The following essay was originally compiled for the Mixed Migration Review 2024 “Migration Politics, Migration Narratives and Public Opinions” and has been reproduced here for wider access through this website’s readership.
The essay’s author, Carlos Vargas-Silva, is Professor of Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, where he teaches the course Migration and the Economy.
In many countries across the world, public opinion surveys often suggest that the state of the economy is a major concern and a public policy priority. It follows that voters in those countries should support policies that are beneficial for the economy. Yet, even with the substantial evidence of the strong economic benefits of immigration, many voters support political parties with a restrictive platform on migration. Often their position extends to all forms of immigration, whether it be labour migrants (regular and irregular), asylum seekers or refugees – in a nutshell, mixed migration. This support has led to important electoral gains for those political parties across Europe and other regions of the world.
This raises the question: why do some voters concerned about the economy also support political parties with a restrictive agenda on migration? There are various reasons for this apparent contradiction between prioritising the economy and supporting political parties that oppose immigration. The discussion below explores this key question by focusing on three aspects: the role of adjustment periods related to immigration, the differences between migration policy preferences and voting choices, and the importance of intergroup dynamics for electoral choices.
Migration (in all its forms) expands the global economy
Before exploring the paradox of support for political parties with a restrictive agenda on migration and prioritising the economy, it is important to understand the ways in which immigration affects the economy of a country. Immigration increases the number of workers in the economy. This means there are more people looking for jobs across different occupations and industries. However, migrants are not simply taking away the existing jobs of the local population. Immigration expands the demand for workers and thus creates new jobs. Migrants contribute to the economy not only through their work but also by buying and consuming goods and services (that is, creating additional demand). This increased demand stimulates economic activity across sectors. In other words, the number of jobs in the economy is not fixed. Immigration can lead to the creation of more jobs, thus expanding the economy.
The expansion of the economy resulting from immigration explains the evidence suggesting that immigration has no negative impacts on the employment outcomes of local workers in receiving countries. For instance, the evidence for OECD countries suggests that immigration has a positive effect on the wages of less educated local workers, and it increases or leaves unaffected the wages of more educated local workers. These dynamics are not exclusive to the richest countries, and a substantial portion of the recent evidence on the labour market’s impacts of immigration is for middle- and upper-income economies.
For instance, research looking at Venezuelan migrants in Colombia suggests that giving Venezuelans the right to work in the country only had a negligible impact on the employment outcomes of local workers. Evidence for Venezuelans arriving in Peru suggests that this immigration had a favourable impact on the employment outcomes of local workers. These are important findings given the large scale of out-migration experienced by Venezuela over the last decade, with an estimated 7.8 million Venezuelans now living abroad and most settling in neighbouring Latin American countries. The example also illustrates what happens when governments allow migrants to work instead of forcing them to be inactive in the labour market. They are more likely to make a positive contribution to the coffers of the country, rather than being a burden on public finances.
In addition, migrants often do jobs that local workers do not want to do, particularly in sectors such as care, agriculture, hospitality and domestic services. In that way, migrants fill key labour shortages in destination countries, a factor that could become even more important as many high-income economies experience population ageing and additional demand for many of these services.
Immigration contributes beyond the lower end of the labour market. Migrants bring diverse perspectives and experiences. This diversity creates an environment where new ideas and solutions can flourish, as individuals from different cultures approach challenges in varied ways. As a result, immigration is a major driver of innovation in high-skill industries, such as science and technology. For instance, migrants are disproportionately responsible for patent creation in many high-income countries and among the winners of prestigious scientific prizes. This is not a random coincidence, but results from many migrant inventors being “positively self-selected”, that is, looking to move to destinations that reward their ideas and experience more than their home country.
The positive economic contribution of migrants is present regardless of the motivation for migration of those moving, not just for those moving for work reasons. People moving for humanitarian, family and study reasons, among others, join the labour markets of their host countries and contribute to the expansion of the economy by engaging in entrepreneurship. For instance, evidence from the UK suggests that those who initially migrated for asylum reasons to the country are six percent more likely to engage in self-employment, a form of entrepreneurship, than the UK-born.
Yet this positive contribution can only occur if destination countries provide migrants with the lawful right to engage in productive economic activities in the formal sector. Many countries still restrict the access of different groups of migrants to the labour market, pushing them into the informal sector and precarious forms of employment.
Migrants maintain ties with their countries of origin and support their home economies. Every year, migrants send billions of US dollars back home in remittances. For many countries, remittances are significantly higher than official development assistance and foreign direct investment, providing a key source of external financing. Remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached $669 billion in 2023, a four percent increase compared to the previous year. Some countries, such as Mexico ($67 billion) and the Philippines ($40 billion), receive large absolute amounts, while for smaller countries the monetary flows represent a substantial share of their GDP (Nicaragua, 27%; Lebanon, 28%).
Receiving families use remittances to cover basic needs (e.g. food, education, health) and for investment purposes. Remittances also play a major role as an insurance mechanism in countries where insurance markets are not well developed. For instance, it is common to see major increases in remittances after droughts, floods or other natural disasters.
