THE FLOW OF PEOPLES: INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AS A REVOLUTIONARY FORCE

Palabras


Abstract
History shows that migration usually moves from areas where population is growing fast to regions where this increase is slower.At present, immigration from poor regions to richer coun tries outstrips emigration from developed countries.A century ago in Europe and now in the poorest countries, migration has relieved tensions bred by declining mortality and accelerating popula tion growth.The map of international migration changes from decade to decade as each country's demographic transition matures.Although historical migration fl ows still continue, this will not lead to a demographic explosion as fertility rates have declined signifi cantly and aging population increases all over the world.World population is estimated to remain stagnant at around 8 thousand million before it decreases slowly through this century.Thus, migration raises the challenge of a global multiethnic society.

Jean-Claude Chesnais
We live in a great age of international migration.People move from country to country in greater numbers as population increases.History shows that migration usually moves from areas where population is growing fast to regions where the increase is slower.World population multiplied six-fold so far in this century.Each decade now we add a billion people, equal to this planet's whole population in 1900.Such radical expansion in so short a time means major redistribution of population through migration.This is also what happened in the great expansion of European peoples in the two centuries before World War II.Before this expansion, European peoples were about 18% of the world's population, nearly all of them living in their an cestral homelands.By the 1930s, at the peak of Europe's mastery of the world, people of European stock living in Europe, the Americas and Oceania were 35% of world popu lation, as a result of mass migration in the previous two centuries.Today the share of world population of European stock has fallen to 20%.Since the 1930s, emigration from Europe has nearly ceased.
Until then, Europe's population was growing much faster than peoples of the periphery (Africa, Asia and Latin America).Since World War II, that trend has been reversed.European popu lation growth slowed to near or below replacement levels while the demographic transition spread to poorer countries, which now have the fastest growing populations.
This rever sal of growth patterns also has reversed the flows of International migration.Decolonization, ending Europe's world domination, saw a mass return of European settlers to their ancestral lands from the newly independent countries of their birth.To this day, immigration from poor regions to richer coun tries outstrips emigration from developed countries.People with roots in poorer coun tries now form a greater share of population in nearly all advanced nations in Europe, Asia and America.This is an historic migration transition.It is part of the demographic transition: passage from a premodern equilibrium of high mortality and high fertility to a modern regime of low mortality and low fertility.In Europe a century ago and in poorer countries today, migration has relieved tensions bred by declining mortality and accelerating popula tion growth.
Migratory fl ows change both in size and direction during each phase of the demo graphic transition.In each European country during the 19th Century, the peak of emigration roughly coincided with the peak of natural increase.As the demographic transition matured signs of potential population decline appeared and Europe began to absorb immigrants.After World War II, the tradi tional fl ow of migrants was reversed, first in Western Europe, then elsewhere on the continent.Because of declining fertility, Europe's population growth is stagnant.It no longer has excess youth to spare, and despite present unemployment levels in the advanced European countries between 10% and 25% of the working force infl ows exceeded outfl ows.Even the traditional coun tries of emigration in Southern Europe now record substantial net immigration since the 1970s.
The map of international migration changes from decade to decade as the demographic transition matures.The consequences of burgeoning population are dramatically illustrated where developed and developing countries are contiguous, The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force as in the case of the United States and Mexico.National boundaries are permeable to illegal migration of persons from less developed societies seeking better conditions for themselves and their families.Even where developed countries are not contiguous with less fortunate neighbors, illegal immigration often is difficult to prevent.
In times of Europe's fastest population expansion, many of its emigration fl ows went to the new world.For instance, between 1820 and 1892, approximately 60 million immigrants entered the United States.One estimate of the share of Europeans among immigrants to the United States puts the number at 34 million out of 38 million arriving between 1801 and 1835.In 1800, the population of the United States was only 6 million; by 1950 it topped 150 million.Around 1900, when popula tion growth in Europe had peaked, emigration to the United States was phenomenal, at one million per year.Up to 1890, four out of fi ve immigrant's came from Northwestern Europe.Then Eastern and Southern Europe became the main sources of immigration.The fl ow of immigrants to the United States then became an extraordinary mixture of Latin, Slav, and Jewish peoples fl eeing misery or persecution.
