Grass looks greener, but welcome cools

The US has been involving Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America in talks about migration issues. Mexican President Vicente Fox has been urging President Bush to create a new guest-worker program for his countrymen in the US and "regularize" the immigration status of 3 million to 5 million illegal Mexican immigrants. But after Sept. 11, that idea has been put on hold by the Bush administration, to the irritation of Mr. Fox.

Japan has decided it doesn't want to become an immigrant country, despite the prospect of a rapid decline in population.

"It is difficult to predict how this will evolve," says Mr. Chamie, of the UN's Population Division.

The division has been studying the issue with the intention of providing "scientific, rigorous, objective reports," as Chamie puts it. Some findings (see box, below) may be surprising.

Russia, for example, has a large number of migrants because of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many born in what are now independent states are still living in Russia and are thus classified by the UN as migrants. Several Middle Eastern countries have enough oil wealth to import a large number of foreign workers. Most of them do the "dirty, difficult, and dangerous jobs," such as construction, or the menial jobs, such as household help. But their employers consider them temporary workers and thus are often less hesitant to send them home to India or Pakistan or elsewhere than are European nations.

• Sixty percent of the world's migrants currently reside in more-developed regions; 40 percent in developing nations.

• Most of the world's migrants live in Europe (56 million), Asia (50 million), and North America (essentially the US and Canada - 41 million). That means almost one person in every 10 living in well-to-do nations is a migrant.

• In contrast, only one in every 70 persons in developing countries is a migrant.

• Between 1990 and 2000, the number of migrants in the world grew by 21 million, or 14 percent. In North America, the number of migrants rose by 13 million (48 percent). Europe's migrant population grew by 8 million, or 16 percent.

• Without immigrants and their children, the population of Germany would have started falling in 1972, in Italy in 1993, in Greece in 1997, and in Sweden in 1998.

• The number of migrants in developing nations fell by 2 million between 1990 and 2000.

• About 9 percent of migrants are refugees. Refugees numbered 16 million at the end of 2000. Most of them - 13 million - live in developing countries.

• In 2001, 44 percent of developed countries had policies to lower immigration levels. So did 39 percent of developing nations.

• Remittances of migrants to their homelands are vital in many countries. They exceed 10 percent of gross domestic product in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, El Salvador, Jamaica, Jordan, Nicaragua, Samoa, and Yemen.

Source: International Migration Report 2002, United Nations Population Division

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