Lesson 2:

The Global Mobility

Migrationpertains to the mobility or the movement of the population across space. Migration may be internal,
where it refers to people moving from one area to another within one country or it could also be international
migration, in which people cross border of one country to another.

From the recent international migration trends, the top countries of origin are: India, Mexico, China, Philippines,
Afghanistan and the top destinations are the West and Middle East and United States.

Kinds of migrants can be vagabonds or tourists. Vagabonds refers to people who move involuntarily. They can
be (1) refugees,wherein they are forced to leave their homeland due totheir fear for their safety; (2) asylum
seekers, who seek to remain in the country to which they flee; or (3) a labor migrant, where one is forced to
search for work outside his/her home country by “push” and “pull” factors. Tourists on the other hand are
people who move anywhere the world because they want to.

A major challenge in analyzing the mobility of the population is the difficulty in acquiring data. Many countries
do not collect data and those that collect data do not report them to international agencies. Population flows
are defined differently in different countries and only few countries keep track of their expatriates. The more it is
difficult in keeping tabs on illegal migrants.

Many nations tend to keep the labor it needs but there is also an influx of large number of migrants into another
country which can at times lead to conflict. Migration impediments also could be attributed to the growing
concern over terrorism. Such difficulties could be ascribed as a product of the Westphalia era.
At the end of this lesson, instructors will enable their students to:
1. Analyze the political, economic, cultural and social factors underlying the global movements of people
2. Display first-hand knowledge of the experiences of OFWs

Drivers of Migration: Why do people to move?

The instructor may start the lesson with identification of the drivers of migration.

Migration is as old as humankind. People have always moved in search of better living conditions for
themselves and for their loved ones or escaping dramatic situations in their homeland. These two major drivers
were the fundamentals of the ‘push and pull’ theory that was first proposed by Lee in 1966, encompassing
economic, environmental, social and political factors pushing out from the individual homeland and attracting
him/her towards the destination country. According to Castelli (2018), that in the current global world reality is
certainly much more complex and faceted, involving both local national realities and macro-level causes as
well as meso-level and micro-level causes related to the link of the individual to his/her ethnic or religious
group and the personal characteristic of the individuals respectively drives people to move.

Figure 1. Complex drivers of migration: macro-, meso- and micro-factors

 Source: Foresight:
Migration and Global
Environmental
Change (2011) Final
Project Report The
Government Office
for Science, London,
modified
Drivers of
migration

1. Inadequate
human and
economic

development

Human development is enormously unbalanced in the various regions of the planet and the gap is increasingly
wide.Poor health services, little educated and qualified work force and poverty are a fertile background
promoting migration of individuals in search of better life. New communication technologies, largely
available in urban settings even in developing countries, allows people to compare the western lifestyle
with the local situations where the luxurious houses and cars of expatriates (and local authorities…) often
contrast with the poor living conditions of the local populations. The gradient of prosperity.

The poverty rate is higher in Mindanao than in Luzon and the Visayas. According to the Family Income and
Expenditure Survey (FIES) 2015, 36 percent of the population of Mindanao lived below the poverty line,
compared to 13.1 percent in Luzon and 28 percent in the Visayas. Poverty is particularly high in rural
Mindanao. In 2012, there were 1.2 million food-poor farmers and fisherfolk (27 percent of the total) and 1.1
million (25 percent) living between the food and poverty thresholds. Another 1.4 million (31 percent) lived close
to the absolute poverty line (20 percent above), making them highly vulnerable to fall back into poverty. Thus a
total of 3.7 million farmers and fisherfolk live in or near poverty,18 leaving only 0.7 million (16 percent) with
regular marketable surplus to generate savings for the next planting season (Figures 3 and 4). In part, the high
poverty rate reflects unequal economic and political power. When one person or firm controls the land, labor,
credit, and product markets or any combination thereof,19 he can drive farmers to subsistence by exploiting
interlocking markets or even blocking access to markets. Consultations and research undertaken for this study
suggest that these practices thrive in Mindanao and have the effect of locking some farmers and fisherfolk into
a vicious spiral of poverty and indebtedness.

