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Migration and development: reconciling opposite views
Alejandro Portes
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Migration and development: reconciling
opposite views
Alejandro Portes
Abstract
In this essay, I review opposite positions on the relationship between
migration and the socio-economic development of sending countries and
regions, and the theoretical schools that underlie each of them. In order
to adjudicate between these competing perspectives, it is necessary to
distinguish between the human capital composition of different migrant
flows, their duration, and their structural significance and change
potential. This theoretical discussion culminates in a typology that seeks
to clarify under which conditions migration can have developmental
effects and under which it will be contrary to the advancement of home
communities and countries. Policy implications of this analysis, in
particular the role of governments in sending and receiving nations, are
examined.
Keywords: Transnationalism; circular migration; brain drain; remittances;
national development.
Debates and research on consequences of contemporary SouthÁNorth
migration have been overwhelmingly focused on the impact migration
has on the nations and localities at the receiving end. Much less
attention has been paid to the effects of such movements on the
countries left behind. The general view among analysts and the public
is that out-migration should be good for sending countries because of
the safety valve to poverty and unemployment that it provides and,
above all, because of the river of remittances sent by expatriates which
contributes significantly to the survival of families and the financial
stability of sending nations (Diaz-Briquets and Weintraub 1991;
Massey et al. 1998; Guarnizo 2003).
Arrayed against these optimistic views are a number of global South
scholars who have become fierce critics of out-migration and its
consequences for their nations. From their point of view, migration is
Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 32 No. 1 January 2009 pp. 5Á22
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
ISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 online
DOI: 10.1080/01419870802483668
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not only a symptom of underdevelopment, but a cause of it, as it
depopulates entire regions, turns sending families from producers into
rentiers, and allows governments to escape their responsibilities by
relying on migrant remittances. Such views have been summarized in a
number of public documents, of which perhaps the best known is the
2005 ‘Declaration of Cuernavaca’:
The development model adopted in the immense majority of laborexporting
American countries has not generated opportunities for
growth nor economic or social development. On the contrary, it has
meant the emergence of regressive dynamics; unemployment and job
precarization; loss of qualified workers; productive disarticulation
and stagnation; inflation and greater economic dependency. As a
consequence, we experience a convergence between depopulation
and the abandonment of productive activities in areas of high
emigration.
(Delgado-Wise and Covarrubias 2006)
How can we reconcile these opposing views? On the one hand, we have
governments of sending nations pleading with the United States and
Western European countries to let their nationals in and not to deport
them, so that they can continue sending remittances. On the other
hand, development experts from the same countries denounce the very
same outflows as inimical to the national interest. Adjudicating
between these opposite views requires us to make several practical
and conceptual distinctions in order to separate disparate phenomena
obscured under blanket statements:
1. Between the structural importance of migration flows and their
change potential; the latter being a subset of the former.
2. Between high human capital flows and those composed primarily
of manual workers.
3. Between cyclical or temporary flows and permanent or quasipermanent
migrations.
The first distinction calls attention to the possibility that outmigration
acquires structural importance for sending nations not by
developing them, but precisely by consolidating entrenched elites
inimical to their development. The ‘safety valve’ function of large
outflows and the role of remittances in buttressing public finances
play a role in this process: they do not change the institutional
underpinnings of economic stagnation and social inequality, but can
actually perpetuate them. This is, in part, the reason why, as critics of
migration argue, there are no documented instances in which such
movements have actually lifted sending countries out of poverty and a
6 Alejandro Portes
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subordinate position in the global system (Reichert 1981; Castles
2004; Delgado-Wise 2004).
In turn, the change potential of migration does not always yield
effects conducive or congruent with developmental goals. Migrationinduced
social change is not always for the better. To see these
differences more clearly, it is best to organize the discussion on the
basis of the second distinction, namely that between manual and high
human capital flows. The two movements possess different dynamics,
although, as we shall see, their potential contribution to sending
countries’ economic and social development hinges largely on the
same set of factors.
