Embedded Files
Helpful prior knowledge and learning objectives
Helpful prior knowledge and learning objectives
Helpful prior learning:
Section 1.1.1 The economy and you, which explains what an economy is and how it is relevant to students’ lives
Section 1.1.2 The embedded economy, which explains the relationship between the economy and society and Earth’s systems
Section 1.3.9 Power in the economy, which explains where power comes from and how it shapes economic relationships
Section 2.3.3 Households and global care chains, which explains the causes and consequences of globally interconnected care work for the host and home countries of migrant care workers
Section 7.1.1 Global exchange as a system, which describes global exchange as a system with parts, relationships, functions and emergence
Section 7.1.2 History of global exchanges, which describes how global exchange systems have evolved over time, shaped by changes in technology, power, and environmental factors
Section 7.1.3 What moves across borders? which describes what flows across borders and explains how visible global flows are linked to less visible social and ecological effects
Section S.1 What are systems?, which explains what a system is, the importance of systems boundaries, the difference between open and closed systems, and the importance of systems thinking
Section S.2 Systems thinking patterns, which outlines the core components of systems thinking: distinctions (thing/other), systems (part/whole), relationships (action/reaction), and perspectives (point/view)
Section S.4 Stocks and flows, which explains how inflows and outflows affect stocks of things, leading to behaviour-over-time patterns
Learning objectives:
describe the push and pull factors that drive migration between sending and receiving countries
identifying the power relationships and structural conditions that shape labour migration and the work that labour migrants do
evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for individual migrants, sending countries, and receiving economies.
Rosa left her three children with her mother in Oaxaca, Mexico, to work as a home carer in Los Angeles, USA. She works six days a week for below minimum wage, with no contract and no legal status. If she complains, she can be forced to leave the country.
Amir left his village in Bangladesh to work on a construction site in Qatar. He borrowed eight months of wages to pay a recruitment agency for the job. His employer holds his passport, and he cannot change jobs or leave the country without permission.
Rosa and Amir are two of around 168 million people that worked outside their home country in 2022. Not all migrants share their experience. Many move between wealthy countries for a career opportunity or a fresh start, with contracts, legal protection, and freedom to leave if they choose.
This section is about the experience of migrant workers whose employment is shaped by unequal power, where people often have far fewer choices.
Figure 1. Total number of emigrants, those who leave their home country.
(Credit: Our World in Data)
Why do people migrate?
Why do people migrate?
Economists often explain migration as an individual cost-benefit decision. A person weighs up the wages they might receive at home against wages that could be arned abroad and moves if the gain is large enough. Social scientists use two concepts to explain migration (Figure 2):
push factors: conditions in a person's home country that make staying difficult such as low wages; lack of jobs; limited public services; political instability; discrimination on religion, gender or sexual orientation; or environmental pressures.
pull factors: conditions in destination countries that attract migrants such as higher wages, plentiful jobs, better public services, political and environmental stability or more liberal views on religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
Figure 2. Push and pull factors that drive migration.
Migration is often described as either voluntary or involuntary. But this distinction is not always clear. When push factors are severe enough, people may have little real choice about whether to leave, even if no one is forcing them directly. As Section 7.3.1 showed, the poverty and instability behind these push factors are partly produced by unequal exchange: the wage suppression, weak price-setting power, and barriers to development that keep the Global South structurally poorer. Migration is one more channel through which that inequality plays out, this time as the movement of people.
The rest of this section looks at what receiving countries, individual migrants, and sending countries gain and lose from labour migration, and what that reveals about power in the global economy.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for receiving countries?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for receiving countries?
Behind the food, care, and buildings that keep wealthy economies running, migrant labour is doing more work than most people realise.
Benefits for receiving countries
Benefits for receiving countries
People in wealthy receiving countries might think that labour migration mainly benefits the migrant. In reality, regions like North America, Europe, and the Arab states are structurally dependent on migrant labour. Their economic systems would not function without it (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Three regions receive the highest percentage of labour migrants: North America, Europe, and Arab States.
