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A Perspective from : Migration the MENA

Region

Nassar Heba

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Introduction Migration issues in the Arab Region have

received in the last decade much less attention by researchers as well as policy makers, in comparison to the peak days of migration with the oil boom in the seventies. However currently with globalization, domestic labor market distortions, economic recession and partnership associations, Arab migration issues have come to the forefront as a main economic and social phenomena.

The Paper studies the Arab Migration, its trends and focuses on the Egyptian Case. The paper finally introduces a set of local as well as regional policies to address the migration, remittances and development triad in the Arab region

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2-Migration in the Arab Region: The demographic situation in the MENA region

varies considerably among the countries of the region and between the region itself and the Northern Mediterranean European countries.

Whereas Northern Mediterranean European countries have completed their demographic transition, MENA region is still encountering a lot of demographic changes.

Northern Mediterranean European countries have a relatively older population, those of the MENA region a fairly young population.

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2-Migration in the Arab Region:In MENA region, the actual number of people aged

0-14 will almost double (from 105 million to 177 million). This means greater pressure on educational systems, health expenditures, and on labor markets to create jobs. As a result migratory pressures will follow as long as the domestic labor markets are incapable of absorbing such increased in job seekers.

Participation rates are highly expected to increase in MENA region due to the increase in the participation rates of females. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the active population grew at average annual rates that exceeded the overall growth rate of the population. These rates are forecast to be 3.4% in Algeria, 2.9% in Morocco, 2.5% in Tunisia, 2.7% in Egypt and 1.9% in Turkey in the period from 1990 to 2010.

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3- Arab Migration Flows

The Arab region is characterized by two distinctive migration patterns

Intra Regional MigrationSouth / South

Extra Regional MigrationNorth/ South

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3- Arab Migration Flows Intra Regional Migration can be classified into three

types of trends: The first trend is the one that takes place between some

Arab Countries and other countries that are not located in the Gulf area as Libya.

Libya has been a pole of attraction for foreign labor in

the first South/ South trend. Migration is expected to increase as a result of two institutional developments. The first is the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union and the second is the restrictions imposed by European countries on migration inflows from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, which diverted migration flows from their countries to Libya.

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3- Arab Migration Flows Intra Regional Migration

The second trend: The same sending country is the hosting country of migrant labor or rather as precisely defined the replacement migration as the case of Jordan.

As of the early 1980s, between a third and two fifths of

its own labor force was working abroad whereas it hosted some 120,000 domestic and service workers as replacement migrants.

As economic conditions in Jordan worsened in the latter half of the 1980s, immigration appears to have slowed down or declined. The trend continued in the early 1990s as a result of the Gulf governments reactions to the supporting role of the Jordanian government to the Iraqi’s government in its invasion to Kuwait

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3- Arab Migration Flows Intra Regional Migration

The third type is the traditional type of migration, which takes place between the non-Gulf labor exporting countries to the Gulf labor importing countries.

The significant increase in the revenues of oil exporting countries launched ambitious socio-economic development plans in the Gulf oil exporting countries. With these new objectives their demand on labor intensified a migration wave which started in the first half of the seventies. At least until 1990, the dominant direction of international migration within the MENA region was to the six member states of the Gulf.

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3- Arab Migration Flows

Intra Regional Migration

- One of the major changes in migration to the Middle East over the past 20 years has been the shift from Arab to South and Southeast Asian source countries. In 1970, non-Arabs were only 12% of all workers in the Gulf; by 1985, 63% of the Gulf migrants were Asians.

- Unavailability of surveys and data on migration trends is an obstacle against estimating migration volumes in the Region.

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3- Arab Migration Flows Extra Regional Migration

Extra Regional Migration implies migrants leaving the

region expect to stay permanently in hosting countries. Migration from the Maghreb to European OECD

countries is a long standing phenomenon since the sixties. By 1989-1990, there were nearly 2.1 million in these countries in addition to Italy and Spain. Such figures exclude undocumented migrants. The main trend observed is that migration is increasing, despite all pressures to reduce it, from the Southern Mediterranean MENA countries to the Northern Mediterranean European countries

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3- Arab Migration Flows - Decline in migration of unskilled workers in extra and

intra regional migration coupled with an increase in skilled workers migration trigger adverse implications for the competitive advantages in countries of origin:

1) Continuous outflow of skills needed in the poor labor sending countries to implement development projects.

2) Loss in human investment. 3) Uncertainty of amount of remittances as return from

migration.

- These implications trigger the following consequences:1) The importance of upgrading the competitive

advantages of domestic production. 2) The importance of human resource development in

determining growth and comparative advantages.

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4-The Egyptian Case Egyptians abroad is estimated at 4% of the total population of

Egypt, or 1.5% of the total migrants all over the world .

