International Organizations

The World Bank appears to be dedicated to improving the quality of life for citizens of economically impoverished areas. The proposals in this document interest me. Examining the political issues between high- and low-income countries when it comes to migrant populations is an interesting concept. The presented research, while not in my domain of study, is interesting. The economic disparities between the referenced countries is interesting to me. I was unaware of how much more money individuals can make by migrating. The World Bank certainly has a platform to which spur change. “We have in mind an audience of policy makers, think tanks, academics, students, the wider public, and, of course, our colleagues in the World Bank” illustrates the wide reach they have when it comes to spurring change. The goals of the World Bank is the proposal are large and I look forward to seeing what results come of this.

I previously had an understanding that migrant workers have an increase in income when moving to a new country, I also understood some of the benefits migrant workers can have on the country they move to. For instance, the document mentions that as migrant workers get jobs in their new country, native-workers stray away from those jobs and begin working higher paying jobs.

It is somewhat easy to understand if you hear that migrant workers are taking jobs why native workers would be fearful they will be out of work, however the whole story is not there. Migrant workers are getting jobs - not taking them - and in the wake of this native-workers gravitate away from these specific jobs, gaining in the process. I appreciate the wording in this document, "The gains for immigrants do not come at the expense of the host countries." This is helps paint the picture that there are gains to be achieved by everyone. It appears a large sum of people have not seen the evidence that migrant workers are not the only ones who benefit in the destination country, making it easier to be opposed to the idea rather than accepting it as the mutually beneficial act it is.

Having studied the World Bank minimally in college, I had a basic idea of what their purpose was and what they do, but this document outlines a whole new program I did not know they did. In the second paragraph of the document, it talks about how migration is one way to combat poverty and how they are actively moving people country to country. It seems obvious that a migrant's income would increase when they move from a low-income country to a higher-income country, but I did not realize that it could jump so much. As the document points out, a migrant who migrates to the United State's income can increase to as much as $14,000. In their ending statement, they mention how economic benefits should be distributed more evenly for labor workers. I feel like this is something the United States really struggles with as a lot of times there is this narrative that foreign labor workers are almost working for "free" and that they should just be happy they have a job in this country. I like this document and this plan and hope that it can be more prevalent in certain countries including the US.

The world Bank is a fascinating organization. This document makes it much more fascinating. The opening line of this document really caught my eye. The rich have many assets; the poor have only one—their labor. This is similar to the United States, especially in our education system. The economically stable can afford higher education which can afford them many paths in life whereas many lower income people are limited with jobs they take because of a degree requirement. Many low-income people tend to work manual jobs such as construction or physical labor. So that is one of the biggest draws I get from this document. Many areas of the US economy thrive on Migrant workers, almost every empirical study finds that increased labor mobility leads to large gains for the immigrants and positive overall gains for the destination country. In today’s political arena, immigration has been a hot button topic especially with President Trump. This is why many economists attribute political opposition to cultural and social factors, including xenophobia to the public’s disregard of their empirical findings. This document was very interesting to analyze because it provided information of the patterns of Global Migration, Economic Drivers of Migration Decisions, Wage and Employment Impacts of Migration, Longer-Term Dynamics of Immigrant Economic Adjustment and Native Responses and the High-Skilled Migrant population.

The arguments I see against immigration, like the article stated, tend to be very repetitive. People are worried that the immigrants will take their jobs, lower their wages, hurt our already unideal healthcare system, and decrease national identity and by virtue national security. These have all been proven false on several occasions. For example, a study by George Borjas, a Harvard professor, said that the Mariel Boatlift (increasing Miami's population by seven percent in less than fifty days) actually had positive effects on the wages of Miamians.

China has historically had a much larger emigration rate than immigration, 9.3million leaving in 2013 and only 594,000 immigrating to China in 2010 (these were the most proximal and recent years I could find). For several decades the immigration policy that ruled China has been the 1985 Law of Administration of Entrance and Exit of Foreigners that allows immigration into 31 different provinces or autonomous zones in China. In 2016 revisions were made to the regulations for permanent residency in China and this rate grew by 163% from 2015.

When this document discusses the benefits on a society from immigration, China is a perfect example. China is the definition of a leader in globalization and although their immigration rates are not as high as western countries, the immigrants they do have are shaping its future. China is attracting more students than ever and as we discussed when addressing intellectual property and technological innovation, their attraction to high-skilled foreign workers has helped their economy and technology and research sectors immensely.

I think the single most surprising thing I took away from today's document was that "immigrants’ share of the global population has been stable at about 3 percent since the end of the Second World War even though international trade and investment flows have led to an unprecedented integration of the world economy." We live in an increasingly global world, where the ability to travel and the need to work across borders is higher than ever, and yet in the past 80 years, virtually nothing has changed in terms of the rate and which people immigrate. In the United States, immigration into the country has increased for the most part, though we have still not reached the historic high numbers we saw in the late nineteenth century. I also thought the idea that the reason many were opposed to immigration was due to their concentration in one specific area was very interesting. I was very interested to learn that four US states hosted half of all immigrants and 10 US counties hosted half of the immigrants in these four states. Pew Notes that New York, LA, Miami, and Chicago are all top destinations for immigrants. This makes sense though, as an immigrant looking for opportunity is much more likely to end up in New York than Des Moines, Iowa. Though of course, agricultural labor will sometimes bring immigrants to rural counties in western states.

As it relates to Africa, migration is a very important part of many families' economic well-being. Many people move around countries looking for seasonal work in agriculture in Cote d'Ivoire of Ghana and many cultures in West Africa have been doing this for centuries. However recently, many European nations have viewed instability in the Sahel resulting in mass-migration as a major threat to their economic and security wellbeing. This has led to an increased crackdown on border security in many countries, such as Niger, where Europeans have coerced the country into establishing stricter borders and establish detention centers for those crossing illegally and those transporting people.

The world bank is very interesting to learn about. Personally, when I think of World Bank I think of loaning money but Conflict Zones and Fragile Nations are not what immediately come to mind. Analysis of the different countries conflicts and fragile states is the basis of what the world bank looks at when deciding whether or not to loan money to countries in need. By addressing the challenges of fragility, conflict, and violence, the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity can be achieved. With the growth of the Global Health Pandemic of COVID-19 especially, I am not surprised to learn that low and now middle-income countries are being affected and are now in fragile spots. In regard to my specialty of Federal Law Enforcement, I can make a direct correlation between the technology that humanitarian efforts bring to 2nd and 3rd world countries are being exploited and are causing an increase in Child Sex Tourism, or virtual sex trafficking of economically deprived countries. I wonder that the more money the World Bank puts towards these struggling nations, would that lower the sex trafficking rates as more potential victims would be stable and not as extremely high risk of being exploited? The last point I would like to point out in this post is that in this document it states that “Climate change, demographic change, migration, technological transformations, illicit financial flows, and violent extremism are often interconnected, posing risks that transcend borders” and all of these factors lead to the increase of risk factors that are directly correlated to a rise of Sex trafficking for victims. I would like to pose to my colleagues, @Jay Rosato @Madeline Smith @Justin Spusta @Jasmine Wilkens, what initiatives do you think the World Bank could do or sponsor that could help lower these risk factors I mention in my post and thus in turn lower human trafficking?