MIGRATION: You don't have to be rich

Developing countries attract migrants too

THE complaints sound familiar. Foreigners steal our jobs. Aliens cause a rise in crime. The corrupt interior ministry cannot cope. The border is ineffective and deporting illegal migrants does not work: removed by train, they return on foot. Outsiders put a strain on housing, especially for the poor, and on hospitals and schools. But employers do not care: farmers want cheap labour, and rich families need skilful foreign gardeners and housekeepers.

ReutersTurfed out of Little London

Residents of Soweto, or other urban areas in South Africa, are likely to grumble about foreigners in the same way as in rich countries. The makwerekwere, as African foreigners are insultingly known, are attracted by South Africa's relative wealth. Some Tanzanians talk longingly of Johannesburg as “Little London”. One in four Little Londoners may now be a foreigner. Zimbabwean teachers, forced out by hunger and repression, work as security guards and shop assistants. Congolese lawyers toil as waiters and chefs.

In 2005 two World Bank researchers, Mr Ratha and William Shaw, estimated that two in five migrants—about 78m people—were outside rich countries. But who in the poor world is counting? South Africa's government does not know how many foreigners it has (2m? 5m? more?). Mexico, India or Turkey cannot be sure either. Total numbers are skewed by those displaced by the collapse of the Soviet Union or who became de facto migrants when borders moved.

Ms Newland of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC, says the flows between poor and mid-income countries are huge but “desperately understudied”. One reason why outsiders pay little attention is that most poor migrants do not move far. Roughly half of all South-East Asian migrants are thought to have remained in the neighbourhood, and nearly two-thirds of migrants from eastern Europe and Central Asia have stayed in their own region. Nearly 70% of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa remain on their continent. West African countries do not limit immigration from their neighbours, so lots of people cross borders, for example from Ghana to oil-rich Nigeria.

Some middle-income countries, such as Morocco, Mexico, Turkey and Libya, are well-trodden transit routes with migrant populations of their own. A senior civil servant in Morocco laments that his country is “between the hammer and the anvil” of Africa and Europe. Others, like India, Russia, South Africa and Argentina, are destinations in their own right. With all this come the same opportunities and threats as in the rich world. Chile imports doctors and maids from Peru, raising worries about a brain drain. Zambians fret about an invasion by Chinese, whose numbers in Africa are said to be between 80,000 to 400,000, many in oil-rich countries such as Sudan, Nigeria and Angola.

Remittances from one low-income country to another probably help to cut poverty. A 2006 study of 4,700 households by the Southern African Migration Project found that 40% of Zimbabwean households received some money from this source. How much is hard to measure, but a World Bank estimate for 2006 gives a range for remittances among poor countries of $17 billion-55 billion.

Some middle-income countries are extraordinarily welcoming. Venezuela, awash with oil revenues, even allows Colombians to use its social-welfare system. Argentina has lifted most restrictions on immigration from South America, again guaranteeing access to public health and education, even for illegal migrants. But many other countries show signs of xenophobia. On one occasion a newspaper in Morocco gave warning that “black locusts”—African migrants—were invading. Russian authorities, especially in Moscow, regularly throw out traders from Georgia and elsewhere in the Caucasus. Libya occasionally expels African migrants.

Many poor people are drawn to somewhat less poor countries in the hope of finding work, just as they are to rich countries. But with war, repression and economic collapse, push factors are much stronger in the poor world. The invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the violence since, has uprooted more than 4m Iraqis. Some 95% of them have remained in the Middle East, including 2m in hard-pressed Jordan and Syria. Sweden, with an admirable history of taking in refugees, has welcomed 23,600 Iraqis, but few other rich countries have followed suit. Some of the displaced are beginning to return home. Since the Taliban were booted from power in 2001, Afghanistan has seen the voluntary return of at least 3.2m people from Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.

Climate of fear

Could a changing climate cause similarly big ebbs and flows? Scientists agree that average temperatures are likely to rise significantly by the end of this century. Rainfall patterns are already shifting. Those in marginal areas, for example on the edges of deserts, will suffer most, along with those in countries with the least resources to adapt. The sea is also rising, which might mean floods on vulnerable coasts. Some 12% of Africa's urban population, and 18% of Asia's, live in low-lying coastal zones and may be exposed to extreme weather or floods. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested in 2007 that millions may face water shortages, hunger and flooding as a result of climate shifts. Some would migrate, although probably over a period of time.

Environmental change has already set off some migration. Because the Sahel region gets much less rain than it did a century ago, farmers in Mali are moving to the cities. According to the UN Environment Programme, over the past four decades the desert in Sudan has crept south by about 100km and forests have disappeared. Rainfall in north Darfur, in Sudan, has dropped by a third over the past 80 years.

All this has displaced people and, some believe, encouraged war. Morocco's government is anxious about it. “There is a direct impact on migration. You see people leaving sub-Saharan Africa in search of more habitable land,” says Mr Ameur, the minister for Moroccans abroad. Abdelhay Moudden, a migration expert in Rabat, suggests that the first to leave may be struggling farmers: “If the urban economy cannot absorb them, then it may also push international migration.”

A 2005 report by the Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn suggested that rising seas and extreme weather, among other things, could uproot 150m people by 2050. Ms Newland of the Migration Policy Institute cautions against talking up the figures, but thinks that if drought and rising temperatures cause crop yields to fall in, say, the Sahel, they will probably encourage migration. If climate change were to cause wars or spread disease, that could compound the effects. Another reason, then, to switch to low-energy light bulbs.