More than twenty million migrant workers send $40 billion to their countries of origin each year, making labor second only to oil as the most important commodity traded internationally. The essays contained here deal with this unsettled sociopolitical issue--international labor migration and its relationship to economic development--seeking to determine the effects of recruitment, remittances, and return migration on labor-exporting countries. Many analysts, sending-country governments, employers, and migrant workers feel that countries with unemployed workers should, if possible, export them to countries with labor shortages. Remittances from migrants and returning workers who were trained abroad should stimulate economic growth enough to reduce unemployment and pressures to emigrate. It was projected that within a decade or less, labor-importing countries would emerge from the labor-shortage phase of their development. However, migrant workers have become a structural feature of the economies in Western Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and the United States: emigration does not promote development in the sending countries. This collection of twelve chapters by experts in the field examines the conceptual and theoretical issues in international labor migration and looks at the relationship between migration and development in Africa, between Mediterranean countries and Europe, between Asian labor exporters and Middle Eastern importers, and the effects of emigration on Latin America and the Caribbean.In addition to comprehensive introductory and concluding sections, Conceptual and Theoretical Issues in International Labor Migration and The Unsettled Relationship between Migration and Development, the volume is divided into four additional sections that scrutinize labor migration and development in Africa, Greece, and Turkey, Asian countries, and Latin America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The book's recurring theme states that there is no iron law of migration-induced development: recruitment, remittances, and returns do not automatically generate stay-at-home development. This first thorough and comparative treatment, with its focus on the population, social policy, labor market, language, and foreign policy implications of recent and present policies, will be invaluable for courses on refugees and migrants in sociology and comparative public policy. Research libraries and international assistance organizations will find it an indispensable resource.

These essays deal with a most unsettled sociopolitical issue--international labor migration and its relationship to economic development--and seek to determine the effects of recruitment, remittances, and return migration on labor exporting countries.

Foreword by Diego C. AsencioIntroductionConceptual and Theoretical Issues in International Labor MigrationLabor Migration and Development: Research and Policy Issues by Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Philip L. MartinLabor Migration: Theory and Reality by Philip L. MartinLabor Migration and Development in AfricaBinational Communities and Labor Circulation in Sub-Saharan Africa by Aderanti AdepojuInternational Labor Migration in Southern Africa by Timothy T. ThahaneLabor Migration and Development in Greece and TurkeyMigration and Development in Greece: The Unfinished Story by Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Ira Emke-PoulopolosMigration without Development: The Case of Turkey by Ali S. GitmezLabor Migration and Development in Asian Emigration CountriesMigration from Pakistan to the Middle East by Shahid Javed BurkiEmigration and Development in South and Southeast Asia by Charles Stahl and Ansanul HabibLabor Migration and Development in Latin America, Mexico, and the CaribbeanThe Effects of International Migration on Latin America by Sergio Diaz-BriquetsCaribbean Emigration and Development by Patricia R. PessarThe Unsettled Relationship between Migration and DevelopmentMigration and Development: The Unsettled Relationship by Demetrios G. PapademetriouImmigration and Economic Development by the Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic DevelopmentAppendix: Social Indicators of DevelopmentReferencesIndex