However, the links between migrants and their home countries are not just about sending money home. Migrants also send home ideas about the attitudes and behaviours that they are exposed to abroad. This transfer of ideas, often referred to as social remittances, includes aspects related to entrepreneurship and other key factors that support economic growth.
Migrants’ knowledge of foreign markets, languages and cultures can enhance business opportunities and create economic linkages between their home and host countries. These economic linkages often result in increasing trade in goods and services.
Return migration also has positive impacts in many countries. Returning migrants bring home skills, knowledge and experience, and are often more likely to enter entrepreneurship upon return. For instance, research exploring the impact of refugee return from Germany to the former Yugoslavia found a positive effect on export performance. This was driven by the fact that refugees exposed to particular industries in Germany brought back valuable technical knowledge, which translated into higher productivity in those same industries.
The potential economic benefit of immigration has led to some scholars referring to migration as the “trillion- dollar bills on the sidewalk” that are being ignored by policymakers. Reducing barriers to migration would lead to a large increase in income at a global scale, an increase that is higher than the equivalent from eliminating remaining trade barriers. Eliminating barriers to mobility would also be the most impactful way of reducing global poverty, having a greater impact than all poverty reduction programmes in existence. And yet resistance to immigration is high in countries around the world and illustrated in the outcomes of many recent elections.
Migration leads to a period of adjustment
Some local workers benefit more than others from immigration. Local workers with skills that complement those of migrants, for example, tend to gain a lot from immigration right away. An increase in low-skilled immigration leads to more workers being available to do childrearing, housekeeping and care for the elderly, which decreases the cost of those services. This allows local workers to rely on migrants for those services and spend more time at work, a factor that is particularly beneficial for the employment conditions of local women.
Yet the story could be very different for those local workers who compete directly with migrants for employment, at least in the short term. They could have fewer job opportunities and see their wages stalled. There are plenty of stories of local workers being replaced by migrant workers and even having to train their migrant replacements. It is difficult to argue that these local workers are better off because of immigration.
However, as explained above, the economy will eventually expand because of immigration. Once this economic expansion occurs, there will be additional opportunities for local workers directly affected by immigration.
Moreover, many of those local workers will adjust to the presence of more migrants in the labour market and move across locations or occupations. For instance, they could look for employment in regions that are less popular with migrants or change to jobs in which they hold a competitive advantage over migrants. This includes jobs that require local language skills or substantial local knowledge, which migrants often lack, such as customer-facing jobs. The key is that migrants and local workers have different skills, even among high- and low-skill groups. For instance, among high-skill workers, migrants tend to work in more technical areas than natives (for example, maths and engineering), while among the low-skill, migrants tend to focus more on manual employment rather than jobs which require local language skills.
The evidence suggests that over time, after a period of adjustment, most local workers directly affected by migration will also benefit economically as they change occupations and the economy expands. Yet losing a job, periods of unemployment and changing location or occupation could all be distressing experiences for many local workers. Therefore, whilst immigration is good for the economy, it is not necessarily good for everyone’s economic situation right away. This is a factor that could explain opposition to migration, particularly from those working in industries that switched to using more migrant labour. The long-term economic benefits of immigration are not as important as immediate economic concerns for these voters.
Nonetheless, it is not only about adjustment in the labour market. Regions experiencing high levels of immigration may need to expand their infrastructure, including additional housing, schools, transportation and hospitals. These expansions require time, planning and investments, leading to a period of adjustment, which can see higher housing costs and overcrowded schools, buses and hospitals. Many voters with concerns about these adjustments could also support political parties with a strong restrictive agenda regarding migration.
Options presented to voters do not reflect migration policy preferences
In political debates, migration policies appear in bundled forms, rather than allowing individuals to select among policies’ constituent parts. This means that voters are often asked to simply give a thumbs up or down on immigration, in all its forms, even if the issue at hand, and their view of it, is much more complex.
Migration policies are multi-dimensional. There is a lot of focus on policy debates on controlling inflows into a country, which provides a simplistic view of migration policy. Controlling inward flows through enforcement or admission criteria is just one of several kinds of policy levers that are available to any government. Many other factors are relevant for policymaking on migration, ranging from policies regarding naturalisation and access to services and employment to family reunification policies.
Even across policies regarding admission, there are major differences across categories, such as immigration for work or study, and within these categories. As stated previously, all forms of immigration are ultimately beneficial to the economy. Yet the positive effects of some forms of immigration occur more quickly than others. For instance, many of those moving for work reasons can join the labour market immediately and often face strong restrictions on their access to the welfare state. Meanwhile, those moving for asylum may need additional state support initially and will join the labour market more gradually.
Second, many combinations of migration policies involve trade-offs. It is possible for an individual to have concerns about the lack of workers in the local care industry and concerns about the cost of local housing, both of which are affected by immigration.
For instance, evidence from Colombia suggests that Colombians favour liberal policies on Venezuelans’ right to work, healthcare access, and family reunification. Yet they also support placing restrictions on the number of Venezuelans entering the country and the length of their initial residency. Evidence from Peru suggests similar differences in policy preferences towards Venezuelans in that country.