(Credit: ILO)
To see how deep this dependence runs, it helps to look at the sectors that employ the most migrant workers: service and care, manufacturing and construction, and agriculture. Data on migrant workers are estimates, since undocumented migration means the true numbers may be higher.
Service and care sectors
The service sector employs approximately 68 per cent of all migrant workers globally, including care and domestic work, hospitality, retail, and health services, much of it done by women. Demand for care workers has grown as populations in high-income countries age and more women take paid work. Researchers call this a global care chain: care is passed from household to household across countries, each one relying on someone else, often in a poorer country (Section 2.3.3). The woman caring for an elderly person in France may herself rely on a relative in her home country to look after her own children. Domestic work often happens inside private homes, so it falls outside the labour laws that protect workers in other sectors. This leaves many care workers with little legal protection if their wages are withheld or working conditions are poor.
This dependence has grown as the states of high-income countries have cut public spending on care, creating constant labour shortages in the domestic population. Care work increasingly falls to migrant women, hired privately by households or by underfunded public services. Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom actively recruit care workers from the Philippines, India, and sub-Saharan Africa to fill these gaps.
Figure 4. A migrant care worker supporting an elderly patient in a high-income country
(Credit: peopleimages.com, licensed through Adobe Stock)
Manufacturing and construction
Male migrant workers are concentrated in manufacturing and construction. The Gulf states host the highest proportion of migrant workers in the world, because their small citizen populations cannot supply enough workers for large-scale building projects. The kafala system governs the lives of these migrant workers. Kafala ties a worker's legal right to remain in the country to a single employer, so workers cannot change jobs, leave the country, or report abuse without their employer's permission. Many arrive already in debt, having paid recruitment agencies fees equivalent to months of future wages. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and human rights organisations have documented widespread wage theft, passport confiscation, and dangerous working conditions under kafala. Some reforms have been introduced since 2020, but enforcement remains inconsistent.
In the UAE, dependence on migrant labour is extreme. Around 88 per cent of the population is foreign-born, disproportionately male (Figure 6).
Figure 5. Migrant workers on a construction site in the Gulf states, where they make up the majority of the construction workforce
(Credit: ILO, CC BY-ND 2.0)
Figure 6. Population pyramid of United Arab Emirates, 2024, showing the disproportionately large population of working age men, largely migrants from South Asia.
(Credit: populationpyramid.net)
Agriculture
Agricultural workers account for around seven per cent of migrant labour globally, and they are among the most invisible and least protected. Harvests need large numbers of workers for short periods of time, and few local workers are willing to do this seasonal work at the low wages it typically pays. In the United States, around half of all farm workers are migrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America. California's (USA) agricultural sector, one of the largest in the world, relies almost entirely on migrants. Without them, the sector would collapse, and food prices would rise sharply.
Figure 7. Migrant workers harvest crops by hand. Seasonal agricultural labour like this often comes with short-term contracts and few legal protections
(Credit: mike ledray, licensed from Adobe Stock)
Receiving countries gain other benefits too. Migrant nurses, doctors, and engineers were trained at public expense in other countries, so receiving countries get a skilled workforce without having paid for their education. Migrants also often have little power to negotiate, which lets employers keep wages low or dismiss workers without cause, an example of extractive employment practices.
Drawbacks for receiving countries and a political contradiction
Drawbacks for receiving countries and a political contradiction
The drawbacks for receiving countries are real, but mostly local rather than national. Migrants tend to settle in particular cities and regions, so local housing costs and public services can come under pressure there, even when the national economy benefits overall. Some studies also find that immigration reduces wages or job opportunities for workers with less education, though other studies find little or no effect.
Despite the small size of these effects, many receiving countries have strong anti-immigration political movements, even where their economy depends on migrant workers. Politicians who describe migration as a problem have won elections by generating fear and resentment towards migrants. In the United States, recent anti-immigration rhetoric, policies, and immigration raids have put the agricultural sector at risk.
