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ANALYSIS

Migration and sustainability—compatible or contradictory?

Inge RøpkeDepartment of Manufacturing Engineering and Management, Technical University of Denmark, Produktionstorvet, Building 424,2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

A R T I C L E I N F O

E-mail addr ess: ir@ip l.dtu.dk.

0921-8009/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevidoi:10.1016/ j.ecolecon.2005. 11.033

A B S T R A C T

Article history:Received 12 September 2005Received in revised form29 November 2005Accepted 29 November 2005Available online 7 March 2006

When themigration issue is discussed in a sustainability perspective, twoquestions are vital.(1)What is the relationship betweenmigration and the global population growth? (2)What isthe relationship between migration and consumption growth, and how does migrationinfluence the distribution of consumption possibilities both between and withinindustrialized and developing countries? Based on responses to these questions, it isargued that reasonably managed migration will be compatible with sustainabledevelopment.

© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:ImmigrationPopulationInequalitySustainability

Trade and environment has long been an important topic forecological economics, and globalization in relation to invest-ments and capital flows has also appeared on the agenda.Nevertheless, very little has been written on migration byecological economists. Some ecological economists have par-ticipated in the discussion onmigration at amore ‘activist’ levelas supporters of the Carrying Capacity Network (CCN) that hasargued for much stricter immigration policies in the US (theadvisory board of CCN includes, among others, D. Pimentel, R.Costanza, H. Daly, R. Kaufmann, and W. Rees). Recently, WorldWatch Magazine had a special issue on population, where H.Daly (2004) and R. Ayres (2004) contribute with papers touchingonmigration—Daly arguing for restrictive policies onmigration,whereas Ayres takes a more positive stance towards migration.Also P. and A. Ehrlich deal with the issue in their recent book(2004). Here I will discuss some of the arguments forwarded, inparticular, by Daly and the Ehrlichs, as I arrive at differentconclusions although we share some basic ideas. From thestart, I can reveal that I tend towards a positive attitude towardsmigration, although I am aware of problematic aspects ofmigration.

er B.V. All rights reserved

The issue of migration is very sensitive, because it is nearlyimpossible to avoid having strange bedfellows: siding withthose whose basic views are diametrically opposed to yourown. Narrow limits to migration are often suggested bypersons who do not like foreigners, use arguments with racistovertones, repudiate Islam, etc. Furthermore, these personswill argue that others should not come and share ourlegitimate wealth and welfare arrangements that we haveworked hard to achieve (in this perspective there is littleunderstanding that wemight partly have achieved this wealththrough appropriation processes). Of course, narrow limits arealso suggested by people who do not share these views, butwho still want to defend the prevailing standard of wages,working environment, etc., from the combined pressure ofoutsourcing and migration. Conversely, the supporters ofrelatively more openness towards migration often advanceequally egoistic arguments. For instance, increased immigra-tion is seen as very useful to relieve the demographicproblems related to the aging populations in most industrial-ized countries: the so-called ‘burden of the elderly’, or moretechnically, the ‘dependency ratios’ can be expected to

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increase dramatically in the future, particularly in Japan andsome European countries, and migration can counterbalancethis development. Furthermore, proponents of immigrationargue that it is important to get a share of the brain-drain fromthe developing countries, as this will be decisive for futurecompetitiveness and economic growth (in this perspectivethere is little understanding that economic growth andincreased consumption in the rich countries might not be agood idea—and that the good brains might be more needed inthe home countries). Finally, the employers of the industrial-ized countries have an obvious interest in inviting underpaidworkers. The egoistic arguments on both sides have beenemphasized here to illustrate the problem of strange bed-fellows, but of course, many debaters on both sides will alsoclaim that their position is in the interest of the greater good.

