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Crossroads: Comparative Immigration Regimes in a World of Demographic Change
In this ambitious study, Anna K. Boucher and Justin Gest present a unique analysis of immigration governance across thirty countries. Relying on a database of immigration demographics in the world's most important destinations, they present a novel taxonomy and an analysis of what drives different approaches to immigration policy over space and time. In an era defined by inequality, populism, and fears of international terrorism, they find that governments are converging toward a 'Market Model' that seeks immigrants for short-term labor with fewer outlets to citizenship - an approach that resembles the increasingly contingent nature of labor markets worldwide.
258 pages, Hardcover
Published May 3, 2018
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December 28, 2024
Crossroad: Comparative immigration regimes in a world of demographic change reports that between 1910 and 2010 the share of the world’s population living outside their country of birth has consistently between two and three percent. The nature of these population movements has, however, changed with the rise over recent decades of economically-motivated temporary migration.
This book’s strength is its broad comparative approach across many countries. Authors Anna Boucher and Justin Gest conduct empirical analysis on the migration systems of 30 nations for which sufficient data is available. The component parts of their analysis are the visa total and mix (work, family, humanitarian, free movement), the temporary ratio (temporary economic migrants as a share of total flows) and the naturalisation rate. Boucher and Gest identify seven broad immigration ‘regimes’ in their 30 countries.
Australia, along with Canada, New Zealand and the UK, are classified into what they call a ‘neoliberal’ migration regime. Given its generally polemical use ‘neoliberal’ should be expunged from academic social science, but what Boucher and Gent mean here is the priority given to participation in a ‘global free market’. These countries have a bias towards selective economic migration. I am unsure how student visas are handled in their analysis, but the commercial approach to international education taken by all four countries fits with this market approach to migration.
Compared to other migration regime types with a strongly economic approach the ‘neoliberal’ countries have relatively low levels of control over migrants and high naturalisation rates.
The ‘neoliberal’ migration countries are all English speaking, but the UK’s migration history differs from its ‘settler society’ former colonies. Unlike the other three countries it was a major source country of migrants and only recently become a country with high net inward migration. For Australia the change is not from low to high net migration but from permanent to temporary migration, at least on first arrival.
The USA is an interesting exclusion from the ‘neoliberal’ category due to its relatively high rates of family and humanitarian migration; Boucher and Gent put it with Finland and Sweden in a ‘humanitarian’ category. Sometimes immigration systems are seen as connected to welfare systems, but the USA and Sweden are a long way apart on that indicator.
Due to internal free movement European Union member countries have less control over migration than other nations. Crossroads classifies most northern and central European countries as ‘intra-union’ migration regimes, as migrants are mainly from other EU countries. Naturalisation rates are low. Internal European migrants see less need for it but historically it has not been encouraged. Germany’s post-WWII guest worker program was at the time in sharp contrast with the settler society focus on quick acquisition of permanent residence and citizenship. The empirical data for Crossroads pre-dates refugee flows in the 2010s and beyond. Possibly this would give German migration a more humanitarian character.
Most southern and western European countries are classified as ‘extra-union’ migration regimes. They have significant migration from their former colonies but their relatively weak economies discourage migration from other EU countries.
Brazil, Japan, Mexico and South Korea are classified as ‘constrained’ migration regimes, with low total migration inflows relative to population and high temporary migration levels among the people who do arrive. This is a diverse group. Japan and South Korea have low migration because they want to maintain ethnic homogeneity, while Mexico and Brazil have low official migration because their internal problems make them less attractive than other potential destination countries. However, Crossroads notes that their data does not include undocumented migrants, especially people in Mexico fleeing worse situations elsewhere in the region.
The final two categories are versions of ‘kafala’ migration regimes, an Arabic word referring to the sponsorship nature of migration, usually by employers. It is the most transactional of the migration systems. In its gulf state Arab versions kafala migration regimes are marked by high levels of control over migrants and low levels of naturalisation. With temporary migrants a majority of the population keeping them moving is a priority. While it is not unusual for other migration systems to have major source countries, on Boucher and Gent’s analysis the Arab kafala systems are marked by high concentrations from a small number of source countries.
China, Russia and Singapore are classified as ‘quasi-kafala’ migration regimes, with the highly transactional character of the Arab kafala systems but lower migrant numbers as a proportion of their population.
Crossroads includes a statistical analysis examining the effects of various explanatory factors of migration regimes, including population ageing, economic freedom, natural resource dependency, welfare state generosity, and government partisan affiliations. But Boucher and Gent conclude that ‘no single factor drives immigration regimes cross-nationally’. More localised historical, political and economic factors have driven a common trend towards temporary migration.
