Europe
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This short briefing paper explores the potential effects of the economic crisis with respect to immigration across European Union Member States, and outlines how policymakers might respond to changing patterns of migrant inflows and outflows, and the consequences of the downturn on immigrants and their host communities.
The current economic downturn has made many destination countries cautious about welcoming permanent migrants, with some expressing the policy equivalent of buyer's remorse: paying too high a price for something no longer desired.
Gloomy economic forecasts do not seem to have slowed the hunt for highly skilled migrants or foreign students — the best near-term solution to fill shortages and enhance competitiveness.
This report explores the need for nations to adjust their thinking and policy toward attracting the coveted elite class of highly skilled global talent as emerging and middle-income countries increasingly attempt to woo back their nationals and engage their diaspora to help move their economy forward.
In the next two decades, the world will face two major — and opposing — demographic challenges: rapid population growth and rapid population aging. In an increasingly economically interdependent world, policymakers will simultaneously face a strain on resources caused by population growth and a shortage of labor spurred by the graying of the population.
The Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) and Europe appear to be an ideal demographic match: the former has a large supply of young, active workers, and the latter has a shortage of the youthful, skilled or unskilled labor it needs to sustain its economic competitiveness. MENA is the source of 20 million first-generation migrants, half of them now living in another MENA country and most of the rest in Europe. The region also hosts around the same number within its borders. In addition, the size of MENA’s working-age population will continue to rise sharply in the next two decades while the corresponding segment of the population in Europe will soon start to decline.
This report examines the advantages and disadvantages of two fundamentally different approaches to economic migrant selection—demand driven and employer led systems and human-capital-accumulation focused and government led systems, best illustrated by “points systems,” which apportion numerical values to desirable human-capital characteristics.
As Europe and the United States Face Similar Migration Challenges, Spain Can Act as a Bridge
Spain and the United States both receive their greatest number of immigrants from Latin America, and have worked collaboratively together on displacement crises and other migration issues. As shared immigration challenges dominate debate on both sides of the Atlantic, Spain can serve as a vital bridge in the policy conversation, this commentary notes.