Recorrido 3

An overview of the twentieth century economic crises, notably the great depression (1930-32), the oil crisis (1973-75), the Asian financial crisis (1997-1999) as well as the recent global economic crisis (2008-10) leads us to draw unanimous, with few exceptions only, some general inferences for such economic crisis times. These are reduced inflows of immigrants to the destination places, increased return migration flows (GMG, 2010a), changes in the governmental policies like tightening of the immigration policies, increased negatively affectedness of migrants as compared to native workers during the crisis times in the destination places (Green and Winters, 2010) and a paradigm shift in the migration and development policy debate. A poor economic situation in destination places could drive migrants to leave the country in search of better job prospects (OECD, 2009: 27). The evidence for international return migration during such times of economic crises is significant, though limited. Table 4.1 presents a brief outline of the important economic crises and global events of the twentieth century up to the recent global economic crisis of the twenty first century and the associated developments in migratory patterns documented, the migration policy debate and the research community orientation for the corresponding timeline periods of economic/ global events. It is important to mention here that these are just the glimpses of some of the international migratory movements and patterns associated with the economic crises and other global events as all heterogeneous migratory movements cannot be captured and explained with uniform descriptions. Further, it has also been tried to find some insights for return migration phenomenon during these different timeline phases.

If we look closely at the literature presented in Table 4.1, we can draw further inferences. Firstly, economically attractive places have remained as the leading destination places for international migrants. Secondly, the major economic crisis

1 OECD is an organisation of 34 countries (as on 26.12.2014) whose member states are mostly comprised of high-income economies and are considered as developed countries.

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37 Table 4.1: Economic/global events, migration policy field and research community orientation for corresponding time periods

Timeline during the World War I (1914-18) making them unattractive for migration destination places, while the United States (US) as least affected during the war times was viewed as a very attractive destination (OECD, 2009: 29) for Asians and many Europeans people

depression A time when US economy lowered down to more than -10 % (Real GDP Growth) (OECD, 2009: 29) bringing inflows of migrants to US at minimal levels and

Observed a time of negative net migration caused by the economic crisis with

II War time conditions which displaced millions of people encouraged in the origin and destination places both,

crisis Migratory inflows to many OECD countries were

Chapter 4 Global Economic Crisis and International Migration GDP growth rates) for many of the OECD countries resulted in closure of the labour migration channels in most of the European countries, hence limited migrants inflows were observed. It also resulted in a shift from European countries to Middle East countries as attractive destination places (Lucas, 2005, as referred to by Green and Winter, 2010) on with restrictions on the labour migration

periods resulted in a paradigm shift in the migration policy field. The greatest significant impact of such severe crisis times was in many cases the tightening of immigration policies and closure of labour migration programmes. This paradigm shift resulted in reduced inflows to the destination places and increased outflows from those places.

Thirdly, such crisis periods also dragged pessimism into the migration and development

2 References for contents of the table have been placed alongside the contents

39 debate and they have been regarded as key turning points for migration policy field and research community orientation. Fourthly, the return migration is becoming resilient to economic crisis shocks and this trend has been explained by the theories of new economics of labour migration (NELM), livelihood strategies and transnationality. Lastly, international remittances have also been noted as resilient during the recent global economic crisis period (2008-10). This is a newly emerged trend in international migration whose evidence for the previous major economic crisis periods is not available in the literature.

After reviewing the history of the economic crises and the associated implications on the migratory patterns, it could be concluded that outflows have been associated with the changing economic conditions in the destination places. The main reasons explained in the literature for increased outflows of migrants from the destination countries during economic downturn times are lesser employment opportunities, anti-migration policies including implementation of return migration supported policies adopted by many of the receiving countries, affectedness vulnerability and an increased negative attitude of the host societies. Hatton and Willamson (2009), OECD (2009: 13) and IOM (2011: 56) also noted that the scepticism, potential discrimination, xenophobia and anti-immigrant attitudes of the host societies towards immigrants tended to increase during the economic crisis periods. The findings of Harris/Financial Times survey (as referred to by Ghosh, 2011: 68) in five major European countries in April 2009 also reflected that the majority of the participants of the survey was of the opinion that the unemployed foreign workers from other European countries should go back to their home countries. On the other hand, an international study of public opinion conducted in many countries by the German Marshall Fund (2009: 5) found that the majority of people still considered immigration as an opportunity rather than a problem despite the severe crisis conditions. So a contradictory finding of public opinion surveys regarding immigrants within Europe reflects that it is not a straightforward relation between economic crisis conditions in the destination places and the public sentiments towards immigrants, but various other factors also play their role in developing public opinion.

Many of the key findings of the literature for the historical economic crisis periods also remain valid for the recent global economic crisis (2008-11), except that the return migration and international remittances have become resilient to the consequences of the economic crisis shocks (Castles, 2011). The outflows of migrants were generally observed as significant in those cases where legal constraints and international borders did not act as barriers towards mobility like within European Union member states (IOM, 2010b: 4) and where the economic conditions in the origin places strengthened during crisis times (Ghosh, 2011: 65). But this general finding of the literature cannot rule out the possibility of the increased return migration intentions of the immigrants due to the multi-dimensional effects of the economic crisis on their lives.