Migrants are better educated. Since mid 1980s, the percentage of scientists and technicians has increased and the share of production workers in Egyptian migration has declined.

Egypt loses highly skilled persons to developed countries as well as a more significant number of medium skilled workers whether to developed or other developing (Arab neighboring) countries.

Two factors may be the reason for the previous argument:i- Low private rate of return to education in Egypt..ii- Limited employment opportunities in the formal private sector

and shrinking employment opportunities in the government sector.

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4-The Egyptian Case

Remittances : Excluding Suez Canal dues, remittances are among the

most stable sources of external finance. However, value of remittances tended to decline during the last decade.

Whether remittances contribute to the macro and micro-level development, it was concluded that:

i. Once-abroad migrant households spent most of their remittance earnings on housing.

ii. Limited size of investment devoted for buying new land for agriculture.

iii.Migrants remittances are an important source of revenues for families.

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4-The Egyptian Case Social Capital and Migration: Networks are key

intermediates in migration in Egypt, which operate in both directions. The social capital index for households who receive remittances is lower than the value of index for households who do not receive remittances. Our interpretation for that is that because these households are better off their involvement with the community is not so much needed. Also their political participation might be lower.

Migration has a positive impact on receiving services such as educational and medical services.

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5- Policy Perspectives In a world increasingly characterized by global networks for producing and exchanging over capital movements and the production of goods, controlling labor flows may not be successful, thus a migration and a development policy is needed

Several considerations have to be taken such as the :

i. Inefficient institutional framework to enhance labor movement in the Arab World.

ii. Rigid segmentation of the Arab labor market

iii. Absence of freedom of movement.

iv. Scarcity of skills and capital.

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5- Policy Perspectives

A-Local Level Policies:

Southern Mediterranean MENA countries need serious changes in their labor market and migration policies through three devices.

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5- A-Local Level Policies:The first set of policies :(i) Retention policies focus on the improvement of

domestic opportunities in the educational sector as well as those that target domestic growth and lessen the incentive to migrate.

(ii) Employment policies entail smoothing out the mismatching between job seeker profiles and employer needs, introducing upgrading programs to achieve the necessary competitive retraining of labor, establishment of an improved information system, increase production sector’s ability to absorb more labor, providing the required skills for promising modern sectors of high employment elasticity/output, as well as encouraging exporting industries

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5- A-Local Level Policies:The first set of policies :(iii) Demand side policies requires increasing the economic

growth rate to create the needed job opportunities.

(iv) Supply side policies entail expanding the scope of training to include modern sectors such as communications, services, as well as using new training methods such as independent training through modern technology.

Coordination between all labor market organizations

and inclusion of all actors in the migration arena such as business, trade unions and NGOs is needed

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5- A-Local Level Policies:The Second set of policies : Implementation of efficient financial and macro level policies.

The ILO follows 3 approaches to maximize the benefits of remittances to migrants, their families and the wider community: -Follow-up to ILO labor standards, to ensure that migrant workers have the right to transfer (part of) their earnings and savings through their preferred channel.-Improvement of remittance services.-Introduction of market-conforming investment opportunities to increase the development potential of remittances.

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5- A-Local Level Policies:

The Third set of policies :Reception and reintegration services for returning migrants and their families to have reliable relocation and labor market information as well as a full array of educational services for returning children .

Channeling remittances and influencing the relocation choices of return migrants enables the integration of returnees in their societies.

One way of involvement is of the migrants is to involve them in matters of community action, not only in the implementation of activities but more in the design of projects and their planning in different aspects and in different aspects in community needs and priorities.

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5-A-Local Level Policies

A number of conditions are required to establish local level policy for labor market and migration :

Establishment of an improved information system .Developing labor market policy addressing shortages

and oversupply as well as gaps in labor market.Coordination between all stakeholders concerned with

labor market, migration and integration matters in countries of origin and of destination including business, trade unions and NGOs.

Ensuring transparency among all stakeholders.

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5-B-Regional Level Policies

Better co-ordination of migration policies and industrial planning is needed within the MENA region.

Elaborate and implement labor migration policies in consensus with all social partners. (Governments, Employers, Trade Unions, NGOs ).

Implement efficient return and readmission policies in co-operation of countries of origin with the host countries to conduct suitable readmission agreements-if needed-whether on a bilateral or multilateral basis.

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5-B-Regional Level PoliciesCreation of a permanent system of information about ,

migration between Euro-Med. Countries.

Linking co-operation on return with development assistance. Joint development projects in providing assistance to returning immigrants and bilateral readmission agreements will support the implementation of Association Agreements concluded, between the EU and other countries in the Region.

Dialogue should place migration into a broader foreign and trade policy context, linking it with discussions about trade and capital flow aiming at creating a suitable environment for regional cooperation