Manual labour international migration
The mass migration of peasants and workers out of the global South
and into wealthy nations is what critics of these flows commonly have
in mind. Despite sustained criticism by nativists in host nations, these
movements can play a significant positive role in their economies by,
among other effects, compensating for a declining and ageing
population and meeting demand in labour-intensive sectors such as
agriculture, construction, and low-tech industries (Bean and Stevens
2003; Portes and Rumbaut 2006, ch. 3). Two economic schools have
generally favoured the onset and continuation of these flows. The first
is the orthodox economic position, associated with the classic studies
of Brinley Thomas (1973) and W. Arthur Lewis (1959). It sees these
movements as natural equilibrating mechanisms between laboursurplus
regions, where the marginal productivity of labour is near
zero, and those where it can be put to productive use. Migration helps
both regions by allowing productive investments in receiving areas,
while helping raise wages in sending ones (Todaro 1976).
The second school is the ‘New Economics of Migration’, which also
takes a positive stance toward such flows, but for different reasons.
They are seen as a functional alternative to imperfect credit and
futures markets in sending rural areas and as insurance against
unforeseen economic downturns. The migrant worker functions, in a
sense, as his family’s social security and credit card all rolled into one
(Stark 1984, 1991). For this school, migrants’ remittances always have
positive effects in sending economies because they stimulate demand
which is met by domestic production. Massey et al. (1987, 1998), for
example, argue that every ‘migradollar’ sent by Mexicans in the United
States generates a $2.90 contribution to Mexico’s gross national
product (GNP). Supporters of these theories also tend to stress the
role of social networks in maintaining the continuity of cross-border
labour flows: knowledge of others who have previously undertaken the
Migration and development 7
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journey represents the prospective migrant’s ‘social capital’, as it
lowers the costs and the uncertainty of the enterprise.
Yet, authors of this school tend to neglect another and less positive
consequence of social networks, namely that the cumulative processes
of out-migration that they facilitate may end up emptying sending
areas of their able-bodied population and weakening their productive
structures. In the end, there would be few people to send remittances
to and nowhere to make productive investments. Places of outmigration
can thus become ‘ghost towns’ or ‘tinsel towns’, decorated
once a year for the patron saints’ festivities, but otherwise populated
only by the old and the infirm. Already, close to 50 per cent of
Mexico’s municipalities report having lost population during the last
intercensal period (Delgado-Wise and Covarrubias 2006).
Whether social networks structure migrant flows in ways conducive
or contrary to local and national development depends ultimately on
the timing of these movements. Cyclical flows, where migrant workers
spend a certain time abroad but eventually return to their towns and
families, tend to produce the positive developmental outcomes
described by the ‘New Economics’ school: families stay put, their
consumption generates positive spinoff effects, and migrants’ accumulated
savings can be put to use productively in local economies.
Permanent out-migrations tend to have the opposite effects. These are
the movements that can depopulate townships and entire regions.
Migrant workers who settle abroad take their families with them, thus
weakening the incentive to continue sending remittances or making
investments at home. The economic focus shifts in the direction of
surviving and moving ahead in the host society (Cornelius 1998a;
Lopez and Stanton-Salazar 2001). Not incidentally, children raised
abroad by poor migrant families experience all the disadvantages of a
strange culture and language plus poor schooling, without many
countervailing resources. The result is a process of ‘segmented
assimilation’ in which many second generation youths end up
assimilating into the lowest rungs of the host society, associated with
gangs, violence, and the pervasive presence of the drug trade. Such
youths are lost not only to their country of origin, but to their families
and to themselves (Vigil 2002; Portes, Fernandez-Kelly and Haller
2005; Telles and Ortiz 2008).
Transnational communities
The sole silver lining in the consolidation of permanent expatriate
settlements is the rise and growth of transnational organizations
linking these settlements with areas of out-migration. It is a fact
supported by hundreds of studies that migrants do not simply ‘leave’;
instead they maintain intense ties both with their families and with
8 Alejandro Portes
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their communities left behind. The concept of ‘transnationalism’ has
been coined to refer to this intense traffic of communication,
information, and resources across places of origin and destination
(Vertovec 2004). The research literature has also established that the
immigrants most likely to take part in these organizations and
activities are not the most recent arrivals, but those better established
and with a more solid economic position in the host countries (Portes,
Haller and Guarnizo 2002; Guarnizo, Portes and Haller 2003; Portes,
Escobar and Walton Radford 2007).