Some voters may not be opposed to immigration in principle, but support parties with a restrictive agenda because they believe these parties will address some particular aspects of migration policy that they have concerns about (for example, irregular border crossings), even if they do not support restrictions on other aspects of migration policy.
Aware of the complex links of immigration to the economy, often politicians rally around restrictions on an unpopular type of immigration for electoral purposes, but support other types after the election period. For instance, ending EU free movement, a key facilitator of immigration to the UK, was the main promise of those political leaders campaigning for Brexit. Yet some of those same leaders later established a relatively liberal post-Brexit immigration system that has led to record net migration levels in the country, even without EU free movement.29
It’s (not just) the economy, stupid
Coined by the campaign team of Bill Clinton in the United States during the 1992 presidential election, the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid” states that politics and the job of politicians were essentially about maintaining strong economic indicators. According to this view, the way to win elections is to talk about how the policies proposed by a party or candidate will boost the economy.
However, while better economic prospects will convince many voters, there are deeper divisions in society. For several decades, social identity theory has postulated the existence of intergroup behaviour. People separate themselves based on characteristics of belonging to a group (for example class, profession, race, religion or country of birth) and increase their self-esteem by improving the conditions of their in-group and, particularly, discriminating against out-groups (that is, against the ‘Other’).
Voters, therefore, may choose political parties not solely based on an objective evaluation of policies, including economic ones, but on emotional connections to groups that align with their perceived social identity. Voters could support parties with a restrictive agenda on migration because they perceive migrants as members of out-groups that threaten the values or culture of the in-group. They could support these political parties even if they feel that reducing immigration will have negative economic consequences.
The likelihood of supporting political parties with a restrictive agenda on migration is greater for voters for whom national or ethnic identity is highly salient (very important to their self-concept) and with lower levels of trust in out-group members. Evidence from Peru, for instance, suggests that those with lower levels of interpersonal trust (that is, trust in other people) are less likely to support open migration policies.
It is also argued that increasing incomes and education levels lead to people valuing national and ethnic identity less, and focusing more on other aspects, such as professional identity. This has led those with higher incomes and education to feel less connection to the needs of their fellow nationals on lower incomes, for whom national and ethnic identity is more important, and more sympathy for the conditions of groups such as vulnerable migrants. Hence, those of higher socio-economic status are less likely to be moved by the adjustments related to immigration that are directly experienced by those of lower socio-economic classes. The result is a gap in support for immigration across the social class divide.
The speed of demographic change also plays a role. Rapid demographic and cultural changes can create more anxiety among voters. This is particularly the case in new migrant destinations, where residents are less used to diversity and the infrastructure might need some time to adjust to the new demographic reality. Academics have even used the revised phrase “It’s the demography, stupid” to highlight this point.
In-group and out-group dynamics could even lead some voters to discard the evidence of the positive economic impacts of immigration. This evidence is often presented by experts working for academic or international institutions (for example, the World Bank or the OECD), which some voters distrust and see as part of an out-of- touch elite that does not have their best interests at heart and does not belong in their in-group. In other words, it is not just about the message, but also about the messenger.
The media also often plays a pivotal role in framing immigration as a threat to the cultural fabric of the nation or the in-group, reinforcing the message from some political leaders. Even a relatively small flow of irregular migrants across a land border or body of water can be presented in the press as a major crisis. Media in many countries also uses migrants as scapegoats for broader economic challenges, such as deindustrialisation, reductions in the quality of public services, wage stagnation, rising crime and income inequality.
As explained above, immigration can put pressure on public services and local wages while the infrastructure and economy adjust to the new demographic reality. A nuanced perspective on these issues would differentiate between the short- and long-term effects. Yet the news cycle, like the political one, tends to focus on immediate concerns, rather than taking the long view. Simple narratives that link immigration to the existence of key economic challenges can be more persuasive to some voters than comprehensive economic analysis from institutions that may be perceived as “elite”.
Conclusion
We can now return to the main question introduced at the start of the essay: why do some voters concerned about the economy also support political parties with a restrictive agenda on migration?
We explored three key aspects in response to this question. First, some voters could have legitimate concerns about the economic adjustments that immigration brings to a country. Whilst migration is beneficial in the long term, there could be some negative impacts while the economy absorbs the new labour force. Second, intergroup dynamics are more important for some voters, who see migrants as a potential threat. Their priority is to remove that threat, and other issues, such as the economy, become secondary. Third, it is likely that many voters have complex views on migration policy. They are not fully against or pro-migration. The policy offering of political parties does not reflect their views, but they must choose between the offers that are on the table in any given election. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. Some voters could identify with all three aspects or any combination of these.
There is no simple answer to the question raised in this essay. Yet at least we can gain some clues about the right direction of travel regarding this issue. In particular, we can discard simplistic narratives that ignore the complexity of the issue at hand. Such narratives, whether in favour or against migration, lead to misinformation, increased polarisation and, ultimately, ineffective policymaking. This has been illustrated by the discussion of immigration in recent elections around the world. There is a need for a more nuanced debate on the link between migration and the economy in order to ensure an informed political process.