Signifi cant numbers of Europeans also emigrated to Latin America and the Caribbean.For centuries, this area attracted European migrants and was the destination for involuntary migration of Africans.By the beginning of the 19th Century, Latin America and the Caribbean contin ued to attract immigrants from Europe, and, to a lesser extent, from Asia.Migration fl ows to this region reached their peak during the fi rst decade of the 20th Century.Most Europeans came from Mediterranean lands.
A summary of net immigration fl ows during the 1800 to 1970 period is provided in table 1. Emigration did not affect only Europe but also countries under European colonial rule, especially after the abolition of slavery, most notably in Asia.Very few Europeans settled permanently in Asia, where population density was already high.Most Europeans living in these regions were either colonial administrators or representatives of trading companies with interests in the colonies.Substantial emigration from South Asia began in the 1830s while much of the region was under British rule, thanks in part to the end of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1834, spurring large scale emigration from South Asia.British India, subject to periodic famines and with millions of landless laborers, was seen as a source of cheap manpower by plantation owners around the Indian Ocean and as far away as the Caribbean.This intra-colonial migration lasted approxi mately a century and involved tens of millions of workers from what are today India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.Workers from these lands fell into semislavery in many parts of the world.Their legal status was often that of indentured servants.While their numbers were not large relative to the population of their places of Jean-Claude Chesnais origin, they had a considerable impact on their under-populated destinations.From 1834 to 1937, net migration from British India was roughly 6,25 million, creating numerous South Asian communities in Africa, the Caribbean and East Asia.
The end of slavery in the French Empire paved the way for a similar wave of migration, but their numbers were much smaller, coming from various French colonies to work the plantations of Reunion and Martinique.
Asian immigrants and their descendants became economically important in their destination countries.The infl uence of Chinese and Indian minorities on commercial enterprise went far beyond their numerical strength.A tradition of emigration became well established.By 1962, the number of overseas Chinese exceeded 16 million.
Half the world's total land area is made up of the two Americas, Oceania, and the former Soviet territory east of the Urals.These three areas together encompass nearly 70 mil lion square kilometers.In 1700, they were inhabited by a mere 22 million people.Thus half the world's land area then was considered empty.Today the situation has changed radically.The population of these same lands is now 880 million, having multiplied by a factor 40 in less than three centuries.Such a massive shift is mainly the result of large migration streams coming mainly from Europe, but also from Asia and (for the Americas) from Africa.
During the same period, the other habitable half of the planet (Europe, Africa, Asia) also experienced a rapid increase in population, multiplying by a factor of 8 since 1700; a big increase but still not comparable to that in the Americas, Ocea-nia and a large portion of the former Soviet Union.The empty lands of the world are progressively being settled because of the demographic transition that began three cen turies ago.Yet there is reason to believe that historical migration fl ows still have not ended.A large share of future migrations will involve non Western streams destined for less settled areas.Not all migration is voluntary or organized.Massive movements of people sometimes are forced by wars and political upheaval.After World War I, Europe was shaken by the collapse of the empires of Austro-Hungary, the Ottomans and Czarist Russia.After the defeat of Nazi Germany another shock occurred when the Western zones of a divided Germany became regions of heavy immigration, especially for German refugees and expelled person.Many Germans of the Western zones, both residents and immigrants from the East, left Germany and emigrated to United States and Australia.All together, World War II uprooted some 30 million civilians in Europe alone.
