Global immigration: keep the border open

Despite a growing backlash, the boom in migration has been mostly good for both sending and recipient countries, says Adam Roberts.

Without migrants, the greying and increasingly choosy populations in much of the rich world would already be on the decline today. That matters for their fast-changing economies, which increasingly demand either highly skilled workers or people willing to do unpleasant and tiring jobs.

One reason why much of the world has enjoyed a sustained economic boom with low inflation in the past decade is that the effective global workforce is expanding so fast.

If exporting brawn generally makes sense for a poor country, sending its better brains away may not. Most, perhaps all, poor and middle-income countries face chronic shortages of skilled workers. Easier movement of capital and goods has helped to make the world a much richer place in the past decade or two, and more human mobility has both created wealth and helped to share it out more equally.