Migrants would sustain the developed countries’ economy in the near future as their working population hits record low
Rich countries that sealed their borders to humans from the outside would have to open up again, not as a charity but as an existential necessity. Representative photo: iStock. Some 70,000 years ago, a few thousand of a newly evolved species — Homo sapiens, the modern humans — decided to migrate from their small exclusive home in a corner of Africa. Based on geological and paleoclimate evidence, one could call it a distress migration — logically, the first episode for us.
Unprecedented climatic events, including a super volcanic eruption, nearly crushed modern humans, leaving just a few thousand of them. The planet was under a climate change episode after the Ice Age. They needed to move out, seeking food, water and a suitable climate to prosper.
Also read: Match migrants’ skills with needs of ageing countries to drive global growth: World Bank report
The planet was an open geographical mass without any political boundaries. There were no rulers to claim subjects. So, they declared homes wherever they landed. Within a few thousand years, Homo sapiens set up homes in nearly all ecological regions of the planet.
Homo sapiens, about eight billion in number, have self-demarcated into nation-states with enforced boundaries; and, in the last 122 years, altered the natural environment so much that another climate emergency has descended upon us. They are no more descendants of a common ancestry that once upon a time had to migrate out to sustain.
Settled across the world, they fiercely protect their own home turf. Though long back self-designated as “social animals”, the settlements are like ghettos. But reshuffling this way, the species distribution is skewed even though Homo sapiens have been breeding profusely — from a billion in 1900 to over eight billion currently.
Some nation-states have more humans than others; some breed faster than others, and some are just reaching a point of life expectancy that is considered healthy in the modern world. All along, however, the migration of humans remained a key strategy to ensure the human world remains what it is today.
At the turn of the 21st century, we experienced an outrage over immigration, mostly from the countries that are rich and have cornered much of the wealth of the world. Restrictions were put in place; policies were being drafted to restrict the migration of people from one country to another, and all these were in the name of protecting the local economy and the local interests.
However, the latest World Development Report, published by the World Bank, says the world is in such a crisis that a new wave of migration among countries is needed, or there might be a situation that we didn’t imagine for long. Currently, there are 184 million migrants in the world, forming a defining workforce that dictates many countries’ prosperity. Since 2014, nearly 50,000 people have died while attempting to migrate, indicates the latest report. This shows the desperation of people to migrate for survival.
At the core of this crisis is the demographic change in the world of Homo sapiens. There is a scarcity of people who can work and have the skills to do so. This is because there is a fast dip in the working population in high-income countries, leaving behind an ageing population to be taken care of.
Read more: Busting the myth of population rise threat
In middle-income countries, the population is getting older before they attain a certain income level. And in the countries where the population is booming, mostly in Africa, the working group lacks the skills to exploit this void. One way, the world is again looking at a situation when it has to seek out the suitable among its own species, though in a desperate way.
Demographic changes have sparked an intensifying global competition for workers and talent, says the World Bank report. It means the rich countries that sealed their borders to humans from the outside would have to open up again, not as a charity but as an existential necessity.
The middle-income countries will experience a situation where their own workers will have to compete with those who have to be brought in from outside. And the poor and developing countries with a booming working-age population will have to undertake massive skill-development exercises to grab the opportunity that needs massive in and out-migration of people. But as the World Bank has warned: The developed countries will have to increasingly depend on human migration to sustain economies and also to meet the responsibilities towards their ageing population.
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