Research on public opinion finds a different cause. This hostility is mainly about worries over national identity and culture. It is not mainly about jobs or money. But people often express it in economic terms. Because migrant labour is largely hidden from view, people rarely see the work migrants do or the value it adds. Many also wrongly believe migrants take jobs from local workers. This belief exists alongside the idea that receiving countries are doing migrants a favour by letting them in.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for individual migrants?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for individual migrants?
Not every migrant has the same experience. Some migrate on favourable terms, with in-demand skills and secure legal status. Others, like Rosa and Amir, have far less choice and face far greater risk. This section looks at what migrants like them gain, and what they give up, by working abroad.
Benefits for individual migrants
Benefits for individual migrants
Migrants like Rosa and Amir often earn much more money than they would at home. Studies comparing migrants to equally skilled workers who stayed home find that migrants can earn two or three times as much, or more, just by moving to a higher-income country. Economists call this the place premium. For most workers, this gain is larger than what they could get from other choices, such as more education or training at home.
Migration can also give people chances they would not have at home, including better healthcare and education for their family, and sometimes a path to permanent residency or citizenship. Higher wages let many migrants send money home, called remittances, which can reduce poverty for the whole household.
Not all migrants receive such benefits. Migrants with in-demand skills and secure legal status get the full benefit more often. Migrants with fewer resources or protections, like Rosa and Amir, get a smaller share, and face much greater risk.
Drawbacks for individual migrants
Drawbacks for individual migrants
These gains frequently come at serious personal cost. Many skilled migrant labourers work below their level of qualification abroad. This happens because employers do not recognise foreign degrees or professional experience. Around one in three highly educated migrants in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries work in jobs below their skill level. This is sometimes called brain waste. Other costs come earlier, before migrants even start working. Many go into debt to fund their own recruitment and travel. Once abroad, they are often separated from their families, which creates strain at home. They are often exploited: paid little, working in poor and dangerous conditions, and trapped in their jobs.
Legal systems add to this vulnerability. A worker on a time-limited visa may feel unable to report poor conditions for fear of losing the right to stay in the country. A worker whose permit is tied to one employer, as under the kafala system described above, has little power to negotiate better conditions or leave.
Strict immigration laws make it hard for some people to migrate legally, and desperation then pushes them to migrate illegally instead. Workers without legal status face even greater vulnerability. They cannot report abuse or access labour protections without risking deportation, and they are often the first to lose their jobs in economic crises.
This suits some employers well. In the United States, agricultural employers, particularly in California, have long depended on undocumented workers. State authorities may tolerate workers’ illegal status because it keeps labour costs low.
Figure 8. States often require workers to obtain a visa to enter and work. Work and resident permits are often time limited, and only granted under certain conditions.
(Credit: Ascannio, licensed from Adobe Stock)
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for sending countries?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of labour migration for sending countries?
Sending countries are the countries migrants leave. Losing workers brings real benefits as well as real costs, depending on who leaves, why they left, and whether they return.
Benefits for sending countries
Benefits for sending countries
Remittances, money sent home by migrants, are an important benefit, sometimes exceeding 20 per cent of GDP. Emigration can also produce a brain gain. The prospect of higher wages abroad can encourage more young people to invest in education at home, and some who leave later return with new skills. This tends to happen only where countries train graduates faster than they lose them, and where returning migrants find conditions worth coming back to.
Drawbacks for sending countries
Drawbacks for sending countries
While receiving countries gain workers, sending countries lose them. That may not be a problem when unemployment is high at home. But when countries lose workers trained at public expense, such as doctors, engineers, and teachers, economists speak of a brain drain. Since receiving countries did not pay for this training, it acts like an invisible subsidy flowing continuously from the Global South to the Global North.
Remittances help individual families, but they do not replace what a country loses when trained workers leave its hospitals, schools, and other public services. Shortages of nurses, teachers, and social workers in the Global South are directly linked to emigration.
Figure 9. Brain drain, where workers leave a country to seek higher pay abroad, is like an invisible subsidy from the Global South to the Global North.