In similar way, Japan's defeat in 1945, fi ve mil lion Japanese were repatriated from throughout Asia and the Pacifi c.Also, in 1947, British India was split three ways to give as many Muslims as possible their own nation, Pakistan (Pakistan itself was again divided in 1971 with East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh).Some 14 million people were uprooted: roughly seven million Hindus made their way to India, while an equal number of Muslims set out for Pakistan.Persistent war and political chaos in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) since the 1950s created a continuous outflow of people (mainly westernized elites) to the West.Also, the Korean War (1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)

led to the displacement of
The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force approximately four million people from the north to the south of the country.The Afghanistan war (1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986) drove three million Afghan refugees into Pakistan and more than a million into Iran.
Migratory shifts stem from deeplyrooted structural phenomena.They are nearly always "globalizing" in their effect on human civilization, bringing the world closer to a single society.Several million people are currently attempting to leave the "South" for the "North".Of the 12 member states of the European Union (EU), 11 now are countries of immigration.Even Central European nations, like Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, are becoming countries of immigration as emigrants from poorer and strife-torn regions in the former Soviet empire, Africa and Asia come to Central Europe seeking opportunities unavailable at home.
For Europe as a whole, emigration continued to predominate until the 1960s.However, in the last two decades, Europe registered a net infl ow of about fi ve million migrants.Many of these fl ows are intra-continental movements.In the 1950s and 1960s, there were urge flows from Southern to Western Europe.There were also migration fl ows from East to West, especially from the German Democratic Republic and Poland to the Fed eral Republic of Germany.After the war and through the period of reconstruction and rapid economic growth, Western Europe faced a doubly diffi cult situation because of its sub-replacement fertility during the 1930-1945 period, aggravated by war losses.Half of the foreign workers that came to help rebuild Western Europe were born in Southern Europe.The North-South divide was basically internal to Europe.Southern Europe, with large rural populations, was a demographic reserve for the industrial nations of the North.
The situation in Southern Europe has changed.The migration transition is accelerating.Between 1950 and 1970 Southern Europe had a net migra tion loss of 7,3 million (6% of the population in 1960).In the 1980s, southern countries joined the EU, contributing to their improved economic per formance and facilitating the return of their nationals living abroad.Southern Europe also became more attractive to foreign settlers, including long distance migrants.Spain and Italy now must deal with a wave of arrivals, such as asylum seekers, students, seasonal workers or relatives of legal immigrants.Arriving immigrants in Southern Europe come primarily from developing countries in Asia (mostly the Philippines), Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
While Germany represents the eastern gate of the EU, Italy and Spain now form the southern entrance.This southern gate is vulnerable be cause the borders are long and accessible from the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.The distance is short.Tangier and Sicily are close to the southern shore.Because Italy and Spain for centuries were places from which people emigrated, immigration offi cers are not yet prepared for their new role as gate-keepers.Moreover, border control is diffi cult in countries that are among the most popular tourist destinations in the world.Settlement of poor immigrants began with little preparation of public opinion, and tensions between immigrants and local popula tions are becoming a major political issue.As the single market develops, there will be pressure from northern EU countries to tighten border controls and surveillance.

Jean-Claude Chesnais
In Eastern Europe, the balance was negative from 1950 to 1990.Until now, East-West migration has been limited largely to Westernized ethnic minorities, mainly Germans and Jews.The number of ethnic Germans still living in the former Soviet bloc is between two and three million.The Jewish population is about one million.Population pressures in the former Soviet Union are almost nil because fertility trends are so low, except in the Muslim republics to the south, which tend to send migrants to European Russia.Thus the North-South divide also is present in the former Soviet empire.
The volume of legal permanent immigration to the United States, Canada and Australia has increased over the past four decades from around 450 000 per year in the 1950s to 650 000 annually throughout the 1960s, reaching nearly 700 000 per year in the 1970s and 1980s.The real increase has been greater because of illegal immigration, especially to the United States.The annual clandestine fl ow into the U.S. is roughly between 300 000 and 500 000.