Most of the debate on migration takes place with noreference to environmental aspects whatsoever. A goodexample is a balanced and well documented new Danishbook on migration (written by an economist), where the word‘environment' does not appear at all (Rasmussen, 2004). Nowthe question is whether it makes sense to discuss themigration issue in a sustainability perspective? Daly, Ayresand the Ehrlichs think that it does, and I agree, but how canthis be done? As far as I can see, these authors and I agree thatwe should apply an overall perspective: narrow egoisticarguments should be set aside and the long-term interest ofthe common good should be considered—how can the presenterosion of our common living conditions be counteracted inan ethically acceptable way. In the present context, thereseems to be two vital questions: 1) What is the relationshipbetween migration and the global population growth? 2)What is the relationship between migration and consump-tion growth, and how does migration influence thedistribution of consumption possibilities both between andwithin industrialized and developing countries? Of course,other questions are also important, but these two questionsseem to me to be the most overriding (as I do not believethat increased technological efficiency will be sufficient tocounteract the environmental impacts of growing popula-tion and consumption).

There is an important premise for the considerations in thefollowing. As far as I know, few have seriously argued infavour of free migration, so there is no point in discussing thisidea. The radically opposite point of view–absolutely noimmigration and “send the foreigners back home”–has moresupporters, but the following considerations ignore bothradical positions. The contrast discussed is the one betweenmanaged migration on the one hand and strict limitations(with some leniency for refugees) on the other. In this way Iignore the argument that immigration will lead to a completeundermining of social stability, the welfare state, nationalculture, etc., and suppose that managed migration will becombined with reasonable policies of integration. I am awarethat this premise might not hold.

Take first the question of global population growth. Daly,the Ehrlichs and I agree that the human species is already fartoo numerous and that it is a very important challenge to stoppopulation growth as soon as possible and even to plan forfuture reduction in our numbers. By now the knowledge ofwhat is needed to bring down population growth in develo-

ping countries is well founded: first of all, better education andmore independence for women, higher income and a moreequal income distribution, good access to contraception,better welfare arrangements (United Nations, 2001; Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch, 2001, chapters 9–10). The hin-drances are also well-known: corrupt states staffed by peoplewho are more interested in grabbing advantages for them-selves than in improving the conditions of the local popula-tion combined with the unholy alliance of conservativepoliticians, in particular from the US, and religious funda-mentalists, both Christian and Moslem. Concerning thepopulation development in industrialized countries, themain problem is that the message has basically not beenreceived: when population decreases, it is considered a seriousproblem—for the economic and military strength, the com-petitive position in relation to countries with lower depen-dency rates, the preservation of national culture, etc. (some ofthe historical background for such arguments is highlighted inMasjuan and Martinez-Alier, 2004). The demographic changesand the related complications are not conceived as transfor-mation problems that we should cope with during the processtowards a more reasonable–smaller–population size.

How does migration come into play here? It has beenargued that poor countries have no incentive to limit thegrowth of their populations if they can export their surpluspopulation (Daly, 2004; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 2004, p. 108). Asthe migrants send back money to their home countries,population growth can even be conceived as an advantage.In my opinion, this argument is highly dubious. I do notbelieve that population policies are much influenced by thepossibilities for emigration. Different factors are much moredecisive for population policies, first of all, whether the state isa developmental state or a predatory state—to use theconcepts of Castells (2000). A developmental state with aleadership that wants to develop the country will provideeducation and economic development that will bring downpopulation growth sooner or later—in contrast to the preda-tory states that keep most of the population in poverty. Themigration policies of industrialized countries have littleinfluence on whether the states develop the characteristicsof developmental states or predatory states (whereas otherpolicy areas can have important implications in this respect,e.g. with regard to corruption). Furthermore, the idea thatpopulation growth is increased because of the incentiverelated to the money sent back from the migrants can becontrasted with the opposite idea that the money from themigrants makes some families better off and thus increasesthe possibilities for education and other improvements thatinduce lower population growth.

