Populations across the globe are aging at an unprecedented pace, making many countries increasingly reliant on migration to realise their long-term growth potential, the World Bank has said.
According to a new report titled World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies, the situation presented countries globally with an opportunity to make migration work better for economies and people.
The report notes that wealthy countries as well as a growing number of middle-income countries face diminishing populations, intensifying the global competition for workers and talent while most low-income countries are expected to see rapid population growth, putting them under pressure to create more jobs for young people.
“Migration can be a powerful force for prosperity and development. When it is managed properly, it provides benefits for all people — in origin and destination societies,” said World Bank Senior Managing Director Axel van Trotsenburg.
The report noted that in the coming decades, the share of working-age adults will drop sharply in many countries globally with countries like Mexico, Thailand, Tunisia and Türkiye needing more foreign workers because their population is no longer growing.
Today, destination and origin countries span all income levels, with many countries such as Mexico, Nigeria, and the U.K. both sending and receiving migrants. The number of refugees nearly tripled over the last decade. Climate change threatens to fuel more migration. So far, most climate-driven movements were within countries, but about 40% of the world’s population—3.5 billion people—lives in places highly exposed to climate impacts.
The global lender urged policymakers to strengthen the match of migrants’ skills with the demand in destination societies, while protecting refugees and reducing the need for distressed movements. The report provides a framework for policymakers on how to do this.
“This World Development Report proposes a simple but powerful framework to aid the making of migration and refugee policy. It tells us when such policies can be made unilaterally by destination countries, when they are better made plurilaterally by destination, transit and origin countries, and when they must be considered a multilateral responsibility.”Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, Indermit Gill said.
The report called on origin countries to make labor migration an explicit part of their development strategy. Accordingly, “They should lower remittance costs, facilitate knowledge transfers from their diaspora, build skills that are in high demand globally so that citizens can get better jobs if they migrate, mitigate the adverse effects of “brain drain,” protect their nationals while abroad, and support them upon return,” the report said.
