Economic Globalization - Migration

Migration

“With an estimated 210 million people living outside their country of origin (International Labour Organization 2010), international migration has touched the lives of almost everyone in both the sending and receiving countries of the Global South and the Global North”. Because of advances made in technology, human beings as well as goods are able to move through different countries and regions with relative ease. The origins of globalization can be traced as far back as colonialism and it is what provided the blueprint for the economic globalization that is seen today. “The geography of contemporary globalization is related closely to the history of colonialism and imperialism even if this is not usually made explicit in globalization theory”. Colonialism created lines between tribes and various societies in different parts of the world and it is because of this that some people leave their predetermined countries of citizenship to work in a neighboring country. “Globalization theories have, by and large, neglected race and ethnicity in their accounts of the making of the new global order”. “International migrants facilitate globalization processes by linking together disparate peoples and places into an increasingly single, shared global political-economic context (Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton Black 1995; Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt 1999)”. Those who are not separated from their families still have a desire to migrate because “knowledge of living standards and social conditions across countries has become increasingly more available, especially through travel; both the real and symbolic reduction of time and distance have created powerful incentives for people to move”. This impacts women the most because “from a gender perspective, we have witnessed the feminization of most migration flows, especially since the 1990s, with profound transformations in the structure of families and gender roles in the international division of labor”. Another reason for individuals to migrate is to make more money “according to UNDP estimates, in 1970 the average income of countries in the highest 25 percent GDP group was 23 times higher than that of the lowest 25 percent group; this figure increased to 29 times by 2010 (UNDP 2010: 42), thus increasing the economic incentive to migrate”.