How will future global migration patterns change in the face of new political climates?

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Grace (Lower Sixth)

There is no doubt that, across the world, the political climate is everchanging for a host of reasons. The consequences of this include, inter alia, altering short and long-term migration patterns across a range of spatial scales. Recent key events outline the changes seen in global and regional migration patterns, such including the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, as well as the Brexit referendum. However, as with any future predictions, certainty is not guaranteed, in an ever-changing global environment and in light

of unexpected events, such as Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, both the causes and migration patterns remain indefinite.

Due to the rapid fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, there has been an increased rate of migration. Afghanistan has been under the burden of war for 40 years and during this time there has been much migration, with many forced to move internally multiple times. Few Afghan citizens have seen their country in peace at any stage of their lives. Once foreign forces had withdrawn from Afghanistan, following a deal between the US and the Taliban, the country is now effectively become under Taliban control and whilst the Taliban forces have pledged not to allow Afghanistan to become a base for terrorism, which would pose a threat to the West, there are many questions as to how the group will control the country and the impact this will have for Afghan citizens. There are questions in particular about what their rule means for women, human rights, and political freedoms.

According to the UN, Afghanistan has the third largest displaced population in the world, which is the term used for “groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence and violations of human rights”. The data from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) shows that 5.5 million people are now internally displaced inside the country. These figures include more than 670,000 who have been forced to leave their homes as of November 2021, of which 60 percent of that total are women and children.

Whilst the key factor currently motivating migration and possibly affecting future migration is conflict and a lack of security in the country, there are also economic factors. For example, people’s economic status has determined where migrants have and will be able to relocate to; the influence of conflict on rural lives has pushed migration to cities within the country or neighbouring countries. This contrasts urban migrants, of whom tend to be a more educated groups of people, who alternatively can use their status to migrate to more industrialised countries for a better future. This highlights the unequal opportunities associated with migration, dependent on a citizens economic or social status. The poorest citizens of Afghanistan make up a greater proportion of the internally displaced people and are therefore still in possible danger. Within the country, there are many other issues as well and so those who internally migrate are still exposed to these problems. These issues include famine with the economic upheaval that came with the Taliban takeover which

left 95% of Afghans without enough food and 9 million people at risk of starvation.

Other problems include the lack of education within the country with as schools were forced to close. “An estimated 3.7 million children are out of school in Afghanistan – 60% of them are girls”. Afghanistan became one of the largest refugees - producing countries in the world with over 6 million refugees living in both Pakistan and Iran by 2000 as a result of the conflict and political unrest. There have also been refugees in the UK where over 4,000 of the 16,000 have stayed and looked to permanently resettle here. Even though the current net migration rate in 2022 is –1.507 per 1000 population, it is a 3.34% decline from 2021 suggesting the rate is slowing down. This is partly due to areas of the country stabilising with less conflict, but also future and current patterns suggest that some migrants are returning to their homeland. The UN has urged neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to allow refugees to enter but some countries are reluctant such as Uzbekistan who have no plans to open their borders as they see it as a security threat. This increase in immigration strictness will mean some migrants will have to return or people currently in Afghanistan will have to migrate to alternative places. Most Afghans fear persecution under Taliban rule and hope to seek asylum abroad, especially women whose livelihoods are affected as they may not be able to study or work in their country anymore. The Taliban have prevented women from secondary and higher education. Furthermore, they have made it compulsory for women to “wear a full niqab, which covers the face but not the eyes, or a burqa, covering the body and full face with mesh over the eyes”. “Afghan women and girls are facing both the collapse of their rights and dreams and risks to their basic survival” (Halima Stojanovic, a scholar on Afghanistan talking about women in the Ghazni province.) These are just some of the hardships women face under the Taliban rule. The crisis of the Taliban seizing back control in Afghanistan means on top of the 2.2 million refugees already in neighbouring countries and the 3.5 million forced to flee their homes within the borders, future migration predicts that there will still be a substantial increase in

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migration out of Afghanistan.

In contrast, the fate of future migration in Europe is most predominantly driven by international governance (Sohst et al., 2020), that is, the degree of international cooperation between member States of the European Union. Other factors also include the level of future economic convergence between world regions, the severity and speed of environmental change, the impact of public opinion on migration policy as the political climate is increasingly influenced by civilians (for instance, by the increasing popularity of social media) and lastly, natural disasters as well as events such as famines and wars (Dubow et al., 2018). Most recently in the case of the EU, the war in Ukraine.

