A Match Made in Heaven? A Critique of the World Development Report: Migrants,Refugees and Societies

Abstract

The 2023 World Development Report (WDR) is the first to exclusively focus on migrants and refugees and provides a conceptual framework to locate causes of migration. This match and motive framework divides migrants based on the motives that drive their migration and the potential benefits they could bring to host countries. We provide a critique of this framework and the causes of migration that undergird this conceptualization. Our first point of critique rests on the omission in the WDR of key structural factors, and in particular, economic relations of exchange between countries that may serve as the impetus for cross-border migration. Secondly, we maintain that the artificial separation of what motivates people to migrate between economic motivations and forced migration is not as seamless as what the framework suggests. Finally, we contend that the policy recommendations that stem from the report are conducive to assortative matching where strong match migrants and refugees benefit from greater access to developed countries. Such matches, though beneficial for developed countries, do little to benefit other categories of migrants and refugees and, in fact, promote a system of migration governance that reproduces deep-seated inequalities.