In a Q&A with
Time magazine, Ian Goldin, director of the Oxford Martin School and a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, discusses how the global recession, high rates of unemployment in developed countries and a rising tide of xenophobia might tempt rich countries to shut the door on immigration. He gives Toronto as an example of why that would be a bad idea.
"What's the best way to prevent a backlash against migration?"
"I'm not politically naive. I'm not recommending open borders, though that might be an ideal to work toward, just as we have with free-trade negotiations over a period of around 50 years. For now, the first thing is to recognize that migration has not been managed well enough. Migrants bring with them short-term, local costs, whereas the benefits are society-wide and long term, so there is a mismatch. Whether we're talking about Lampedusa, the island off the coast of Italy that is the first port of call for refugees from Tunisia, or Slough, a British town with a large migrant population, local people understandably feel that immigration is a burden. It's a national issue that needs to be managed on the national level. Second, leaders need to be more honest. What's depressing about the current status quo is that there's no empirical evidence to support this view that immigrants take people's jobs, swallow up resources and are a drag on the economy. But the myth is propagated, despite the fact that, depending on how far you go back, we're all immigrants. In Britain, Queen Victoria grew up speaking German, and somehow she still came to be seen as this symbol of Britishness. We create huge myths all the time, instead of focusing on the facts. For example, if rich countries were to admit enough migrants from poor countries to expand their own labor forces by just three per cent, the world would be richer, according to one estimate, by $356 billion a year. Toronto is made up of 50 per cent immigrants, and it's consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in the world. We need more data, and less hearsay."
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Original source: Time magazine