http://www.economist.com/node/21526777LISA RAKOCZY arrived in north London in the mid-2000s from Krakow to study English, hoping to support herself by working as a cleaner. All went well—until the crash and ensuing economic crisis hit her previously prosperous clients. Competition for jobs became fiercer as middle-class families started to spend less on household help. For a while, she eked out enough to pay for her language course by cleaning lavatories in railway stations. Later, her sister, a teacher in Poland, helped her to make ends meet. But by the end of last year, Ms Rakoczy had tired of the trials of an immigrant’s life and headed home.
A typical case, you might think. Indeed, in the wake of the crash, many immigrants have gone back. Just as predictably, many would-be emigrants have stayed at home, either because moving abroad no longer seems worth the effort or because immigration rules in many countries have become more restrictive.
Yet at the airport, Ms Rakoczy may have crossed a young Briton bound for Shanghai, a Chinese computer programmer moving to Canada or a Portuguese worker on his way to oil-rich Norway. The recession has not stopped all migration, but rather led to new patterns and different destinations. Never before—or at least not in recent history—has the map of global migration been at the same time so varied and so changeable.
Liberalisation of travel after the end of the cold war, the West’s economic boom of the 2000s and rapid growth of emerging markets—all of these contributed to a new surge of migration until the onset of the economic crisis. But as unemployment has risen, governments have grown more sensitive to arguments that immigration can be a drain on public services and damage the job prospects of the native population.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