Established first generation immigrants create organizations of the
most varied kind Á from hometown committees to civic associations
and branches of home country political parties. Tables 1 and 2
reproduce findings from a recent national survey of organizations
created by Colombian, Dominican and Mexican expatriates in the
United States. The first table is an inventory of all such organizations
by type which documents their notable diversity. The second table
presents data on the membership of these organizations which again
Table 1. Latin immigrant organizations in the United States by type
National origin
Type Colombian % Dominican % Mexican % Total %
Civic/cultural organizations 47.30 30.00 6.82 16.23
Other cultural
organizations
10.16 15.29 0.54 3.66
Economic organizations 4.44 2.35 0.70 1.52
Hometown associations 1.90 3.53 63.80 47.04
Federations of hometown
associations
0.00 0.00 4.26 3.10
State-of-origin associations 0.32 1.18 8.68 6.48
International philanthropic
organizations (Lions,
Rotaries, Kiwanis)
6.98 3.53 0.00 1.58
Home country
philanthropies
3.17 0.00 0.00 0.56
Political committees 7.93 10.00 0.46 2.70
Professional associations 8.89 14.12 0.70 3.44
Religious groups 1.59 1.18 0.23 0.56
Social service agencies 2.86 17.06 3.26 4.51
Sports groups 0.63 1.76 10.00 7.55
Student organizations 3.81 0.00 0.54 1.07
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
N 315 170 1,290 1,775
Source: Comparative Immigrant Organization Project (CIOP). For a detailed description of
this survey, see Portes, Escobar and Arana (2008).
Migration and development 9
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demonstrate that they are composed primarily of older, better
established, and more educated migrants.
Transnational organizations engage in a variety of philanthropic and
civic activities in their home localities and regions which, to a certain
extent, ameliorate the negative effects of permanent out-migration.
They have been referred to as a form of ‘globalization from below’
through which poor people seek to mitigate the growing inequalities
and lack of opportunity foisted on them by capitalist-driven ‘globalization
from above’ (Portes and DeWind 2004). Remittances to
families, philanthropic contributions to towns, and public works
planned and funded by transnational organizations are all forms in
which ‘globalization from below’ takes place (Itzigsohn et al. 1999;
Landolt 2001; Smith 2005).
Table 2. Characteristics of members of Latin immigrant organizations in the
United States
Colombian Dominican Mexican Total
Age:
30 years or less, % 12.1 11.1 24.8 15.2
40 years or more, % 53.2 53.8 33.6 48.3
Education:
Less than high school, % 7.4 29.7 28.7 20.9
College degree or more, % 52.3 50.5 27.0 45.7
Occupation:
Manual laborer, % 18.0 26.4 40.1 26.6
Professional/business owner, % 49.8 61.5 36.0 50.3
Knowledge of English:
Very little, % 11.9 18.7 5.0 12.4
Well or very well, % 64.2 49.7 60.9 58.5
Legal status:
Does not have entry visa, % 6.3 3.5 27.9 10.7
US citizen, % 56.3 48.5 38.4 49.1
Length of US residence:
Less than 5 years, % 10.1 5.8 10.4 8.7
10 years or more, % 68.9 66.8 69.5 69.3
Average trips to home country for organizational matters:
Never or rarely, % 6.7 3.6 30.0 11.5
At least three trips a year, % 40.0 35.7 20.0 33.3
Source: Comparative Immigrant Transnational Organizations Project (CIOP). See Portes,
Escobar and Arana (2008).
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Transnationalism, however, is not a panacea and does not completely
neutralize the negative effects of permanent out-migration.
This is so for three reasons. First, as depopulation of sending regions
advances, there are less kin to send remittances to and less economic
infrastructure to build on. For migrant resources to be invested
productively, there must be ‘something’ that they can return to.
Otherwise, no investments can be made or they would be of the purely
symbolic kind, building the ‘tinsel towns’ for the annual festivities, but
without any effective developmental potential (Fitzgerald 2000; Portes,
Escobar and Walton Radford 2007).
