Who really benefits from international labour migration? New IRIS Working Paper on the everyday political economy of labour migration

By Seb Rumsby

IOM World Migration Report 2024 found that international remittances had increased 650% from $128bn to $831bn between 2000 and 2022. This growth continued contrary to predictions that remittances would drop dramatically during COVID-19. Remittance figures now outnumbers foreign direct investment in developing nations for the first time, highlighting the critical importance of labour migration in today’s global economic system.

The launch of the IOM report took place against the backdrop of the latest phase of the UK government’s controversial agenda to ‘take back control’ of irregular migration. The Home Office launched nationwide raids to detain and ‘disappear’ recent asylum seekers ahead of the planned scheme to send them to Rwanda this Summer. These aggressive tactics have aroused resistance and solidarity in some cases, but it must be admitted that a substantial chunk of the UK electorate also support these measures – as seen by the rise of the far-right Reform Party.

This jarring contrast reminds us of the contradictions between economic and political imperatives which constitute the “Migrant’s Paradox”: being both essential for low-paid sectors of industrialised economies, and legally disposable when politically expedient. The IOM’s director general bluntly stated that “Europe needs migration” due to ageing populations, urging home affairs ministers to create more legal pathways for migrants to come and work.

The IOM’s pro-migration stance is reflective of mainstream neoliberal economic actors. Chapter 4 of the report opens with the statement: “International migration is strongly associated with opportunity for positive advancement, most typically in economic terms.” It goes on to describe migration inequality in terms of restrictions imposed on poorer countries, whose citizens cannot migrate and are therefore in risk of being ‘left behind’. The neoliberal logic is familiar: the poor are excluded from (migrant labour) markets, so the solution is greater market incorporation, opening up to more and more potential labour migrants.

But who really benefits from international labour migration? Why is labour exploitation and abuse so common to the migrant experience? What are the impacts of remittances on the economies and societies of migrant-sending countries? Who goes and who stays? And why do countries with high migration continue to suffer from the highest poverty rates?

These are the questions I address in a new IRiS Working Paper, engaging with research from a range of disciplinary perspectives on everyday political economy before applying it to a case study of recent Vietnamese migration to the UK.