Economic Development and International Migration in Comparative Perspective

Economic development is associated with modernization urbanization internal rural-urban migration and international migration. Emigration is positively associated with development and aid to developing countries will increase emigration from those countries until the developing country reaches a standard of living equal to that of the developed country. Studies of European emigration to America have shown that emigration is correlated with the onset of industrialization and that emigration was highest when the home country was experiencing a depression and the US economy was in a period of upswing. The basis of society in an underdeveloped country is labor-intensive subsistence farming which provides work and sustenance to a household or community. As soon as capital is applied to agriculture the small peasant holdings are replaced by large private holdings efficiently farmed by machinery and producing surpluses that find their way to markets that is to urban areas which represent concentrations of wealth. The fabric of agricultural society is destabilized as the peasant owner becomes a hired laborer who migrates to the urban area when farms need fewer and factories more laborers. The 1st phase of migration is thus rural to urban. But development is discontinuous both in time and in space and when the displaced worker cannot find employment in the cities of his own country he emigrates to another. Transportation and communication facilities developed to facilitate industrial and commercial exchange also serve as carriers of international migration usually to the same country with which close economic links have already been established. International migration feeds on itself because earlier immigrants provide a network that makes resettlement easier cheaper and less risky for the next wave of migrants. Moreover the emigrants send money back to the home country which helps to speed up the development process in the home country until modernization and urbanization reach the point where there are no more displaced peasants to export. The experience of the United States and Mexico illustrates most phases of the emigration cycle. The 1st wave of Mexican emigration to the US lasted from 1900 to 1929 when the US economy was growing and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1919) devastated the Mexican economy. In the 1930s Mexico experienced a period of rapid growth. The 2nd wave of emigration 1942-1964 stemmed from the coincidence of drought in Mexico and wartime labor shortage in the US which was remedied by the bracero program which granted temporary visas to Mexican agricultural workers. The 3rd and current wave of emigration began in the mid-1960s. It was fueled by the Mexican governments ambitious economic reform program which was to be paid for out of oil revenues. When oil prices fell the Mexican economy suffered a crisis of inflation and debt. However the development process in Mexico is reaching the stage where there are no longer large numbers of surplus agricultural workers and Mexican emigration should diminish over the next 2 decades.