In 1965 the United States changed its immigra tion policy by passing the Immigration and Nationality Act.This law abolished national origin and anti-oriental discrimination; causing a big impact in the direction of migratory fl ows.The new law gave preference to skilled labor, whatever its national origin.Consequently, new ethnic pathways were opened to the United States from the Indian sub-continent, Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam.The total population of Asians has increased from 500 000 in 1950 to more than three million in 1980 and eight million by 1990.
Migration from Latin America is also having a growing impact.According to some estimates, in 1950 the number of Hispanics in the U.S. was approximately four million, reaching 14,6 million by 1980 and 23 million by 1990.By the year 2000, or certainly by 2015, the Muslim population of the United States will exceed the Jewish population.Such a shift could infl uence domestic politics and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.
Other traditional receiving countries, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand also changed their immigration policies in this time period to favor highly skilled and professional workers irrespective of ethnicity.In Austra lia, the long standing preference for British immigrants and discrimination against Asians was gradually abolished.This new Australian policy is no doubt linked to the country's rapidly expanding trade with ASEAN countries.Immigration from Asia to Australia is now predominant.By the beginning of the 1980s, Australia's immigration looked like that of Canada or the United States, in terms of Asian content.By 1990, Australian popu lation was 2,6% Asian.
Immigration reinforces historical links between host regions and regions of departure.The South west United States is increasingly linked with Mexico's Northern provinces with binational social and economic ties.This integration will intensify under the North American Free Trade Agreement.In sum, by 1990, permanent immigration to the four main recipient countries -the U.S., Canada, Aus tralia, and New Zealand-from all sources stabilized at slightly above one million annually.
Migration to the oil producing Arab countries of the Middle East began in the 1930s, but until the1970s these fl ows were The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force small.The sudden rise in oil prices in 1973 generated unprecedented oil revenues and thus generated a big demand for immigrant labor.Foreign workers were recruited to construct and service industrial and infrastructure projects in many Arab oil producing states.Labor shortages in these under-populated countries were worsened by negligible female labor force participation rates and native male workers' preference for the public sector.
By the middle of the 1980s, there were about fi ve million immigrants in the Persian Gulf region with one state, Saudi Arabia, absorbing 40% of the total.Some 60% of migrants were from Asia.The large share of Asian migrants is explained by efforts of many Arab governments to prevent settlement by mi grants from neighboring Arab and Muslim states because of fears that the presence of large numbers of Arab immigrants would give rise to religious and political animosity.On the other hand, Asian migrants were different culturally and could be recruited on a strictly temporary basis.Foreign labor has been vital for all oil-rich economies in the Middle East.At the time of Iraq's invasion in 1990, four-fifths of Kuwait's labor force was non Kuwaiti.
In East Asia one of the most no table movements has been the fl ow of illegal immigration from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong, seeking freedom, higher wages and reunion with relatives.Hong Kong's population tripled from two million in 1950 to six million in 1992.Net migration for the period from 1950 to 1992 was roughly 1,2 million.Emigration from Hong Kong is driven by concerns about the return of the colony to China in 1997.Emigration accelerated after the June 1989 Tianenmen Square event and continues at a steady rate.In addition, Hong Kong's low fertility rate and booming economy in the late 1980s led to a growing labor shortage, spurring the government to announce a new immigration plan in 1989.
In Japan, a 1989 government survey revealed that there were 300 000 more jobs than there were Japanese workers to fi ll them.Business sources estimate the number of illegal immigrants in Japan at 600 000.The widespread use of foreign workers in Japan, once rare, is increasingly common due to the severe labor shortages in the last decade.Japan's total fertility rate has stayed below the replacement level since 1956.The impact of the fertility decline has been reinforced by an increase in the average number of years devoted to education.
The tough Japanese blue collar workers who rebuilt the nation in the 1950s and 1960s are mostly old men now.As in the West, the affl uence made possible by the older generation's effort and ingenuity bred a new generation that elders call a "new breed of human being".The young are no longer willing to perform tasks they associate with the "three Ks" -Kitanai (dirty), Kiken (dangerous), and Kibishii (diffi cult)-.This is true even for females who used to perform tasks that would be considered common work for foreign workers in the West (young Japanese women now have one of the highest educational achievement levels in the world).Immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, China and Thailand are now a common sight, working alongside middle-aged Japa nese workers in small factories and at construction sites.
