Product Code Database
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuting, Tourism, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Economically, research suggests that migration can be beneficial both to the receiving and sending countries.
The academic literature provides mixed findings for the relationship between immigration and crime worldwide. (2025). 9780309373982, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. . ISBN 9780309373982 (2025). 9781848554382, Emerald Group Publishing. ISBN 9781848554382 Research shows that country of origin matters for speed and depth of immigrant assimilation, but that there is considerable assimilation overall for both first- and second-generation immigrants.
Discrimination based on nationality is legal in most countries. Extensive evidence of discrimination against foreign-born persons in criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media, and politics has been found.
In 2015, the number of international migrants below the age of 20 reached 37 million, while 177 million are between the ages of 20 and 64. International migrants living in Africa were the youngest, with a median age of 29, followed by Asia (35 years), and Latin America/Caribbean (36 years), while migrants were older in Northern America (42 years), Europe (43 years), and Oceania (44 years).
Nearly half (43%) of all international migrants originate in Asia, and Europe was the birthplace of the second largest number of migrants (25%), followed by Latin America (15%). Indian diaspora has the largest diaspora in the world (16 million people), followed by Mexican diaspora (12 million) and Russian diaspora (11 million).
One theory of immigration distinguishes between push and pull factors, referring to the economic, political, and social influences by which people migrate from or to specific countries. Immigrants are motivated to leave their former countries of citizenship, or habitual residence, for a variety of reasons, including: a lack of local access to resources, a desire for economic prosperity, to find or engage in paid work, to better their standard of living, family reunification, retirement, climate or environmentally induced migration, exile, escape from prejudice, conflict or natural disaster, or simply the wish to change one's quality of life. Commuting, Tourism, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Push factors (or determinant factors) refer primarily to the motive for leaving one's country of origin (either voluntarily or involuntarily), whereas pull factors (or attraction factors) refer to one's motivations behind or the encouragement towards immigrating to a particular country.
In the case of economic migration (usually labor migration), differentials in are common. If the value of wages in the new country surpasses the value of wages in one's native country, he or she may choose to migrate, as long as the costs are not too high. Particularly in the 19th century, economic expansion of the US increased immigrant flow, and nearly 15% of the population was foreign-born, thus making up a significant amount of the labor force.
As transportation technology improved, travel time, and costs decreased dramatically between the 18th and early 20th century. Travel across the Atlantic used to take up to 5 weeks in the 18th century, but around the time of the 20th century it took a mere 8 days. When the opportunity cost is lower, the immigration rates tend to be higher. Escape from poverty (personal or for relatives staying behind) is a traditional push factor, and the availability of employment is the related pull factor. Natural disasters can amplify poverty-driven migration flows. Research shows that for middle-income countries, higher temperatures increase emigration rates to urban areas and to other countries. For low-income countries, higher temperatures reduce emigration.
Emigration and immigration are sometimes mandatory in a contract of employment: religious Missionary and employees of transnational corporations, international non-governmental organizations, and the diplomatic service expect, by definition, to work "overseas". They are often referred to as "expatriates", and their conditions of employment are typically equal to or better than those applying in the host country (for similar work).
Non-economic push factors include persecution (religious and otherwise), frequent abuse, bullying, oppression, ethnic cleansing, genocide, risks to civilians during war, and social marginalization. Political motives traditionally motivate refugee flows; for instance, people may emigrate in order to escape a dictatorship.
Some migration is for personal reasons, based on a relationship (e.g. to be with family or a partner), such as in family reunification or transnational marriage (especially in the instance of a gender imbalance). Recent research has found gender, age, and cross-cultural differences in the ownership of the idea to immigrate. In a few cases, an individual may wish to immigrate to a new country in a form of transferred patriotism. Evasion of criminal justice (e.g., avoiding arrest) is a personal motivation. This type of emigration and immigration is not normally legal, if a crime is internationally recognized, although criminals may disguise their identities or find other loopholes to evade detection. For example, there have been reports of war criminals disguising themselves as victims of war or conflict and then pursuing asylum in a different country.