Second, regardless of migrants’ good intentions, the resources that
they can commit to developmental projects are modest. Recall that
labour migrants are former peasants and workers and that their wages
in the host labour market are low (Cornelius 1998b). While some may
become successful entrepreneurs, the mass of their pooled contributions
can have significant positive effects in their hometowns, but very
limited effects at the regional and, especially, national levels (Landolt,
Autler and Baires 1999; Portes, Haller and Guarnizo 2002). This is
another form of saying that expatriate communities cannot be counted
on to develop sending nations, either through their remittances or
through their philanthropic activities.
Third, active transnational activism is, by and large, a onegeneration
phenomenon. While, as shown by the research literature,
it strengthens with the consolidation of migrants’ economic and legal
position in the host society, their offspring cannot be counted on to
continue these activities or, at least, carry them on with the same level
of fervour (Haller and Landolt 2005). The power of assimilative forces
generally leads to a reorientation of the second generation toward their
lives and prospects in what is now their country, to the detriment of the
transnational concerns and goals of their parents (Fernandez-Kelly
and Konczal 2005). The level of commitment to transnational activism
may thus be portrayed as a bell curve moving along with the passage
of time: low at arrival; increasing with the consolidation of the first
generation; and declining with the passage of that generation from the
scene and the arrival of the second. Figure 1 graphically portrays the
process.
For these reasons, transnationalism can be regarded as, at best, a
palliative for the deleterious effects of permanent population loss in
sending nations. While cyclical flows might be counted upon to make a
significant contribution to development, the demographic and economic
consequences of permanent departures lead, on balance, in the
opposite direction. Although it is true that mass out-migration can
have structural significance in helping consolidate the power of
dominant classes in sending nations, this result is not conducive, for
reasons already given, to developmental transformation. Despite the
Migration and development 11
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rise of transnational organizations and activism, the overall change
potential of permanent settlement abroad is not positive either, since
these contributions cannot match, in the long term, the hollowing out
effect of such movement.
The migration of professionals
Manual labour migrations are not the only type of economicallydriven
population movements in the global economy. The same
wealthy societies that generate demand at the bottom of their labour
markets also do so at the top. These increasingly information-driven
societies require foreign-trained talent to supplement their domestic
professional and technical labour pools. The information technology
revolution in the United States, centred in California’s Silicon Valley,
Figure 1. The rise and fall of immigrant transnational organizations
1 3 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Very High
High
Medium
Low
Years since Migration
Consolidation Period
of First Generation
Decline of First
Generation and Rise of
the second
T
R
A
N
S
N
A
T
I
O
N
A
L
A
C
T
I
V
I
S
M
12 Alejandro Portes
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generated a vast demand for engineers, computer scientists, and
programmers, which American universities by themselves could not
supply (Saxenian 2006). The deficit has been covered by importing
talent.
Recognizing this need, the US Congress created in 1990 the H1B
visa programme under which highly skilled professionals can be hired
for temporary work in the United States. The visa and work permits
are issued for a maximum of three years, renewable for another three.
In practice, many ‘H1B workers’ eventually manage to shift their
status to permanent residents. In 1990, the authorized ceiling for this
programme was 65,000. Successive congressional acts increased the
figure, which reached 195,000 in 2002. In 2003, 360,498 H1B permits
were issued to professional foreign workers and their families, and by
2006 the figure had increased to 431,853. Principal specialty areas
represented among these temporary immigrants include computer
science, engineering, and information technologies. Emerging Third
World countries such as India and China are the principal sources of
this inflow, followed by large Latin American countries such as
Colombia and Mexico, and by countries of the Commonwealth,
mainly Canada (Office of Immigration Statistics 2004; 2008).
Dubbed ‘brain drain’ in sending countries, professional outflows
can be examined through the same theoretical lens used for the
analysis of labour migrations. Neoclassical economists view these
movements as natural equilibrium-restoring mechanisms between lowwage
and high-wage countries, the latter being able to better reward
workers according to their productivity (Borjas 1989, 1990). The
neoclassical approach is contradicted by the fact that professional outmigrations
do not generally originate in the poorest countries, where
salary differentials are at a maximum, but in emerging mid-income
and even developed countries where such differentials are much lower.