Up until the beginning of the 1980s, South Korea had an active emigration Jean-Claude Chesnais policy that facilitated temporary contracts for Korean workers in the Middle East.Now Korea is in the midst of its migration transition.Emigration is diminishing rapidly while immigrants from countries such as the Philippines, Pakistan and Indonesia arrive in greater numbers.South Korea has become a net importer of labor.The country's labor shortage is like that of Japan: decreasing growth in labor supply and a shift in Job preferences among the new generation.
Outside the city states of Hong Kong and Singapore, Taiwan has the highest population density in Asia.However, Taiwan now has a serious labor shortage.Annual population growth has fallen from 3,5% in the 1950s to 1% in 1990.Taiwan has had sub-replacement fertility since the mid 1980s and unemployment below 2% with rapid economic growth.So Taiwan now has large numbers of clandestine workers.The number of illegals is estimated at 200 000 or 1% of the population, coming to Taiwan from the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The demographic transition is maturing rapidly.A century ago, only one country, France, had sub-replacement level fertility.In the 1930s, fertility rates below replacement appeared in another ten countries in Western Europe.After the postwar baby boom, a parenthesis in Western fertility trends, sub-replacement rates have spread to all developed areas of the planet: North America, all of Europe including Russia, the Baltics, Ukraine and the more advanced regions of East Asia.Turkey is the only OECD country where the total fertility rate is still above the replacement level.The decline in the number of youths and the rise in the number of elderly that these trends portend could lead to two problems: (1) a short-age of manpower and new skills resulting in a slowing of economic growth and (2) a fi nancial crisis in the welfare system.These challenges can be met by encouraging female labor force participation, raising the retirement age, improving the skill level of the la bor force and using more labor saving technologies.But these measures alone may still not be enough.Policies stimulating fertility and encouraging orderly immigration will be needed.
Immigration by itself cannot restore a country's age pyramid depleted by a birth defi cit.Assimilation of indi vidual immigrants as well as migrant families leads to their adopting the age structure of the host country.The demo graphic potential of immigration to halt the aging of population is very limited.
In the medium term, it appears that immigration policies will be motivated, as usual, by economic factors, especially to offset shifts in the labor market as well as for humanitarian and political reasons.Explicit demographic goals, used in France in the past, are taboo in several important countries including Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan, because of their past association with dictatorship.These countries are not likely to remain prisoners of their past.They can explain the pursuit of demographic goals independently of their imperialist, nationalist and, in some cases, racist past.The new reason for demographic goals is a well-managed society preparing its own future by investing in new generations and aiming at intergenerational equity.
After one or two decades, when the advancing age structure will produce fewer births and more deaths, hastening demographic decline, immigration could be used as a way to limit the effects of The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force population shrinkage.But immigration is better accepted, and immigrants more easily assimilated, in societies that have enough native births.Fertility and immigration policies are in separable in the long run.A paradox hampers the resolution of the immigration problem.Only fertility recovery can alter the age pyramid.
Immigration has a small impact on the age structure.Any signifi cant impact demands a costly policy, since levels of immigration would have to be very high.Also, the immigrant population would have to be much younger and more fertile than the natives.This means that developed countries would have to import migrants from distant cul tures and bear the higher integration costs, as well as face a heightened risk of ethnic clashes that can occur when settling immigrants from very different societies.Future immigration will be increasingly visible and spontaneous.Conflicting interests among employers, trade unionists, migrant lobbyists and policymakers could grow sharper and more acrimonious.