Barriers to immigration come not only in legal form or political form; natural and social barriers to immigration can also be very powerful. Immigrants when leaving their country also leave everything familiar: their family, friends, support network, and culture. They also need to liquidate their assets, and they incur the expense of moving. When they arrive in a new country, this is often with many uncertainties including finding work, where to live, new laws, new cultural norms, language or accent issues, possible racism, and other exclusionary behavior towards them and their family.
The politics of immigration have become increasingly associated with other issues, such as national security and terrorism, especially in western Europe, with the presence of Islam as a new major religion. Those with security concerns cite the 2005 French riots and point to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy as examples of the value conflicts arising from immigration of Muslims in Western Europe. Because of all these associations, immigration has become an emotional political issue in many European nations.
Studies have suggested that some special interest groups Lobbying for less immigration for their own group and more immigration for other groups since they see effects of immigration, such as increased labor competition, as detrimental when affecting their own group but beneficial when affecting other groups. A 2010 European study suggested that "employers are more likely to be pro-immigration than employees, provided that immigrants are thought to compete with employees who are already in the country. Or else, when immigrants are thought to compete with employers rather than employees, employers are more likely to be anti-immigration than employees." A 2011 study examining the voting of US representatives on migration policy suggests that "representatives from more skilled labor abundant districts are more likely to support an open immigration policy towards the unskilled, whereas the opposite is true for representatives from more unskilled labor abundant districts."
Another contributing factor may be lobbying by earlier immigrants. The chairman for the US Irish Lobby for Immigration Reformwhich lobby for more permissive rules for immigrants, as well as special arrangements just for Irish peoplehas stated that "the Irish Lobby will push for any special arrangement it can get'as will every other ethnic group in the country.
Many countries have immigration and visa restrictions that prohibit a person entering the country for the purposes of gaining work without a valid work visa. As a violation of a State's immigration laws a person who is declared to be an economic migrant can be refused entry into a country.
The World Bank estimates that totaled $420 billion in 2009, of which $317 billion went to developing countries.
Where immigration is permitted, it is typically selective. , family reunification accounted for approximately two-thirds of legal immigration to the US every year. Ethnic selection, such as the White Australia policy, has generally disappeared, but priority is usually given to the wealthy, educated or skilled worker migration. Exploitation of migrant labour, human trafficking and migrant sex work has been critized.
Immigration policies which selectively grant freedom of movement to targeted individuals are intended to produce a net economic gain for the host country. They can also mean net loss for a poor donor country through brain drain. This can exacerbate the Global justice in standards of living that provided the motivation for the individual to migrate in the first place. One example of competition for skilled labour is active recruitment of from developing countries by developed countries. There may however also be a "brain gain" to emigration, as migration opportunities lead to greater investments in education in developing countries. Overall, research suggests that migration can be beneficial both to the receiving and sending countries.
Research however also challenges the notion that ethnic heterogeneity reduces public goods provision. Studies that find a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and public goods provision often fail to take into account that strong states were better at assimilating minorities, thus decreasing diversity in the long run. Ethnically diverse states today consequently tend to be weaker states. Because most of the evidence on fractionalization comes from sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, the generalizability of the findings is questionable. A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review cast doubts on findings that ethnoracial homogeneity led to greater public goods provision.
Research finds that Americans' attitudes towards immigration influence their attitudes towards welfare spending.
Studies have found that non-native speakers of English in the UK have no causal effect on the performance of other pupils, immigrant children have no significant effect on the test scores of Dutch children, no effect on grade repetition among native students exposed to migrant students in Austrian schools, that the presence of Latin American children in schools had no significant negative effects on peers, but that students with limited English skills had slight negative effects on peers, and that the influx of Haitians to Florida public schools after the 2010 Haiti earthquake had no effects on the educational outcomes of incumbent students.