In addition, the theory is unable to explain why most professionals in
sending countries do not migrate, despite being exposed to the same
wage differentials (Oteiza 1971; Portes and Rumbaut 2006, ch. 2).
While the ‘New Economics of Migration’ school has not explicitly
addressed the topic of professional outflows, its key concept of
‘relative deprivation’ can be readily applied to correct the shortcomings
of the neoclassical analysis: professionals at risk of moving
abroad are those subject to high levels of relative deprivation. This
situation can come about in two ways: first, if their incomes are not
high enough to allow them a middle-class life, according to local
standards Á in these cases, it is not the invidious comparison with
higher incomes abroad, but with those earned by other professionals at
home which can create a powerful incentive to move abroad (Oteiza
1971; Portes and Ross 1976); and second, if their training is so superior
to local employment opportunities that they see their chances for
Migration and development 13
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professional development as seriously compromised. In these cases, the
point of reference is professionals in First World countries, not
because of their incomes, but because of their much better working
conditions (Alarcon 1999).
A third theoretical perspective, world-system analysis, can be
invoked to provide a broader context to the relative deprivation
hypothesis. The operative concept in this case is ‘structural imbalancing’
(Portes and Walton 1981, ch. 2; Sassen 1988), which denotes how
the cultural and technological penetration by advanced nations into
less developed ones ends up compromising the chances of the latter to
create and retain pools of domestic talent. Schematically, the process
runs as follows: professional standards and training practices are
disseminated from the core nations to the rest of the world and are
readily copied by emerging countries aiming to ‘catch up’ with the
West. Young professionals trained according to these ‘First World’
standards look for occupational opportunities that allow them to put
their advanced skills to use and to develop them further. Unfortunately,
such opportunities are scarce in the local economy, with the
result that many experience rising relative deprivation. In the interim,
high-tech firms and universities in the advanced world experience
scarcities of domestic talent and seek to supplement it by recruiting
abroad. Naturally, the first place to look is among well trained labour
pools created by imported professional standards in less developed
nations.
The fit between the goals of young professionals experiencing
relative deprivation at home and the demand for high human capital
abroad sets the stage for the ‘brain drain’. In this manner, poorer
countries end up subsidizing the high-tech labour needs of rich ones.
Structural imbalancing ensures that the effort of emerging Third
World nations to imitate advanced ones is compromised, at every step,
by the better fit between talent trained according to the most modern
standards and the labour needs of the countries from which these
standards emanated in the first place. Figure 2 graphically summarizes
the process.
Up until recently, theorizing about determinants and consequences
of the brain drain pretty much ended here. However, two developments
have added complexity to the picture and, in the process,
significantly altered its sombre conclusions. First, temporary professional
migration promoted by such legislation as the H1B programme
creates strong incentives to return in a relatively short period. While, as
noted above, many H1B workers manage to extend their stays, the
expectation and reality of the programme are that the majority return,
thus creating a cyclical flow. Cyclical professional migration contributes
to development in sending nations for the same reasons that
cyclical manual labour movements do: returnees bring their new skills
14 Alejandro Portes
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and savings which can be invested productively at home. The extent to
which the return flow of professionals pays off depends largely on the
existing infrastructure: sending countries that possess a modicum of
universities, research centres, and firms able to absorb scientific and
technological innovations will obviously be better placed to make use
of their professional returnees than those that lack such institutions.
Second, the advent of the transnational perspective to migration
studies has modified the lens through which permanent professional
Figure 2. Determinants of the brain drain
Sending Countries Receiving Countries
Mid-income peripheral
countries seeking to create
professional talent import
advanced educational training
practices from abroad
Scientific innovations and
advanced professional
training are diffused abroad
via government programs and
private initiatives
Sustained growth through
scientific/technological
innovation and consumer
demand for advanced services
lead to labor shortages in
skilled fields
Local opportunities for
advanced professional
practice and career
development are limited,
leading to relative deprivation
Professionals unable to access
scarce opportunities at home
look abroad for ways of
redressing this imbalance
Governments, corporations,
and other institutions look
abroad to supplement scarce
domestic talent
Search zeroes in on countries
that have imported and
implemented advanced forms
of professional training
Professional labor migration begins
Students are socialized in
professional practices and
expectations congruent with
those of the advanced world
Migration and development 15
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out-migration was previously seen. From a ‘brain drain’ outlook, such
flows amounted to a permanent loss for sending countries whose sole
recourse was to try to attract their migrants back (Oteiza 1971).