The focus of Crossroads is on the policies and practices of host countries. There is little on why temporary migration may be attractive for migrants – their decisions are obviously critical to the observed trends. Employment opportunities and wage disparities are clearly significant. Fast and affordable air transport is an enabling factor along with cheap communications. These are important to coordinating globalised labour markets and to migrants maintaining connections with home.
Permanent migration in the days of slow and expensive transport and communication involved a major break with family, friends and home. Temporary migration can meet economic needs while avoiding long-term social disruption on both sides to the transaction.
This book’s strength is its broad comparative approach across many countries. Authors Anna Boucher and Justin Gest conduct empirical analysis on the migration systems of 30 nations for which sufficient data is available. The component parts of their analysis are the visa total and mix (work, family, humanitarian, free movement), the temporary ratio (temporary economic migrants as a share of total flows) and the naturalisation rate. Boucher and Gest identify seven broad immigration ‘regimes’ in their 30 countries.
Australia, along with Canada, New Zealand and the UK, are classified into what they call a ‘neoliberal’ migration regime. Given its generally polemical use ‘neoliberal’ should be expunged from academic social science, but what Boucher and Gent mean here is the priority given to participation in a ‘global free market’. These countries have a bias towards selective economic migration. I am unsure how student visas are handled in their analysis, but the commercial approach to international education taken by all four countries fits with this market approach to migration.
Compared to other migration regime types with a strongly economic approach the ‘neoliberal’ countries have relatively low levels of control over migrants and high naturalisation rates.
The ‘neoliberal’ migration countries are all English speaking, but the UK’s migration history differs from its ‘settler society’ former colonies. Unlike the other three countries it was a major source country of migrants and only recently become a country with high net inward migration. For Australia the change is not from low to high net migration but from permanent to temporary migration, at least on first arrival.
The USA is an interesting exclusion from the ‘neoliberal’ category due to its relatively high rates of family and humanitarian migration; Boucher and Gent put it with Finland and Sweden in a ‘humanitarian’ category. Sometimes immigration systems are seen as connected to welfare systems, but the USA and Sweden are a long way apart on that indicator.
Due to internal free movement European Union member countries have less control over migration than other nations. Crossroads classifies most northern and central European countries as ‘intra-union’ migration regimes, as migrants are mainly from other EU countries. Naturalisation rates are low. Internal European migrants see less need for it but historically it has not been encouraged. Germany’s post-WWII guest worker program was at the time in sharp contrast with the settler society focus on quick acquisition of permanent residence and citizenship. The empirical data for Crossroads pre-dates refugee flows in the 2010s and beyond. Possibly this would give German migration a more humanitarian character.
Most southern and western European countries are classified as ‘extra-union’ migration regimes. They have significant migration from their former colonies but their relatively weak economies discourage migration from other EU countries.
Brazil, Japan, Mexico and South Korea are classified as ‘constrained’ migration regimes, with low total migration inflows relative to population and high temporary migration levels among the people who do arrive. This is a diverse group. Japan and South Korea have low migration because they want to maintain ethnic homogeneity, while Mexico and Brazil have low official migration because their internal problems make them less attractive than other potential destination countries. However, Crossroads notes that their data does not include undocumented migrants, especially people in Mexico fleeing worse situations elsewhere in the region.
The final two categories are versions of ‘kafala’ migration regimes, an Arabic word referring to the sponsorship nature of migration, usually by employers. It is the most transactional of the migration systems. In its gulf state Arab versions kafala migration regimes are marked by high levels of control over migrants and low levels of naturalisation. With temporary migrants a majority of the population keeping them moving is a priority. While it is not unusual for other migration systems to have major source countries, on Boucher and Gent’s analysis the Arab kafala systems are marked by high concentrations from a small number of source countries.
China, Russia and Singapore are classified as ‘quasi-kafala’ migration regimes, with the highly transactional character of the Arab kafala systems but lower migrant numbers as a proportion of their population.
Crossroads includes a statistical analysis examining the effects of various explanatory factors of migration regimes, including population ageing, economic freedom, natural resource dependency, welfare state generosity, and government partisan affiliations. But Boucher and Gent conclude that ‘no single factor drives immigration regimes cross-nationally’. More localised historical, political and economic factors have driven a common trend towards temporary migration.
The focus of Crossroads is on the policies and practices of host countries. There is little on why temporary migration may be attractive for migrants – their decisions are obviously critical to the observed trends. Employment opportunities and wage disparities are clearly significant. Fast and affordable air transport is an enabling factor along with cheap communications. These are important to coordinating globalised labour markets and to migrants maintaining connections with home.
Permanent migration in the days of slow and expensive transport and communication involved a major break with family, friends and home. Temporary migration can meet economic needs while avoiding long-term social disruption on both sides to the transaction.
January 18, 2023
One of the required readings for a course I took last spring. Did not like the class itself very much but the information it brought turns out to be very useful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews