Migration to Western Europe in the past 20 to 25 years differs substantially in form and consequences from earlier large-scale population movements across national boundaries. The importation of temporary foreign workers on a modest scale—to meet labor shortages in arduous, low-status occupations—rapidly yielded massive political, economic, cultural, and international problems for the countries of in-migration. The temporary sojourn of mostly single males hired for specific jobs has been transmuted into the semi-settled presence of more than 15 million persons, most of whom are culturally very distinct from the host populations and are now dependents of the original migrants. Their protracted presence is explained in part by the economic and political attractiveness of the liberal welfare states, in part by the more limited opportunities in the countries of origin, and in part by the latter countries' policies. The host societies are strained by the new and substantial imported cultural diversity and the emergence of a socioeconomic and political underclass. The political ethos of the host countries and formal agreements with the sending countries preclude involuntary repatriation, and the myth of return associated with the semi-settled condition of the migrants militates against their assimilation. No ready solutions are apparent.
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References
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1. This volume focuses primarily on cross-national migration from less developed areas to the industrialized democracies of Western Europe. It touches, secondarily and in a fragmentary fashion, on the United States as well. Migration is, of course, an important phenomenon in many other parts of the world, most notably in South Asia, Southwest Asia, the Middle East, West Africa, southern Africa, and Central America. But several qualities of the receiving states in Western Europe make important policy-related, practical, and theoretical dimensions of the problem distinctive. Thus, the scope of this undertaking is restricted in order to increase its analytic and explanatory cogency.
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2. There are approximately 15 million foreign workers, dependents, and other legally resident aliens in the Western European host societies at present. In addition, 10 to 20 percent of that number are present as illegal or irregular-status immigrants. Because so many classes of temporary and permanent immigrants exist for the United States and because the number of aliens is in constant flux, due to periodic exit and return, change in status, and naturalization, no precise figures are available for the United States. At any given time, however, well over 10 million foreigners with resident alien or temporary work or student visas or with refugee status are present. Conservative estimates place the number of illegal immigrants in 1985 above 5 million, though the actual number is likely to be substantially higher. On this last point, see Milton D. Morris, Immigration—the Beleaguered Bureaucracy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1985), pp. 51-52. Thus, more than 30 million foreigners—legal immigrants, refugees, and illegal aliens—are present in the industrialized Western democracies that are treated as host societies in this volume.
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3. Albert Sauvy, “Le reversement d'immigration séculaire,”Population, 17(1):51-59 (1962).
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4. Most of the large immigrant populations in Great Britain are exceptions in this regard, as well as in several other respects. Most have come from former colonies or Commonwealth states in the West Indies and South Asia and they show greater inclination to stay. The legal status of former British subjects differs in many important respects from that of migrants on the Continent and larger proportions apply for citizenship. See B. Guy Peters and Patricia Davis, “Migration to the United Kingdom and the Emergence of a New Politics,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Finally, although some ties to homelands exist and return visits are not uncommon, neither the comprehensive networks of institutionalized links nor the facility of travel are as great for these migrants as for most of their Continental counterparts.
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5. Most economists probably recognize that, in their language, transnational migration is a lumpy good. To move great distances, with attendant transportation and relocation costs; to distance oneself from family, friends, and familiar cultural and often linguistic surroundings, or—perhaps more costly, especially in social and psychosocial terms—to move one's family; and to endure uncertainty and possibly an unfriendly, even hostile, social environment entail considerations of vast costs and, necessarily, expectations of commensurate benefits. Such decisions are not easy and they are not likely to be made at the margin. Nonetheless, it follows from conventional economic reasoning that as travel becomes easier and cheaper, and especially if a sufficient number of co-nationals have preceded to the target society to provide a social and cultural landing platform, wage-maximizing migration will occur across great geographic and cultural distances.
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6. Only France contemplated courting permanent settlers, for demographic reasons explicated by Mark Miller, “Policy Ad-hocracy: The Paucity of Coordinated Perspectives and Policies,” this issue of The Annals. But the country sought such immigrants from what were perceived to be culturally compatible populations—essentially those from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Immigration policies did not include recruitment of future citizens from North Africa or other non-European, non-Catholic regions.
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7. Thus, for instance, since membership in the European Community provides a different status for workers in particular and nationals in general than that accorded citizens of nonmember states, the accession of several major sending states carries—and, for states that are now prospective members, will carry in the near future—profound implications. Spain and Portugal will accede to membership in 1986 and Turkey, another important sending state, may accede shortly. Some receiving states, such as Sweden and Switzerland, are not members of the European Community. Several countries—most importantly, Algeria, Morocco, and Yugoslavia—from which large numbers of migrants come are neither members nor prospective members. These elements of complexity are addressed in Rosemarie Rogers, “The Transnational Nexus of Migration,” this issue of The Annals. Finally, the special historical relationships between Great Britain and the countries from which most of its immigrants come entail different legal provisions for migration and a variety of different statuses for immigrants. See Peters and Davis, “Migration to the United Kingdom.”
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8. Most students of the welfare state deem the United States to be less than a mature one, and one in which the programs and policies and the egalitarian ethos associated with European manifestations are both less extensive and less thoroughly consolidated. This is an important reason for treating the European and American settings of migration separately for some purposes.
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9. While in some of the literature on labor migration the job-market-related or economic safety-valve aspect is noted, here we wish to call attention to the similar social and political functions that migration may serve for the sending countries.