The effect a changing political climate can have on potentially altering migration patterns across continents in the longterm, is no better evidenced than in the case of Brexit, when the UK voted to leave the European Union in a referendum in 2016. The implementation of the new post-Brexit immigrant system as of January 2021, will bear the weight of the majority of changes to European migration patterns, having ceased free movement and introducing visa restrictions (The Migration Observatory, 2020). The government’s proposed post-Brexit ‘pointsbased’ immigration system would have a range of impacts on patterns of both study and work immigration (ibid.), however, no new policies have been announced relating to family reunification or asylum, so the government’s Impact Assessment (2020) does not consider how these might change after Brexit.

To illustrate, estimates show the points system would reduce annual immigration by EU workers to the UK by a huge 70% in only the first five years of implementation

(The Migration Observatory, 2020). This will lead to a fall in long-term EU worker inflows by a reduction of about 80,000 annually. On the other hand, migration patterns will be further altered by non-EU workers; the lower skill threshold of the proposed points system, in conjunction with lower salary

thresholds, will most likely increase the immigration of this group in the long-term by 10,000 to 30,000 per year (McNeil and Walsh, 2020). Secondly, government estimates show that EU higher education student immigration will fall by 20%, whilst non-EU student immigration will increase by 10% (ibid.). Thus, illustrated by both of these examples, is the expected changes in the numbers of migrants, but also the significant alterations in where immigration flows are coming from internationally.

However, although a clear change in migration patterns and trends into the UK are made evident by government projections, these do not take account of the implications of Covid 19, which has the potential to significantly affect the UK higher education sector and labour market at least in the very short-term, but also, more recently, the conflict in Ukraine. In light of which, exactly 100 days into the war, 3.2 million Ukrainian refugees had already fled to Poland (Wanat, 2022), along with 787,000 to Hungary (Schengenvisa News, 2022), creating a new map of migration across Eastern Europe, but also across the entire continent in a permanent manner, with the UK having issued 115,000 visas to those fleeing

Ukraine as of Tuesday 24

May 2022

(BBC, 2022). However, this situation is ongoing and susceptible to further change as countries all over the world alter refugee and visa policy in the face of an everchanging political climate.

To summarise, the political situation in Afghanistan, as well as changing migration policy due to the results of the 2016 Brexit referendum, will significantly alter migration patterns, in terms of the routes of the migrants as well as the volume and demographic makeup of migrants, in both the long and short-term. Despite the uncertainty surrounding future projections, estimates of data suggest a long-term change will prevail in both of cases, owing to their permanent nature, translating into the political climate. More short-standing and unprecedented events, like the war in Ukraine and onset of Covid-19 lockdowns across the globe, also take their toll on changing migration patterns, however, although the future is unclear, precedents of similar events suggest a transition back to original patterns is likely due to the seemingly temporary nature of these circumstances as humanity naturally strives to return to normality.

References

Acostamadiedo, E., R. Sohst, J. Tjaden, G. Groenewold and H. de Valk (2020). Assessing Immigration Scenarios for the European Union in 2030 – Relevant, Realistic and Reliable? International Organization for Migration, Geneva, and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, the Hague. Last accessed 10th March 2022.

BBC. (2022).How many Ukrainians have fled their homes and where have they gone?.Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60555472. Last accessed 3rd June 2022.

BBC News – Afghanistan: How many refugees are there and where will they go? – Visual Journalism Team (2021)

BBC News – Afghanistan face veil decree – Lara Owen (2021)

Dubow, T., Fajth, V., Siegel, M. and Strey, A. (2018).DETERMINANTS OF MIGRATION FLOWS WITHIN THE EU.Available: https://www. reminder-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/D-3.1-Submitted_28Feb2018_with-cover.pdf. Last accessed 10th March 2022.

Financial Times – US withdraws from Afghanistan – Aime Williams, Benjamin Parkin (2021)

Humans Rights Watch – Taliban deprive women of livelihoods

Macrotrends – Afghanistan net migration rate 1950 – 2022

McNeil, R. and Walsh, P. (2020).Calculating the Bill: The projected impacts of the points-based immigration system after Brexit.Available: https:// migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/calculating-the-bill-the-projected-impacts-of-the-points-based-immigration-system-afterbrexit/. Last accessed 10th March 2022.

Schengenvisa. (2022).Hungary Has Accepted About 787,000 Ukrainian Refugees Since War Started.Available: https://www.schengenvisainfo. com/news/hungary-has-accepted-about-787000-ukrainian-refugees-since-war-started/. Last accessed 3rd June 2022.

UNICEF Afghanistan – Education

USA Today News – Afghanistan near starvation – Holly Rosenkrantz (2022)

Wanat, Z. (2022).Polish cities feel the strain of helping Ukrainian refugees.Available: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-cities-strain-helpukraine-refugees/. Last accessed 3rd June 2022.