Managing Regional Migration

In short: People have always moved, for safety, work, family or a better life. About 304 million people, under 4% of the world’s population, live outside the country they were born in, and many more move within their own country. At the end of 2024, about 123 million people had been forced from their homes by conflict, persecution or disaster. Migration brings real benefits and real costs, for the places people go, the places they leave and migrants themselves. Fair and effective policy keeps categories clear, tackles root causes, invests in integration, keeps legal promises, and is honest about trade-offs.

The Question

Migration is one of the most heated subjects in politics, and climate change and ageing populations will make it more important still. This article asks: why do people move, and how can societies manage migration fairly and well?

Why People Move

Migration is driven by a mix of push factors, which make people leave, and pull factors, which draw them somewhere.

Push factors	Pull factors
Conflict, persecution and insecurity	Jobs and higher wages
Poverty and lack of opportunity	Safety and political stability
Damaged land, climate change and disasters	Family already there
Political repression	Better health care, schools and public services
Family separation	Shared language or culture

Kinds of Migration

• Internal migration: moving within a country, from the countryside to cities or between regions. It is the most common kind worldwide, and often forgotten in public debate.
• International migration: moving across borders, for work, study, family or protection. About 304 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2024.
• Forced displacement: moving because staying means danger or death. At the end of 2024, 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced, about 1 in 67 people on Earth. Most of them, about 73.5 million, were displaced inside their own country; about 31 million were refugees abroad.

The Challenges

For the places people go: helping newcomers find work, school places and a place in the community; public services under more demand; trust across cultural differences; political tension around identity.

For the places people leave: losing educated and skilled people (“brain drain”); communities that become mostly old people and children; relying on money sent home instead of local development. Those transfers are large: about $685 billion was sent to low- and middle-income countries in 2024, more than foreign investment and aid combined.

For migrants themselves: uncertain legal status, language and cultural barriers, discrimination, and being far from family and friends.

Five Principles for Fair and Effective Migration Policy

1. Keep categories clear. Refugees fleeing persecution have different rights and moral claims than people moving for work. Mixing them up helps no one.
2. Tackle root causes. Managed migration works better alongside investment in the places people leave, so fewer have to move out of desperation.
3. Invest in integration. How well migration turns out depends heavily on how fast people can learn the language, have their qualifications recognised, find work and make social contacts.
4. Keep legal promises. The 1951 Refugee Convention creates binding obligations, and humane societies honour them.
5. Be honest about trade-offs. Migration has real costs and real benefits. Pretending otherwise, in either direction, destroys the trust that sensible policy needs.

Examples

• Ukraine, 2022: the European Union gave millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war immediate protection, the right to work and access to schools, without lengthy asylum procedures. Many found work faster than refugees usually do, and their children went straight to school.
• Canada: chooses a large share of its immigrants for their skills, and invests in language courses and settlement support. Public support for immigration has long been high, though it fell in 2023 and 2024 amid a housing shortage.

The Bigger Picture

Migration is increasingly linked to climate change, as rising seas, spreading deserts and extreme weather make some places very hard to live in. It is also linked to ageing: many rich countries will need more workers as their populations age (see Population Change and Ageing). Managing both will need cooperation between countries on a scale not yet seen.

The Human Side

Leaving home is rarely easy. Behind every migration story there is loss, of family, language and familiar places, as well as hope. For the people receiving newcomers, change can also feel unsettling. Both sides need what every person needs: safety, belonging and a fair chance. See Connection and loneliness in the Personal Guide.

Open Questions

• How many people should a country welcome, and who should decide?
• How can rich countries attract workers without draining poorer countries of the nurses and doctors they need?
• What protection should people displaced by climate change have, since the Refugee Convention does not cover them?

Where Next

• Previous: The Energy Transition
• Next: Population Change and Ageing
• Related: Climate Change, Fair Globe Sharing

Sources

• United Nations DESA, International Migrant Stock 2024 (2025)
• UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024 (2025)
• World Bank, Migration and Development Brief 41 and “In 2024, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are expected to reach $685 billion” (2024)
• UNHCR, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951)
• Council of the European Union, Temporary Protection Directive activation (2022), and OECD, What are the integration challenges of Ukrainian refugee women? (2023)
• Environics Institute, Focus Canada surveys on immigration (2023, 2024)
• IOM, World Migration Report 2024