Migration:

There are reasons to believe that international migration of labor can be beneficial to both the receiving and the sending countries. While in the receiving countries migrants help meet labor shortages in certain industries, the sending countries benefit from easing of unemployment pressures and increased financial flows in the form of remittance. International migration was particularly dramatic, with about 10 percent of the world's population moving from Europe to the New World and from China and India to the less populated neighboring countries. However, this impressive wave of globalization was virtually reversed during the First World War, and the Great Depression. There was a certain slowing of migration in the first half of the 1990s as the result of restrictions introduced by many high-income countries, but beginning in 1997 - 98 the flows of migrants accelerated again.3 The major destination countries, rated by the size of migrant inflows in 2000, are the US, Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Over 60 percent of the world's migrants moved from developing to developed countries and this South-North migration is expected to grow in the future owing to economic as well as demographic reasons. Tighter controls on labor migration introduced in one receiving country will affect not only the sending countries but also other potentially receiving countries. In many cases it can also lead to higher illegal migration, most often associated with discriminatory and exploitative treatment of migrant workers. Developing countries are advised to develop mechanisms for encouraging retention and return migration of their qualified workers. Returning migrants bring back foreign knowledge and experience (converting brain drain into brain circulation) and can play an important role by facilitating the transfer of foreign technologies or by helping the development of cultural and economic ties with other countries. Further, developing countries are advised to facilitate and reduce the cost of remittance of funds by their migrant workers.