The World Bank said on Tuesday that due to the rapid aging of both affluent and middle-income nations, both would become more reliant on migration from developing nations for economic growth.
According to the bank's most recent World Development Report, 43% of the 184 million individuals living without citizenship worldwide are in low- and middle-income nations. Of the total, around 37 million, or three times as many as ten years ago, are refugees.
In other nations, the working-age adult population is rapidly declining. In Spain, for example, it is expected to decrease by more than a third by the year 2100, with the proportion of people over 65 rising from 20% to over 40%, according to the development lender.
According to the report, countries like Mexico, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey may soon require more foreign workers as a result of the fact that their populations are no longer growing. At the same time, cross-border migration movements are already becoming more complex, with origin and destination countries spanning all income levels.
Axel van Trotsenburg, senior managing director of the World Bank, said in a statement that migration “can be a powerful force for prosperity and development.” “When managed effectively, it benefits everyone, both in the societies of origin and destination,”
The research offers policymakers advice on how to best safeguard refugees and lessen the need for displaced people's travels while also better matching the talents of migrants with requirements in destination nations.
When migrants' abilities are properly matched with demand in the destination country, both the destination country and the migrants benefit more. The expenses of sheltering migrants should be divided multilaterally where there is a poor skills fit, it said.
When the skills fit is poor and migrants are not refugees, more challenging policy issues develop, often resulting in deportations and placing strain on transit nations. In order to lessen the need for migration brought on by economic misery, the research suggested that greater international development efforts were required in the countries of origin.
According to the World Bank, the countries of origin should explicitly include labor migration in their development plans and aim to reduce the cost of remittances to family members back home, promote knowledge transfers from their diasporas abroad, and develop skills that are in demand internationally.
The bank recommended new international financial instruments be established to support nations in providing predictable care for non-citizens, adding that destination countries could promote migration from populations where their skills are in high demand.