A 2018 study found that the "presence of immigrant students who have been in the country for some time is found to have no effect on natives. However, a small negative effect of recent immigrants on natives' language scores is reported." Another 2018 study found that the presence of immigrant students to Italy was associated with "small negative average effects on maths test scores that are larger for low ability native students, strongly non-linear and only observable in classes with a high (top 20%) immigrant concentration. These outcomes are driven by classes with a high average linguistic distance between immigrants and natives, with no apparent additional role played by ethnic diversity."
After immigrant children's scores were included in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 15-year-old school pupils' educational evaluations in Sweden the Swedish PISA scores significantly decreased.
A 2018 study found that immigration to the United Kingdom "reduced waiting times for outpatient referrals and did not have significant effects on waiting times in accident and emergency departments (A&E) and elective care." The study also found "evidence that immigration increased waiting times for outpatient referrals in more deprived areas outside of London" but that this increase disappears after 3 to 4 years.
A 2018 systemic review and meta-analysis in The Lancet found that migrants generally have better health than the general population.
In the EU, the use of personal health records for migrants is being tested in the new REHEALTH 2 project.
High immigration can cause higher stress on highly regulated sectors such as healthcare, education, and housing, leading to negative effects. Doyle, Matthew, Mikal Skuterud, and Christopher Worswick. The economics of Canadian immigration levels. No. 58. Working Paper Series, 2023.
In many countries there is a lack of prosecution of this crimes, since these countries obtain benefits and taxes paid by these companies that benefit the economies and also because of the current shortage of workers.Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States University of California Berkeley, September 2004
Iran faces a mass exodus of youth and skilled labor out of the country in recent years. In June 2023 Iranian parliament illegalized immigration ads online.
A 2018 study found that Chinese nationals in the United States who received permanent residency permits from the US government amid the Tiananmen Square protests (and subsequent Chinese government clampdown) experienced significant employment and earnings gains relative to similar immigrant groups who did not have the same residency rights.
During the Age of Mass Migration, infant arrivals to the United States had greater economic success over their lifetime than teenage arrivals.
Research shows that country of origin matters for speed and depth of immigrant assimilation but that there is considerable assimilation overall. Research finds that first generation immigrants from countries with less egalitarian gender cultures adopt gender values more similar to natives over time. According to one study, "this acculturation process is almost completed within one generational succession: The gender attitudes of second generation immigrants are difficult to distinguish from the attitudes of members of mainstream society. This holds also for children born to immigrants from very gender traditional cultures and for children born to less well integrated immigrant families." Similar results are found on a study of Turkish migrants to Western Europe. The assimilation on gender attitudes has been observed in education, as one study finds "that the female advantage in education observed among the majority population is usually present among second-generation immigrants."
A 2017 study of Switzerland found that naturalization strongly improves long-term social integration of immigrants: "The integration returns to naturalization are larger for more marginalized immigrant groups and when naturalization occurs earlier, rather than later in the residency period." A separate study of Switzerland found that naturalization improved the economic integration of immigrants: "winning Swiss citizenship in the referendum increased annual earnings by an average of approximately 5,000 U.S. dollars over the subsequent 15 years. This effect is concentrated among more marginalized immigrants."
First-generation immigrants tend to hold less accepting views of homosexuality but opposition weakens with longer stays. Second-generation immigrants are overall more accepting of homosexuality, but the acculturation effect is weaker for Muslims and to some extent, Eastern Orthodox migrants.
A study of Bangladeshi migrants in East London found they shifted towards the thinking styles of the wider non-migrant population in just a single generation.
A study on Germany found that foreign-born parents are more likely to integrate if their children are entitled to German citizenship at birth. A 2017 study found that "faster access to citizenship improves the economic situation of immigrant women, especially their labour market attachment with higher employment rates, longer working hours and more stable jobs. Immigrants also invest more in host country-specific skills like language and vocational training. Faster access to citizenship seems a powerful policy instrument to boost economic integration in countries with traditionally restrictive citizenship policies." Naturalization is associated with large and persistent wage gains for the naturalized citizens in most countries. One study of Denmark found that providing immigrants with voting rights reduced their crime rate.
Studies on programs that randomly allocate refugee immigrants across municipalities find that the assignment of neighborhood affects immigrant crime propensity, education, and earnings. A 2019 study found that refugees who resettled in areas with many conationals were more likely to be economically integrated.
