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International migration is a defining
feature of the history of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the last five decades, the region has become a net exporter of labor,
mainly to the core economies of the Western hemisphere, the USA and Canada.
Two reasons account for this:
- the widening income gap and the divergence in quality of living conditions
and
- demographic polarization, with the relative ageing of the population
in the North.
The growth of the diaspora has had a tremendous impact on the flow of financial
capital from the new host societies to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The increase of remittances has sparked enthusiasm in the development establishment
that this could contribute to reducing poverty and fostering economic development.
However, the case of the Caribbean, the subregion in the Americas with the
highest level of migration after Mexico, points toward a more modest assessment.
On the one hand, remittances have outstripped foreign direct investment
and official development assistance, and are a major source of income for
many lower-income households in the region; diasporic exports and tourism
have also become a vital asset for many labor exporting countries in the
Caribbean. On the other hand, remittances increase external dependency and
contribute to a culture of migration; also, they are private flows that
do not directly contribute to government revenue. This is particularly problematic
in the Caribbean where migrants tend to be highly skilled and educated.
It is questionable whether remittances can compensate for the loss of public
investment in education and the reduction of productivity in specific sectors
caused by the brain drain. Besides the economic effects, the "feminization
of migration", caused by the shift in labor markets towards services,
impacts on family structures and networks in the labor-exporting countries.
Furthermore, contemporary migration may produce new security threats. The
US policy of deporting criminals is claimed to be a major source of increased
violence in the Caribbean. Migration also contributes to the spread of the
HIV virus in the Americas: adult prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean
is second only to that of sub-Saharan Africa. Taken altogether, the growth
of a diaspora economy carries enormous challenges, but also opportunities.
If migration is to contribute to national and regional development, a strategic
approach on the part of labor-exporting countries is needed. One key strategy
would be to enlarge training facilities to meet the expanding demand for
skilled labor, both at home and in the labor-importing countries, with the
latter covering part of the investment. Second, the rights of migrants must
be secured. However, even such a strategic approach on the part of the labor-exporting
countries will not prevent migration from further peripheralizing regions
such as Latin America and the Caribbean as long as the fundamental structures
and workings of their economies remain unchanged. |
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