It has been argued that “migrants may also import high-fertility habits from poor nations into rich nations, raisingbirthrates among the more affluent–and environmentallymore destructive–people of the world” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich,2004, p. 108). Again, this argument sounds dubious to me:What should the mechanism behind this transmission be?The birth rate of industrialized countries is influenced bysocial structures and institutions regarding child care, theparticipation of women in the workforce, ideologies con-cerning gender and family, fashion waves, etc.—for instance,in Denmark some people attach status to having three

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children, or even more, because large families are seen as anexpression of energy, and some people have several childrenbecause they divorce and remarry and then “confirm” the newrelationship by having another set of children. I have neverheard anybody voice the idea that this development should beinspired by the migrants. But the development is a goodillustration of the point that environmental aspects areseldom part of the considerations before deciding on anaddition to the family (just as family additions are hardlymotivated by the intention to relieve the ‘burden of theelderly’), and that the political agenda in Denmark does notfeature the idea that the population ought to be reduced in thelong run.

The conclusion of these few reflections is that migrationcan move around the world's population, but the aggregatesize is hardly influenced by the movements. Or formulated abit differently: themovementsmay have several contradictoryeffects with no obvious aggregate result. P. and A. Ehrlichseem to arrive at the same conclusion: “Migration, whetherinternal or international, does not, of course, change thetotal number of people on the planet” (p. 108), and thenthey continue to the second issue: “But it does have manyenvironmental consequences”—and these are related toconsumption.

So the next question concerns consumption and distribu-tion. Daly, the Ehrlichs and I agree that the consumption of theaffluent ought to stagnate or fall to provide environmentalspace for increased consumption for the poor. Even whentechnologies are improved, the Western lifestyle with cardriving, high meat consumption, many electrical appliances,many square meters for housing, tourist trips, etc., cannot begeneralized to everybody without an environmental break-down. As long as the affluent continue to develop theseconsumption patterns, they serve as highly problematicmodels for the aspirations of the less fortunate, so the needfor developing better models is urgent.

Now, what does migration imply for consumption anddistribution? One of the arguments used against migration isthat the migrants better their conditions by moving to a moreaffluent society, and through their increased consumptiontheir environmental impact also increases (Ehrlich andEhrlich, 2004, p. 108). This is true, but usually these peopleare among those whose conditions ought to be improved, sothis should rather be seen as an advantage. If migrationsimultaneously implies an increase in total consumption (aquestion which is not directly addressed), the challenge is todecrease consumption levels of the already affluent ratherthan to avoid poor people improving their living conditions.Otherwise, the reasoning tends to become ethically problem-atic—implying that the already established citizens of theaffluent countries have more right to maintain high con-sumption levels than newcomers have to approach a highstandard.

Some critics of migration emphasize that migrants pressdown thewages and that the logic of globalization–free capitalflows, outsourcing, migration–is to move towards the lowestcommon denominator with regard to wages, working envi-ronment, environmental standards, etc. (Daly, 2004). So in theend, themigrants will not improve their conditionsmuch, andemployees in the affluent countries will end up just as poor

(with this reasoning, the argument above becomes irrelevant).Frommy point of view, a trend towards equalization of wagescould make good sense—whereas working environment,environmental standards, etc., ought to be further improvedinmost places. However, currently the downward pressure onwages from migrants and outsourcing is mostly felt by thegroups with the lowest wages in the affluent countries. It istrue that academics and specialists increasingly meet com-petition from well-educated people, for instance, from India,but so far the effects for the well paid have been negligible.Thus globalization tends to widen the income gap betweensocial groups in the affluent countries, where the well paidreap the benefits and the low paid bear the costs. Theincreasing gap is highly problematic, both because of thethreat towards social coherence in societies with largeinequalities, and because of the lifestyles of the affluent thatcontinue to develop as models for everybody's aspirations.The positive impact related to the improvement for themigrants thus co-develops with negative consequences forthe weak groups in the affluent countries and for socialcohesion.