(Credit: Bobita, licensed from Adobe Stock)
What does labour migration reveal about power?
What does labour migration reveal about power?
Receiving countries gain a skilled, low-cost workforce, largely without paying for its training, with comparatively few drawbacks. Individual migrants often earn far more than they would at home, but many pay for this gain with debt, family separation, exploitation, and legal vulnerability. Sending countries gain from remittances, and sometimes from workers who return with new skills, but lose trained workers and public education investments.
These differences in benefits and costs are not random. As Section 1.3.9 showed, power comes from control over resources, from rules, and from ideas that make things seem normal. In labour migration, receiving countries and employers control the jobs, wages, and legal status that migrants depend on. They also set the rules, such as visa conditions and the kafala system, that decide how much freedom migrants have. Many people believe the current system is fair, or that it cannot be changed, and these beliefs make it easier to ignore the imbalance of power.
Activity 7.3.2
Activity 7.3.2
Concept: Systems, power
Skills: Research skills (information literacy), Thinking skills (critical thinking, transfer)
Time: varies, depending on option
Type: Individual, pairs, or small group
Option 1: Data interpretation practice - Country migration data
Time: 30-40 minutes
Part 1: Understanding this chart
This chart is a Sankey diagram, a chart type where the width of each band shows the size of a quantity. Sankey diagrams are often used to show flows, but this one shows a stock: the total number of people living outside their country of birth at a single point in time, not the number who moved in any one year.
As Section S.4 explained, a stock at any point in time is the result of inflows and outflows built up over time. The stock of immigrants shown here is the accumulated result of years of people arriving (an inflow) minus those who have since left or died (outflows). The band widths in this diagram let you compare the size of these accumulated stocks by country of origin or destination, even though the diagram itself does not show the year-by-year inflows and outflows that produced them.
The left side of the diagram shows the stock of people living in your chosen country who were born somewhere else (immigrants).
The right side shows the stock of people born in your chosen country who now live somewhere else (emigrants).
The width of each coloured band shows the size of that stock. A wider band means more people.
Moving the time slider does not show migration happening year by year. It moves between two stock snapshots, so any difference you see between two years is the net result of all the inflows and outflows that happened in between.
Part 2: General analysis
Work through this data interpretation routine before answering the questions. Note answers will be different for most questions depending on the country chosen. If in doubt discuss with other students or your teacher.
What is the title of the chart and what does it measure?
This chart uses the width of bands to show numbers of people. Look at the labels next to each band before comparing them.
Select your own country, or a country you are interested in, using the dropdown menu. Identify one fact from the immigrant side of the diagram (where do most of this country's immigrants come from?). Identify one fact from the emigrant side (where do most of this country's emigrants go?).
Is there a pattern in where this country's immigrants and emigrants come from and go to? For example, are most of them from nearby countries, or from far away?
Are there any surprising results? For example, a country you did not expect to see, or a much larger or smaller number than you expected.
(If you have time, requires some patience to really interpret) Use the time slider to move between 1990 and 2024. Has the pattern changed over time, or stayed roughly the same?
Part 3: Digging deeper
Compare your country's data using the sex filter (male, female, or both). Does the balance of male and female migrants differ between immigrants and emigrants? What might explain this, using what you have learned in this section about the kinds of work migrants do?
This chart shows migrant stock, not the reasons people migrated. Choose one of the countries shown as an origin or destination for your chosen country, and explain what you would need to find out to know whether that migration was mostly labour migration, family migration, or displacement (refugees or asylum seekers). Where could you look to find this out? Discuss with other students and your teacher.
Option 2: Data interpretation practice - Regional migration data
Time: 25-30 minutes
Understanding this chart
This is a Sankey diagram, the same chart type used in the previous activity. It shows a stock, the total number of migrants living outside their region of birth in 2024, not the number who moved in any single year. The left side shows region of origin. The right side shows region of destination. The width of each band shows the size of that stock. A wider band means more people.
Questions
Which region has the widest band leading to itself (the most people who stayed within their own region)? Which region has the smallest?
