The Financial Times reported earlier this week (paywalled):
Immigration has become more controversial since shifting from predominantly white European to predominantly non-white, non-European — mostly Asian in the UK, mostly African in France. These trends will continue: Africa’s population is forecast to jump from 1.5 billion today to 2.5 billion by 2050, while Europe’s working-age population craters...
How can politicians square the circle of needing immigrants but not wanting them? By posturing against the most visible forms of immigration (small boats on the Channel or the Med, and asylum-seekers) while quietly letting in more workers. Britain’s vote for Brexit was largely driven by anti-immigration feeling, but immigration to the UK has soared since then. Italy’s rightwing leader Giorgia Meloni makes a show of trying to process asylum-seekers in Albania — reflecting a widespread European desire to offshore asylum — while also issuing nearly a million non-EU work visas. The French parliament voted through a strict immigration law in 2023, yet in 2024 immigration jumped.
Branko Milanovic's model of migration flows and migrants' rights, which was explained in his book Capitalism, Alone (which I reviewed here) and which I expanded on in this earlier post can be used to explain these changes. Over time, Europeans have become willing to accept lower migration flows for a given amount of migration rights. In the model, this equates to a decrease in the demand for migrants (the demand in this model represents the public tolerance for migrants). This situation is shown in the diagram below. Initially, the equilibrium level of migrant rights R0 was associated with migration flows to Europe of M0. Then, as Europeans' demand for migrants decreases, the 'demand curve' shifts to the left, from D0 to D1. The equilibrium now occurs where the new curve D1 intersects with the supply curve S0, with lower migration flows (M1) and lower migrant rights (R1).
As the Financial Times article notes, migrant rights are eroding:
The new trend, as seen for instance in the UK, is to give immigrants time-limited visas for specific job sectors, reduce their right to bring family members, and make them wait longer — decades, in some cases — before they can get permanent settlement. In France, the far-right Rassemblement National party, the likely next government, wants to scrap birthright citizenship, meaning that people could spend their lives in the country while forever remaining second-class outsiders.
Milanovic's model helps us to explain how changes in Europeans' preferences for migrants translate into both lower migration flows and lower migrant rights. To improve migrants' rights, the process would likely have to happen in reverse, with Europeans returning to a more welcoming state.
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