Despite mounting resistance in public opinion, the structural nature of the shortages in the developed countries will be so dramatic that large migration streams are likely to take place.Although persistent unemployment resulted in a rise in xenophobia, immigration will grow because most foreign workers fi ll an urgent need.Apart from the aging of rich populations, the need for migrants is fed by the proliferation of highly technical white collar occupations, as well as the restructuring and splitting of the labor market into primary and secondary sectors, each with their own manpower and skill requirements, demanding more and more schooling, forcing young nationals to postpone entry in to the labor market.All of these trends limit the quantity and quality of labor force entrants, tending to reinforce the need for immigrants, especially in positions which require the performance of repetitive tasks, placing them at the bottom of a highly articulated industrial and service Job hierarchy.
According to medium variant United Nations projections, world population will double again from its present 5,5 billion to about 11 billion in the second half of the next century.This growth will be concentrated in poor areas such as South Asia and Africa.
Population growth in Asia is not a new story.In 1800 Asia contained two-thirds of all humans; by the year 2025 it will have 58% of total population.Africa had only 11% of world population in 1800, but its population is growing faster than any other region and will do so for the foreseeable future.By 2025, Africans could be 18% of the world total and could reach 26% by the end of the next century.This growth may be curbed by the impact of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.These projections do not assume any migration beyond the year 2025, so the picture could change if signifi cant migrations occurred.Given the international imbalances between the countries facing each other from the northern and southern banks of the Mediterranean, it is unlikely that Europe's popu lation will experience the steep decline shown in table 2 (a decrease of 75 million inhabitants in 75 years).
There are now three main areas of imbalance on our planet.The American zone bounded by the Rio Grande separates wealthy and largely Anglo-Saxon America from relatively poor and prolific Latin America.Second, in the Pacifi c, a pros- perous Japan for several decades has been able to control population growth and, thus, present a contrast to the poor and densely populated lands of China and the Indian subcontinent.The third area is the Mediterranean, separating Europe, with its welfare states and static populations, from Africa, whose political and economic stability is fragile and threatened by a population explosion.

Jean-Claude Chesnais
Of the three major areas of imbalance, the Mediterranean offers the biggest contrasts.The fertility gap between Europe and the southern bank of the Mediterranean is twice as large as the gap between the U.S. and Latin America, or between Japan and the rest of Asia.The economic disparities are also much greater.The average American's purchasing power is four times that of his Latin American counterpart while the average citizen of the European Community enjoys a pur chasing power between seven and eight times greater than the average African.Further, perceptions of the economic disparity between Europe and lands south of the Mediterranean have been heightened by the revolutions of 1989 and 1991.Now that the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe have undergone democratic revolutions, the continued repression by authoritarian regimes in the poorer South can only serve to aggravate the already substantial frustration of the younger generations in those countries.Convergence of demographic, economic and political imbalances could produce migration on an unprecedented scale.Given the present rate of growth and an age structure in which half the population is under 17 years old, Africa could have one billion more people four decades from now.
Migratory pressure on the European Union (EU) may increase in coming years.Creation of a single market will probably diminish intra-Community permanent migration while acting as a magnet for two external migrations.Today's surge of asylum seekers clearly illustrates this phenomenon.There were roughly 142 000 asylum applicants annually between 1985 and 1987.Since then, this number has jumped several times, reaching 170 000 in 1988, 224 000 in 1989, 325 000 in 1990 and roughly 400 000 in 1991.With the Yugoslav Civil War, asylum applications grew again in 1992.Germany has absorbed more than half these fl ows.

The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force
The evolution of migratory balance in the constant territory of the EU-12 confi rms this impression.Thus, in the 1988 to 1990 period, the migration surplus for the entire EU amounted to 800 000 per year.The strong economic performance of these years contributed to the size of the migration fl ows.They also were reinforced by external factors like the infl ows of ethnic Germans from Poland, Romania and Russia, and the diffi culties of economic transition in the former Soviet bloc, as well as the widening gap between Europe and the Mediterranean.The main factors driving the divergence between Europe and North Africa population are growth rates, economic performance, political instability, ethnic confl icts, ecological crisis, desertifi cation and the rise of religious fundamentalism.