Identify the two widest bands crossing from one region to a different region. Where do they run from and to?
Europe's total in brackets on the origin side (61 million) is much smaller than its total on the destination side (94 million). What does this difference tell you?
The report states that 74 per cent of migrants born in Europe live in another European country, but only 25 per cent of migrants born in Central and Southern Asia stay within that region. What does this difference suggest about why people leave Central and Southern Asia compared to why people leave Europe?
Choose one inter-regional corridor (a band running between two different regions) that surprised you. Suggest one possible reason for it, using what you have learned earlier in this section about push and pull factors.
Figure 11. Number of international migrants by region of origin and destination, 2024.
(Credit: United Nations)
Click on the arrow to see sample responses, but give it a go yourself first!
Europe keeps the highest share of its migrants within the region, 74 per cent. Central and Southern Asia keeps the smallest share, only 25 per cent, meaning 75 per cent of its diaspora lives outside the region.
The two largest inter-regional corridors in 2024 were Latin America and the Caribbean to Northern America (27 million people) and Central and Southern Asia to Northern Africa and Western Asia (20 million people).
Europe receives far more migrants than it sends, so it is a net destination region overall. The report notes that Europe's migrant stock also grew faster than any other region since 2020, largely due to refugees from Ukraine.
There is no single correct answer here, but the difference suggests migration from Europe may often happen between countries with relatively similar income levels and easy legal movement (for example, within the EU), so migrants do not need to travel far to find better wages or conditions. Migration from Central and Southern Asia more often crosses into other regions entirely, which could suggest either larger income gaps with nearby countries, fewer nearby high-income destinations, or a combination of labour migration (for example, to the Gulf states in Northern Africa and Western Asia) and displacement (for example, from Afghanistan). Accept any well-reasoned answer that connects to push and pull factors from earlier in this section.
Answers will vary. A strong answer names a specific corridor, states a plausible push or pull factor (wage gap, conflict, colonial or linguistic ties, geographic proximity), and connects it to a concept already covered in the section rather than introducing an unrelated new idea.
Option 3: Engaging with labour migration narratives
Time: 30-40 minutes
Instructions
On a piece of paper or a digital document, make three headings: benefits for receiving countries, benefits for individual migrants, and benefits for sending countries.
Watch the video on this link or below. As you watch, take notes under each heading on what you hear, including any evidence or numbers the video uses to support its claims.
When you have finished watching, go back through your notes. For each heading, use what you have learned in this section to identify at least one thing the video does not mention, or presents more simply than the evidence supports. Add these gaps to your notes.
Answer the discussion questions below the video, using your notes.
Figure 12. A video from The Economist presents an optimistic case for the economic benefits of migration.
(Credit: The Economist)
Discussion questions
The video tells Beth's story as a successful outcome. She moved from the Philippines to the UAE, then to London, where her current employer sponsored her visa. Identify one detail in this story that this section would treat as a source of vulnerability, even though the video does not present it that way.
The video argues that migrants complement rather than compete with local workers, citing research by Giovanni Peri. This section presented more mixed evidence on this question. Why might a persuasive video choose to present only one side of a genuinely unsettled academic debate?
The video claims world GDP could rise by 50 to 150 per cent if all barriers to migration were removed. What kinds of costs, covered elsewhere in this section, would not show up in a GDP figure at all?
Click on the arrow to reveal sample responses, but give it a go yourself first!
Information from the video in three headings:
Receiving countries: migrants complement rather than compete with local workers (Peri's research); high-skilled migrants drive innovation (patents, new products); immigrants and their children founded 45% of Fortune 500 companies; public perception of migrant numbers and unemployment is exaggerated.
Individual migrants: wages can rise by a factor of more than eight for the same worker in a richer country (Clemens); Beth's story, higher earnings, ability to support her family, eventual move to a country she is happy in.
Sending countries: remittances often exceed 10% of GDP and, in some countries, nearly a third; the video explicitly argues there is no "brain drain," since Clemens claims no poor country has ever developed by trapping its people; migration builds trade, investment, and technology transfer links.
