The Forces Driving Global Migration

Movements of people are a crucial element in global integration. Most destination countries favour entry of the highly skilled, but restrict entry of lower-skilled workers, asylum seekers and refugees. A major cause of migration is the growing inequality in incomes and human security between more- and less-developed countries. Further driving factors include uneven economic development; rapid demographic transitions; and technological advances in transport and communications. Increasingly migrants do not shift their social existence from one society to another, but maintain transnational connections. The global economic crisis since 2008 has brought a hiatus in some of these factors, but has not undermined their long-term significance. Australia's traditional model of permanent-settlement migration needs to be adjusted to the new realities of global mobility and connectivity.