Global migrations and global social policy

For as long as humankind has existed, we have migrated. Whether in flight from persecution, war, conflict or poverty, or in search of peace, work, a career, a better climate or for love, migration is a normal part of everyday life. At another level, international migration is exceptional, in that international migrants account for just 3.5 per cent of the world’s population. This has remained the case for much of the last century (IOM, 2019, p 3).

Even though the aggregate number of migrants globally is actually rather small, migrants tend to be concentrated in certain areas of the world, hence the socioeconomic and political impacts of migration in relation to global policy-making and global social welfare are substantial, if unevenly distributed and experienced. At one level, migration is a major flashpoint in contemporary global politics, and a factor in widening global inequalities and the growth of political populism worldwide. At another level, migration gives rise to new social formations and welfare arrangements. Transnational connections among people include the sending of remittances, which play a crucial role in sustaining welfare and financing development. Migrant advocacy groups exhibit high degrees of political agency and policy activism. The effects of repeated, continuous movements of people over time impact on social structures, forging multistranded personal and social networks that give rise to diasporic families and communities, linking people and places, societies and economies, and health and welfare systems around the world.

For all these reasons and more besides, migration opens a fascinating vista on to the state of the world’s welfare, the contested politics of global social policy (GSP)-making, and political struggles over global development, state sovereignty, rights and resources.