It is worth emphasizing that these negative consequencescan be counteracted by measures other than restrictingimmigration to a minimum—for instance, by redistributionthrough the tax system, public provision of health care andeducation, and public regulation of the working environment.In many countries, from the US to Denmark, the politicalmajority is in favour of dismantling some of these equalizingelements of the welfare state, so the negative effects ofimmigration might not be counteracted—but this is a result ofpolitics rather than immigration as such. Of course, welfarearrangements cannot survive immigration of enormousproportions, but there is scope for combining some immigra-tion with a counterbalancing of the negative effects, so a–frommy perspective–frightening development towards 'Americanconditions' with extreme income disparities, low taxes and aweak welfare state can be avoided. The main problem is thatthe dominant political coalition at themoment tends to createsuch conditions which the coalition considers to be favourablefor economic growth.

In conclusion, I find it important that the defence of socialcohesion is combined with global responsibility and that thisimplies openness for some migration combined with reason-able integration policies. Daly suggests that the best optionwould be to roll back globalization–restrict capital flows,reduce migration, etc.–and return to a system with severenational restrictions, and Rees (this issue) argues along thesame lines that we should abandon globalization andestablish locally based economies where the negative feed-back from stressed ecosystems can curb growth. Basically, Isympathize with this idea of limiting capital flows and tradethat imply unequal exchange and environmental damage, butI have two reservations with regard to the linking of arestrictive line towards immigration with the vision of rollingback globalization in general. Firstly, I imagine that it will bevery difficult to turn back the wheels of history. There is anobvious governance deficit in the wake of globalization, but itmight be more realistic to imagine the emergence of newforms of international governance institutions than theresurrection of the old national institutions. Such new

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institutions should deal with the regulation of capital flows,labour security, environmental standards, and migration.However, I have to acknowledge the relevance of Rees'sargument that it “is not even theoretically possible to controlthe global economy as a functional unit”, implying thepessimistic perspective that neither reasonable global gover-nance, nor locally based sustainable economies seem to beprobable outcomes in the foreseeable future.

This leads to the second concern, which is about timing. Atthe moment there is little support for really turning back theprocess of globalization (except for protectionistic argumentsthat seldom include criticism of the trade through which therich appropriate the natural resources of the poor), and only asmall minority accepts the seriousness of the environmentalchallenge as described by Rees. In other words, the idea oflocally based sustainable economies is a long-term vision. Itseems tome that this vision is not brought closer by restrictiveimmigration policies in the short term, as long as nothing isdone to turn back the other, much more dominant, processesof globalization and to curb consumption growth in the richcountries. In this situation restrictive immigration policiesappear as an egoistic defense of privileges rather than acontribution to sustainability.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Eric Neumayer, Roldan Muradian and an anony-mous referee for valuable comments on earlier versions of thispaper.

R E F E R E N C E S

Ayres, R., 2004. The economic conundrum of an aging population.World Watch Magazine 17 (Sept./Oct.), 45–49.

Carrying Capacity Network, www.carryingcapacity.org.Castells, M., 2000. The Information Age. Economy, Society and

Culture. Volume III: End of Millenium, Second edition. Black-well Publishers, Oxford, UK.

Daly, H.E., 2004. Population, migration, and globalization. WorldWatch Magazine 17 (Sept./Oct.), 41–44.

Ehrlich, P.R., Ehrlich, A.H., 2004. One with Nineveh. Politics,Consumption, and the Human Future. Island Press/ShearwaterBooks, Washington.

Masjuan, E., Martinez-Alier, J., 2004. “Conscious procreation”: Neo-Malthusianism in Southern Europe and Latin America around1900. Paper for the ISEE conference in Montreal 11–14 July.

Pinstrup-Andersen, P., Pandya-Lorch, R. (Eds.), 2001. The Unfin-ished Agenda. Perspectives on Overcoming Hunger, Poverty,and Environmental Degradation. International Food PolicyResearch Institute, Washington, DC.

Rasmussen, H.K., 2004. Det danske dilemma—om Danmark, EU ogindvandring. Tiderne Skifter, Copenhagen.

United Nations, 2001. Population, Gender and Development. AConcise Report. ST/ESA/SER.A/193.