of aggression used
by the authorities in certain situations. Food and safe drinking water are basic rights and
there may be a need for civil rights organisations to study these situations to determine if
there is a need review the law in respect of civil rights issues regarding food and water
shortages.
The addition of economic migrants to existing poor levels of employment and food stocks to
communities already under stress does create tension within the poorest families and
governments have ignored this factor and have failed to put in place systems by which the
potential threats could be monitored. It is accepted that in many countries it is not possible
for the authorities to control the movements of migrants, as having long borders it is not
possible to stop migrants. It is simpler for island nations that only have to deal with internal
migration. In South America, Africa, Asia and Europe where borders cannot be closed the
uncontrolled movement of migrants does not allow governments to predict needs and in a
global food recession, prices and thus populations are volatile.
It is therefore clear that there are threats to the economies of developing countries whereby
informal economies reduce government revenues, causes greater expenditure on civil
disorder control, whilst not having sufficient social service budgets available to make the
necessary provision for food and water.
The authorities:
Few governments can do much about the rapid inflation in food prices, especially in years of
low yields, other than to create and maintain large stocks of reserves from purchases on the
international commodity markets. This creates its own inflationary process by forcing
governments to compete with each other for declining surpluses and other than subsidise
the cost when distributing these purchases, governments can do little to control food prices.
When governments leave market forces to reach their own levels they risk civil disturbances
and subsidising basic food prices, governments have reduced budgets for use on other
purposes.
Most government authorities are used to some level of migrants entering their countries
and have learned to tolerate a certain number, especially when it is economically useful,
Most of these countries have very basic sanitary, health and education services that do not
cope well with the traditional populace and security services that (often corrupt) are
expected to tend to the needs of the middle and upper classes. Under these circumstances
there can be no surprises to learn that many of the shanty towns are ‘no go’ areas and left
to their own devices, unless a high profile crime has been committed.
The governments have failed to study the causes behind economic migration and this might
be because they have very limited means to be able to counteract the need to migrate.
Rural poverty caused by a lack of agricultural development and a lack of employment
opportunities is a major reason of economic migration, despite there being an existing need
to increase agricultural production. It is also true, to some extent, that mechanisation in
agricultural production has reduced the number of employment opportunities, adding to the
need to migrate.
Within the established industries of mining, component manufacturing and others; many of
which are owned and managed by international conglomerates, the profits are exported and
little is left to assist governments to invest. These international conglomerates negotiate tax
levels that are lower that for indigenous businesses and even amongst these, tax evasion is
rife. Therefore governments do not create sufficient income to be able to improve the social
or sanitary services and certainly have little in the coffers to be able to invest in rural
activities.
Consideration should be given to a study to determine how many countries depend on the
international development organisations to build and maintain their basic infrastructures
and services. It will probably be found that the international community is responsible for a
very significant percentage of investment and this creates a relief mentality within recipient
governments and assumptions are made that the international community will always come
to the rescue and this can no longer be guaranteed in these times when there are many
more situations where the international community is expected to respond. And, given the
economic problems of many of the developed nations, not only is the need increasing, the
ability to respond diminishes, despite protestations that ‘international development’ is a
priority; this being a paper tiger situation.
Whilst the international conglomerates take income out of a country the international
development organisations are expected to take responsibility for the basic investment with
the result that any industry does not have to take any responsibility for utilising its profits
locally. In the long term, the impoverished populations are likely to hold the international
conglomerates responsible for their plight and governments will be forced to nationalise
(and in some cases renationalise) the major asset resources.
In most countries it is a citizen’s right to protest and the right of a citizen to expect basic
rights is acknowledged, in most countries. In this context, during 2008 civil disturbances
over food shortages and food prices have erupted in most continents within the poorest
Threats to Developing Economies and Civil Disorder from Migrants
www.Corestudies.co.uk
Page 9
sectors of the community and civil authorities have, in general, responded with some
aggression. Some of these have been related to immigrants causing local population
expansions where conditions are poor, employment opportunity scarce, overcrowding high;
with social services nonexistent or poor and where the cost of basic foods has risen above a
level whereby the poorest cannot afford to purchase sufficient to feed a family for many
days. Even without being urged by anti-authority groups, the poorest members of the
community have, in the first instance, turned their wrath on the market suppliers and then
onto a government.
We have seen a government (Philippines) bring in a law against hoarding food, punishable
by long sentences in prison and it is likely that more countries will follow suit. It is necessary
here to establish that many small farmers save the majority of their harvest for family use
and also keep a certain amount for marketing at a time after harvest when prices have risen
and it is necessary to determine to what level farmers may store basic food items, before it
is considered as hoarding.
We have seen several governments ban the exportation of high quality cereal grains and
this has increased the incidences of food smuggling which is now becoming a very lucrative
business and often in the control of the anti-authority groups; thus providing both economic
and political power to some degree.
Governments have ignored the need to monitor potential ‘risk scenarios’ at community level
where food, employment and social services are poor. Populations are losing confidence in
governments’ ability to provide sufficient basic food resources, or of their ability to control
profiteering or high inflationary price increases.
Arising from these disturbances may be civil rights issues against those that have hoarded
food or forced price increases or profiteering.
However much it is essential that governments respond to the present and future needs to
ensure that adequate food and water resources to their populations are made available, it is
clear that individually governments do not and will not have the necessary means to be able
to respond and that only a co-ordinated approach, with other governments can address any
of the problems. It is also likely that there is only surface political will to globally respond to
a global problem.
It is also clear that there is neither time nor resources to be able to respond to the short
term needs and that, as a consequence, one third of the world’s 6.9 billion population (2.3
billion) is at risk from undernourishment in 2010 and that by 2040, 3.5 billion of the nearly
10 billion people will be thus affected. Of the present 2.3 billion at risk, one billion are at
serious risk and no organisation has the ability to respond at this time and this does not
take into account a probable increase in this number, due to the greater incidences of
conflict throughout the world, adding more conflict migrants to the problem of economic
migrants.
The United Nations and other international bodies are incapable of putting together
development packages that would address the needs, as is the African Union, the European
Union or the United States of America and it is very unlikely that all of these together could
either fund or organise and manage the responses required; even putting aside the
economic inconveniences associated with co-ordinating a response, the ability of these
several groups to politically agree is arguably fragile.
However desirable some or all of the above may be, it is extremely unlikely that
international unions will be unable to come together and act jointly to
Nationalisation of the vast mineral and other resources: Only by taking back control of
the mineral extraction rights can governments hope to create the wealth required to put
in place the essential food and potable water programmes that are needed, although by
nationalising (or re-nationalising) these assets the governments would isolate the
conglomerates and would probably spend many years in international courts fighting for
ownership of the assets.
Higher taxation on mineral extraction: By demanding higher taxes on mineral
extraction, governments would equalise taxes on other revenue sources; as many of the
conglomerates gain very favourable tax levels prior to investing in prospecting and
extraction. The lower tax rates often go hand-in-hand with corruption.
Lower taxation for the conglomerates in exchange for greater financial participation
in development programmes: Given that the conglomerates already receive very
favourable taxation levels, governments would risk losing considerable revenue sums
should this be considered.
Establish, through the major international political unions (United Nations ,European
Union, United States of America, Islamic ?, and the African Union etc) a means by
which, collectively they would devote a higher percentage of GDP to international
The following map (‘E’) shows the ‘average’ rainfall precipitations and highlights the need to
improve water storage in many of the African and European areas:
Map ‘E’