2. Demographic increase, urbanization

The population of western industrialized countries is reducing in size and getting progressively old (aging
population), while the young working-age population of the developing countries is rapidly increasing.

3. Climate changes

According to the International Organization for Migration, “environmental migrants” are those ‘persons or
groups of persons who, for reason of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect
their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily
or permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad’.

It has been suggested that the environment may impact on migration flows by directly affecting the
hazardousness of place but also indirectly changing the economic, political, social and demographic context
with very complex interrelationships.
4. Wars and dictatorship

Even now, at the beginning of the third millennium, many areas of the world—in virtually all continents—host
bloody conflicts and social instability where armed parties fight or where rude dictatorships are ruling and
denying social rights. Some are well-known to the public (i.e. Syria and Afghanistan), while others are not as is
the case of the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia) and some areas of West Africa (Mali, Gambia) and the
Sahelian region or in Central and Southern America.

Violent conflict has had a major impact on growth and poverty levels throughout Mindanao. Concerns over
security have depressed tourism and boosted the emigration of skilled workers. The reputational damage
caused by insecurity even reduces investment in areas relatively unaffected by violence. These areas also
bear the fiscal burden of coping with displaced persons. On the other hand, more peaceful areas have
benefited from opportunities to process agricultural produce from conflict affected areas, where processing
facilities are rare. And many skilled workers from conflict-affected areas have migrated to other regions of
Mindanao.

5. Land grabbing

Land grabbing is a phenomenon that has become increasingly important since the beginning of the new
millennium. The term ‘land grabbing’ refers to the intensive exploitation of vast areas of land in rural areas
of low-income countries by private international enterprises or even by foreign governments in order to
implement large-scale intensive cultivations (mainly biofuels and food crops) or to exploit minerals,
forestry or the touristic industry.

6. Religion

Religion has been the pretext for ethnic persecution and expulsion, as is possibly the case for the
Rohingya Muslim population from Myanmar or the mass movements caused by armed fundamentalists
groups such as Daesh or Boko Haram in the Middle East and sub-Saharan West Africa, respectively

7. Sexual identity

Several countries have a quite restrictive policy on sexual identity and LTGB people (lesbians, gay,
transgender and bisexual people) face psychological and even physical violence, forcing them to hide
their sexual identity. A comprehensive overview of the issues related to the protection of social rights in
those people forced to migrate due to their sexual orientation may be found in the 2013 thematic issue of
Forced Migration Review.

8. Education

The relationship between education and migration are twofold. From one side, the migration of educated
people from low-middle income countries to OECD countries constitute a net loss of human qualified
resources for the origin countries and a gain for the host country. A phenomenon known as ‘brain drain’.
From the other side, the financial and ideational remittances from destination countries may also have an
impact on the education of non-migration children and adolescents in their origin countries

Mindanao Perspective: The Costs and Benefits of Migration

Migration within the islands to urban areas and from urban Mindanao to the rest of the Philippines is
substantial. The cities attract many rural migrants in search of better jobs and safer living conditions; the more
rapid growth and relatively safe environment in General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao attract the most
permanent migrants. However, these three cities also experience the most emigration as their people find
better jobs in Cebu, Manila, or overseas. Temporary migrants looking for jobs or fleeing from conflict account
for a large share of the urban population. Many temporary migrants are internally displaced persons (IDPs) or
individuals looking for temporary work.

The impact of migration on Mindanao development is ambiguous. Remittance receipts are likely to be
substantial; remittances totaled 9.8 percent of GDP in the Philippines as a whole. The ability of urban areas to
absorb displaced persons helps to reduce suffering, enables workers to move to more productive jobs, and
eases population pressure in conflict-affected areas. However, the most highly educated workers are leaving in
droves. The top college courses—nursing, accountancy, maritime studies, and hotel and restaurant
management—are those in demand in Manila and abroad, and many vocational students leave to find work in
construction in Manila, Cebu, and the Middle East. The high rate of emigration of skilled workers is contributing