However, the discovery that immigrant transnationalism increases
with length of residence in host countries and with levels of education
leads to the expectation that professional expatriates will be at the
forefront of these activities (Guarnizo, Portes and Haller 2003; Portes,
Escobar and Walton Radford 2007). Data from recent studies of
transnational organizations, including those presented in Table 2, lead
to the same conclusion.
Unlike manual labour migrants whose transnational philanthropy
leads, at best, to public works and services in their hometowns, a
community of professional expatriates can make a significant contribution
to the scientific and technological development of their home
country. Reasons for doing so are straightforward. In addition to
national loyalties and the weight of nostalgia, migrant professionals
often have a sense of obligation to the institutions that educated them.
When, on the basis of that education, they achieve wealth, security,
and status abroad, it is only natural that they seek to repay the debt.
Some do so through philanthropic activities; others through transferring
information and technology; still others through sponsoring the
training of younger colleagues. Professionals who have become
successful entrepreneurs abroad may go further and endow their
Alma Maters or even found institutions of higher learning and
research at home (Saxenian 1999, 2002; Vertovec 2004).
Professional transnationalism has another important facet: unlike
manual labour immigrants whose return home is often made difficult
by their legal status and modest resources, professionals with a well
established position abroad have the option of making their journey
cyclical. They can do so because they face no legal difficulties to travel
and because they command the necessary resources. Hence, they are
able to continue living and working abroad while making investments
at home or involving themselves in philanthropic and educational
activities there.
The recent research literature on economic transnationalism strongly
supports this line of argument. First, surveys show that transnational
entrepreneurs are recruited among the better educated and better
established members of their respective immigrant communities and,
moreover, that they represent the bulk of these communities’ business
class (Portes, Haller and Guarnizo 2002; Guarnizo 2003). Second, as
the cases of China, India and Israel show, the growth of sizeable
expatriate populations of scientists and engineers does not necessarily
mean the hollowing out of these countries’ scientific and research
institutions, but may energize them through a dense traffic of
personnel, resources and ideas. Saxenian (2002; 2006) who studied
16 Alejandro Portes
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these cases in detail attributes the growth of dynamic information
technology poles in cities like Bangalore in India, Shanghai in China,
and Tel Aviv in Israel to the entrepreneurial initiatives of their
professionals abroad.
A word of caution is necessary at this point. The positive
developmental potential of settled professional communities abroad
depends, as in the case of cyclical migration, on the existence of an
infrastructure capable of absorbing technological innovations and
investments. For this potential to materialize, sending country
governments must be proactive in creating suitable conditions for
returnees. These range from reliable property regimes to support of
scientific and technological research facilities that can dialogue with
professionals abroad and understand the import of what they have to
offer. A laissez-faire approach that merely waits for the market to work
its ‘magic’ through spontaneous remittances and knowledge transfers
will not work. Governments must meet their half of the bargain
because, in the absence of suitable conditions that only they can create,
the best-intentioned transnational projects cannot succeed. Again, for
professional migrants to effectively transform the technical and
industrial structures of their home nations, there must be ‘something’
that they can return to.
Figure 3 summarizes the analysis presented so far with a typology of
international migration. Its aim is to reconcile opposite positions
concerning the role of migration in development, by showing when
and under what conditions such flows can make a positive contribution
to sending countries and when they will have the opposite effects.
The very complexity of these movements ensures that the overall
picture will be mixed: some countries have benefited and will continue
to benefit greatly from their expatriates, making use of their transfers
to transform their productive structures and export capacity; others
have used their departure and their remittances merely to perpetuate
the existing socio-political order and the rule of dysfunctional elites; in
others, the overall balance is still uncertain. Not surprisingly, this
opaque picture has given rise to opposite pronouncements. The role of
the present typology is to help extract from this complexity the
elements that can lead to alternative developmental paths.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to return to the first point of the
introduction, namely that international migration flows receive far
more attention for their real or imagined effects in receiving societies
than for their effects in places of origin. Governments of host nations
generally follow suit, enacting policies designed to stem or channel the
flow according to purely domestic interests with nary a thought about
Migration and development 17
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the implications of these policies for migrant-sending nations.