It is hard to imagine massive immigration into Europe without ethnic strife.According to Eurobarometer public opinion polis, intolerance toward non-EU nationals is signifi cant in most EU countries.Racism and xenophobia are widespread.Public opinion polis suggests that the present number of foreigners is seen as quite high, even in countries with small foreign populations.
United Nations projections (1991) for the United States show net immigration of 450 000 annually during the 1990 to 2025 period.In view of the annual fl ow of 750 000 during the 1980s, this low projection is open to debate.
If U.S. fertility rate maintains its average for 1975-1990 of 1,8 through 2080, and if constant net migration from the countries mentioned above occurred at a level of 500 000 annually, less than 60% of the U.S. population would be non-His-panic whites at the end of the period.By early in the 21st century, the population of Hispanics and Asians would be a majority of California's population.The process of dewasping of the ruling elites will accelerate.In many southern and western states, including California, Texas and Florida, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants soon will become a minority.
The United Nations predicts that future net migrations to Japan will be nil.Given the economic gap between Japan and China and other surrounding developing countries, and the persistence of sub replacement fertility levels, high wages and the younger generation's refusal to perform certain low skilled Jobs, the UN projec tions once again appear unrealistic.
Like West Germany after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the experience of becoming a nation of immigration is entirely new for Japan.The German experience is informative in this regard.During the 1960s, Germany sought bilat eral agreements with Italy, Greece, and Turkey as it launched its guest worker program.It was envisioned that foreign workers would come for a temporary period of between two and three years, and then return to their homelands.
In reality, most of the so-called guest workers settled permanently, as they did in other countries of Western Europe that eschewed the guest worker concept, preferring instead to accept the immigrants as a component of their future population.France, followed by Belgium, and more recently Sweden, were among the countries that accepted immigration from the start.In the German case, as in Switzerland, circular migration did not work as expected.While the temporary guest worker con cept has Jean-Claude Chesnais its attractions -namely the minimization of infrastructural, political and social costs associated with immigration-many factors explain its failure in practice.
Temporary workers present economic disadvantages, such as repeated losses in productivity when training successive new workers.Even in the Persian Gulf, guest worker programs do not attain their goals.Further, they contradict the basic philosophy of Western pluralistic democracy.Migrant workers are entitled to basic rights and should not be used as tools or semi-slaves.
As diffi cult as it may be for host countries, foreign workers must be welcomed not just as workers, but also as people who will develop rights and families.
History teaches that no prosperous country can witness the decline of its labor force without its replenishment by immigrants from poorer nations.In Japan, the aging of population will slow labor growth.It is unlikely that employment of older workers and female part-timers can sustain future competitiveness on world markets.In 1990, the number of live births was 1,2 million and total fertility 1,5 births per woman.The number of births needed for generational replacement is roughly 1,7 million, so the defi cit is 460 000.If migration is conceived as a substitute, the birth defi cit suggests the scale of net migration necessary to achieve population equilibrium in the long run.Of course, such migration fl ows would be troublesome in the short term.Japanese society is not ready for a migration process of this size.
Therefore, we propose two contrasting scenarios for the period 1990 to 2010: 1. Low Scenario: An annual average of 120 000 permanent immigrants in the fi rst decade, which is low by international standards, only 1 per-thousand inhabitants.In the second decade, the num ber of net migrants would be increased to 180 000.Japanese from Latin America (mainly from Peru and Brazil) or other countries where their ancestors may have settled would be included in these fl ows.The "Newly Industrialized Countries" (NICs) of Asia and a new generation of dragons -including Thailand, the Philippines, Indone sia and even Vietnam-may soon have multiple sector manpower shortages and basic demographic weakness.Their need for labor could be met in a similar way to that outlined for Japan, by progressively opening their borders to foreign workers.

