Migration Summary
Some 175 million people today—one in 40—do not live in the country where they were born. That number should grow as aging rich societies run short of workers, which should be a boon for development. Workers who have migrated from poor to rich countries already send billions of dollars back to their families each year. Latin America received $32 billion in remittances in 2002, six times what it received in foreign aid.
Some immigrants from developing countries, especially students, pick up skills and bring them home—engineers and physicians as well as entrepreneurs who, for example, start computer businesses. But emigration has been blamed for emptying Ghanaian clinics of nurses, who can earn far more in London hospitals.
The CDI rewards immigration of unskilled people more than skilled. One indicator used in the index is the gross inflow of migrants from developing countries in a recent year, including unskilled and skilled immigrants but leaving out illegals. Another is the net increase in the number of unskilled immigrant residents from developing countries during the 1990s. The index also uses indicators of openness to students from poor countries and aid for refugees and asylum seekers.
Austria takes first for “importing” the most labor for their size, especially unskilled labor, with Switzerland not far behind. At the bottom is Japan, whose population of unskilled workers from developing countries actually shrank during the 1990s. The U.S., the great nation of immigrants, scores a surprisingly mediocre 4.6. Why? For its size, its inflow of legal immigrants and refugees is actually low compared to many European nations.
For more, go Inside the Index.