Research suggests that bilingual schooling reduces barriers between speakers from two different communities.
Research suggests that a vicious cycle of bigotry and isolation could reduce assimilation and increase bigotry towards immigrants in the long-term. For instance, University of California, San Diego political scientist Claire Adida, Stanford University political scientist David Laitin and Sorbonne University economist Marie-Anne Valfort argue "fear-based policies that target groups of people according to their religion or region of origin are counter-productive. Our own research, which explains the failed integration of Muslim immigrants in France, suggests that such policies can feed into a vicious cycle that damages national security. French Islamophobiaa response to cultural differencehas encouraged Muslim immigrants to withdraw from French society, which then feeds back into French Islamophobia, thus further exacerbating Muslims' alienation, and so on. Indeed, the failure of French security in 2015 was likely due to police tactics that intimidated rather than welcomed the children of immigrantsan approach that makes it hard to obtain crucial information from community members about potential threats."
A study which examined Catalan nationalism examined the Catalan Government's policy towards the integration of immigrants during the start of the 1990s. At this time the Spanish region of Catalonia was experiencing a large influx in the number of immigrants from Northern Africa, Latin America and Asia. The Spanish government paid little attention to this influx of immigrants. However, Catalan politicians began discussing how the increase in immigrants would effect Catalan identity. Members of the Catalan parliament petitioned for a plan to integrate these immigrants into Catalan society. Crucially, the plan did not include policies regarding Naturalization, which were key immigration policies of the Spanish government. The plan of the Catalan parliament aimed to create a shared Catalan identity which included both the native Catalan population and immigrant communities. This meant that immigrants were encouraged to relate as part of the Catalan community but also encouraged to retain their own culture and traditions. In this way assimilation of immigrant cultures in Catalonia was avoided.
A 2018 study in the British Journal of Political Science found that immigrants in Norway became more politically engaged the earlier that they were given voting rights.
A 2019 study in the European Economic Review found that language training improved the economic assimilation of immigrants in France.
A 2020 study using data from large-scale comparative surveys in Germany, France, and United Kingdom found that sampled households with a language barrier tend to have poor living conditions and are migrants. Inferences about their demographic, attitudinal, or behavioral traits cannot be made because the ability to speak the official language(s) of the country is one of the criteria for survey participation.
A 2020 paper on reforms of refugee policy in Denmark found that language training boosted the economic and social integration of refugees, whereas cuts to refugees' welfare benefits had no effect, except to temporarily increase property crimes.
Several meta-analyses find extensive evidence of ethnic and racial discrimination in hiring in the North-American and European labor markets. A 2016 meta-analysis of 738 correspondence tests in 43 separate studies conducted in OECD countries between 1990 and 2015 finds that there is extensive racial discrimination in hiring decisions in Europe and North-America. Equivalent minority candidates need to send around 50% more applications to be invited for an interview than majority candidates.
A 2014 meta-analysis found extensive evidence of racial and ethnic discrimination in the housing market of several European countries.
According to an analysis of the National Study of College Experience, elite colleges may favor minority applicants due to affirmative action policies.
A 2018 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that math teachers discriminate against the children of immigrants. When the teachers were informed about negative stereotypes towards the children of immigrants, they gave higher grades to the children of immigrants.
As of 2020, 2 percent of all students enrolled in U.S. higher education. That comes out to about 454,000 students. Fewer than half of illegal immigrants are eligible for the DACA program.
A report by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development where the department sent African-Americans and whites to look at apartments found that African-Americans were shown fewer apartments to rent and houses for sale.
| 34 |
| 39 |
| 37 |
| 38 |
| 38 |
| 55 |
| 18 |
| 35 |
| 13 |
| 36 |
| 29 |
| 41 |
| 41 |
| 16 |
| 36 |
| 39 |
| 28 |
| 10 |
| 35 |
| 28 |
| 22 |
| 32 |
| 32 |
| 41 |
| 32 |
| 19 |
| 11 |
|
|