Governments of the latter have not proven much more enlightened,
as their interests in migration seldom extend beyond the size and
growth of remittances sent by their expatriate communities (Castles
2004). In this context, it has fallen to immigrants themselves to correct
the situation by implementing a myriad of transnational activities that
seek to connect and reconcile the needs and interests of people living
here and there.
As previously noted, this form of globalization from below is by
itself insufficient to neutralize the negative developmental consequences
of permanent out-migration, but it does point in the right
direction. Instead of a zero-sum game, international migration could
Figure 3. International migration: its types and developmental effects
Duration
Cyclical Permanent
Manual
Labor
Flows
Developmental
• Overcomes
inefficiencies in sending
countries’ credit and
product markets
• Transfers skills and
resources, strengthening
local productive
structures
• Preserves demographic
growth of sending
regions
Non-developmental
• Leads to depopulation
of sending areas and
weakening of
productive
infrastructures
• Long-term decline of
migrant remittances
• Migrant children placed
at risk of downward
assimilation in host
societies
• Rise of transnational
organizations as a
partially countervailing
force
Composition
Professional-
Technical
Labor
Flows
Developmental
• Transfers scientific-
technological
knowledge to sending
countries
• Encourages new
productive investments
of migrant savings
when suitable
infrastructures are
present
• Preserves quality and
growth of national
scientific/technological
establishment
Mixed
• Loss of talent trained
with scarce national
resources
• Transnational
entrepreneurship and
activities by expatriates
can neutralize initially
negative effects through
significant transfers of
capital and technology.
Outcomes contingent on
institutional context and
government proactivity
in sending nations
18 Alejandro Portes
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be transformed into a ‘winÁwin’ process if sending and receiving
governments would take active steps in organizing it as a managed
labour-transfer programme. Based on the preceding discussion, such
managed programmes can be constructed on the basis of five general
principles:
1. Cyclical labour flows, both of professionals and of manual
workers, are generally preferable to permanent out-migration.
2. The cyclical character of migration should be grounded on a
schedule of real incentives in both receiving and sending nations,
so that return is voluntary and not coerced.
3. Governments of advanced nations should seek to cooperate with
their sending country counterparts in creating the necessary
infrastructure of health, education, and investment opportunities
for families of migrant workers to remain at home and for
migrants to be motivated to return.
4. Similar support should be provided in the construction of
scientific and technological facilities which can receive returned
migrant professionals and benefit from their knowledge transfers.
5. For migrants who settle permanently abroad, facilities should be
created so that they can transform their journey into a cyclical one
themselves through transnational investments and philanthropic
activities at home.
The best available research evidence shows that there is no contradiction
between active transnationalism and successful social and
political incorporation of permanent immigrants in host nations.
Rather than pay attention to the misguided chorus of nativists and
xenophobes, host nation governments could follow science by working
along the paths already charted by the self-propelled initiatives of
migrant communities themselves. Similarly, instead of worrying
exclusively about their balance of payments and flow of remittances,
sending country governments should also pursue the same lines of
action, guided by the long-term developmental potential of migration
rather than its short-term economic consequences. Only in such a
fashion will the sorry outcomes witnessed today and poignantly
denounced by Third World scholars in documents like the Cuernavaca
Declaration give way to a world in which international migration and
national development can be mutually supportive.
Note
* Ethnic and Racial Studies Annual Lecture 2008, delivered at City University, London, 8
May 2008. I thank Martin Bulmer and Stephen Castles for their comments. Responsibility
for the contents is exclusively mine.
Migration and development 19
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ALEJANDRO PORTES is Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder
Beck Professor of Sociology at Princeton University.
ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, Wallace Hall, Princeton
University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Email: aportes@princeton.edu
22 Alejandro Portes
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