Population Mobility And Productive Relations Demographic Links And Policy Evolution

This analysis considers changing patterns of population mobility in terms of shifts in productive structure and social relations of production. It is based on the premise that migration analysis cannot be divorced from an historical perspective, and in particular, that in many low-income regions recent changes in population mobility have to be understood in terms of the colonial legacy and the attempted transition to capitalist industrialization. In that context, it concludes with a critical review of government policies designed or expected to influence migration rates and patterns, arguing that often the policies have effects quite contrary to those intended by their advocates. There is a danger that desperate movement by the world's poor will be a main cause of economic stagnation, unemployment and poverty; however, severe measures taken to control this movement, which deny the human right to freedom of movement, should not be allowed to supersede measures tackling the underlying structural causes of the perceived maldistribution of the population.