From the article:
Emigration is a sign of development, not poverty, as I argued in my Daily Telegraph column a while ago. The only people who join the Great Migration are those who have the money – often thousands of dollars – that it costs. They seek better jobs, a better life. This is the most powerful force in human history, the force that created the United States of America, the force that led so many from Scotland and Ireland to risk their lives making the Atlantic crossing a few generations ago. They sold assets to pay for the journey – and moved to what they hoped would be something better...
Michael Clemens, the American development economist who published the graph, explains it thus:
‘In all years, there is no hint of a negative relationship between income and emigrant stock between PPP income per capita of roughly $600 (that of today’s Niger or Ethiopia) and about $7,500 (today’s Albania or Colombia). In this range of income, in fact, the relationship is positive. The rise in emigrant stocks associated with higher income levels in this range is statistically significant at the 5% level. The magnitude of the positive relationship is substantial. Early in the second half of the 20th century, richer countries in this range on average had emigrant stocks about three percentage points larger than the poorest countries. By the end of the century, this difference grew to nine percentage points, and seems to have continued growing since then.’
Read full article here.