High
The rise of ethnic consciousness, the crumbling of communism, fertility differentials, revolutions in transport and communication, the ecological crisis, religious The fl ow of peoples: International migration as a revolutionary force revivalism, the spread of modern weaponry (accessible even to the poorest countries), aggravation of national disparities, are factors that may lead to a rise in tensions around the world, many of which might take place in areas of long-standing geopolitical importance.Political upheavals can cause massive displacement of people, adding burdens on an overloaded interna tional asylum system.If Korea were to reunite peacefully, like Germany has done, then migrations would remain primarily within the peninsula.But other cases of political upheaval portend more widespread and massive movements of populations.
While many types of upheaval and pestilence are unpredictable, some present situations can be studied now because of their potential for great violence.Here are some of the nightmares that we may contemplate: 1.A worsening of Indo International migrations are increasingly volatile.Using the international defi nition (UN protocol), the numbers of persons "in need of assistance" (that is who have not found a permanent place of settlement that can protect them from persecution) rose rapidly from some 1,5 million in 1951 to 8,5 million in 1980 and about 18 million in 1992.Over the same period, the number of Palestinians under the care of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) also increased from 1,8 to 2,4 million.For the world as a whole, approximately 17 million people were counted as refugees in need of assistance by 1990.In Europe alone, the number of asylum-seekers rose from 71 000 in 1983 to 450 000 in 1990, with the largest num bers in Germany (more than half).

Jean-Claude Chesnais
However, the largest increases in such claims in the latest years came from Eastern Europe and the former USSR; since political systems have been liberalized, the validity of such asylum claims is now questioned by European government leaders (the boundaries between "po litical" and "economic" reasons for movement become more and more blurred, but they need to be protected in order to ensure survival for people who are politically persecuted and hence are "real" political refugees).
In the 1990s, refugee movements are increasingly being recognized as destabilizing forces in both international and domestic affairs, as well as critical issues for the international community.In contrast to the immediate post-World War II period, when the 1951 Geneva Convention was formulated, refugee move ments today originate mainly in poor countries.As defi ned by international law, persecution means acts of government against indi viduals, legally excluding those fl eeing from generalized violence, insecurity and oppression, which are frequent in poor countries.Moreover, persecution in itself gives no status to people persecuted and displaced within national boundaries.Masses of people in poorer countries and the former Soviet bloc cannot count on their governments to provide basic physical, economic or political security.Many displaced people are on the move, candidates for crossing borders and thus potential international migrants.Most of their movement is among poorer countries (i.e.South-South migration, with an estimated 30 million refugees in the poorer countries).The magnitude of refugee fl ows in recent years has bred global concern.
Mass migration is disrupting both sending and receiving countries.Streams of unwanted newcomers may generate a serious threat to the social, economic and political stability of host states.The strain on social services and physical infrastructure, distortion of local economies, and racial and religious tensions that can erupt in the receiving countries challenge humanitarian concern: Can liberal democracies remain aloof from massacres, ethnic cleansing and explosions of political or religious violence?Hence a growing dilemma.South-South mass migrations may pose severe security challenges to the West during the next decades.
The rise of fundamentalisms, Sikh militancy and other ethno-religious political movements, in addition to the rise of terrorist activities and an increase in drug smuggling, seen in the control of millions of favela slum dwellers by drug traffi ckers in Rio de Janeiro, can be seen as a new security risk to pluralistic democracies.Pressures for migrant fl ows are likely to exceed politically tolerable levels.It can be said that the world refugee crisis is just beginning.
For many poorer countries, labor migration is a way of relieving domestic pressures while providing a fl ow of foreign exchange for the government.Remittances towards many labor-exporting countries sometimes equal or even exceed the total value of merchandise exports; which forces these countries to face the fact that their own populations are not responding as may be expected.Is immigration a means by which developed countries can compensate for their birth defi cits?Immigration is not a panacea.It cannot reverse population aging, yet it brings the challenge of a multi ethnic society.However, immigration can help