Information missing in the video in three headings:
Receiving countries: no mention of the legal systems (visa conditions, kafala) that let receiving countries benefit from migrant labour without full accountability, or of the small but real wage effects on less-educated local workers that this section discussed.
Individual migrants: no mention of recruitment debt, family separation as a cost rather than a side note, exploitation, or the legal vulnerability created by employer-tied visas, the exact system Beth's own story involves without naming it as a risk.
Sending countries: the ‘no brain drain’ claim is presented as settled fact, when this section showed it is contested, and the video does not mention that remittances, while real, do not replace lost public capacity (health workers, teachers) the way this section argued.
Discussion questions:
Beth's employer sponsoring her UK visa is presented as a happy resolution, but it is also exactly the kind of employer-tied legal status this section identified as a source of vulnerability, since her right to stay depends on that employer.
A persuasive video is trying to build a clear, confident case, and acknowledging genuine academic disagreement would weaken that case. This does not necessarily mean the video is dishonest, but it does mean viewers should notice when a debate is presented as settled.
GDP does not capture family separation, exploitation, legal insecurity, debt bondage, or the loss of trained workers from public services in sending countries, all covered in this section as real costs of labour migration.
Ideas for longer activities and projects are listed in Subtopic 7.5
Checking for understanding
Checking for understanding
Coming soon!
Further exploration
Further exploration
Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers: what's the difference? — A Guardian explainer setting out the legal distinctions between these terms. The migration figures cited are now over a decade old, but the legal definitions themselves still hold. Difficulty level: easy.
Unsung Cleaners - A podcast series from Macrodose that explores the invisible work of cleaners, a form of care work in the economy, in Europe. This work is often done by migrant labourers who experience significant vulnerabilities. Difficulty level: easy.
Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers — An International Labor Organization (ILO) video summarising the findings of its fourth Global Estimates report, including the growth in migrant workers since 2013 and which regions and income groups they are concentrated in. Difficulty level: easy.
Migration — An Our World in Data resource hub with interactive charts and research articles covering global migration patterns, refugee populations, remittance flows, and recorded deaths during migration. The data can be filtered by country and year, making it a useful tool for exploring the scale and direction of migration flows. Note that the framing treats migration primarily as a positive driver of economic development, so use it alongside this section with that in mind. Difficulty level: easy/medium
Migration Data Portal | IOM — A collection of global migration statistics maintained by the International Organization for Migration. Includes data on international migrant numbers, labour migration, remittances, missing migrants, refugees, and internal displacement, along with an interactive tool showing remittance flows between countries. Difficulty level: medium.
The hidden force in global economics: sending money home | Dilip Ratha - Economist Dilip Ratha argues that remittances, money migrants send home, matter far more than most people realise, adding up to several times global development aid. He also shows how high transfer fees and recruitment costs eat into what families actually receive. Difficulty level: medium.
Gender Awareness & Public Policy | Feminist Economics Part 4 - Feminist economist Jayati Ghosh explains gender is so important to consider in countries’ economic policies. The first part of the video discusses gender differences in migration in global care chains. Difficulty level: medium
What is the kafala system? - An overview of the kafala system by the Council on Foreign Relations. Difficulty level: medium
Interactive from Migrant-rights.org - a short, engaging exercise that explores the hardships that migrant workers in countries with a kafala system can face. Though the interactive does not focus specifically on care workers, they face the same difficulties in this system. Difficulty level: easy
International Labor Organization (ILO) topic site on domestic workers - Includes information and news on the conditions and legal developments related to domestic workers globally. Difficulty level: medium
Undervaluing the work of care - A Care Matters podcast with Professor Nancy Folbre, Professor Shereen Hussein and Dr. Naomi Lightman where they have a wide-ranging discussion about the tensions of markets providing care, the role of undervalued care in global care chains, and the difficulty of measuring the value of care considering its large positive social impacts. Difficulty level: medium
Sources
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