Introduction
Migration is one of the defining phenomena of the globalised world, with the United Nations estimating that over 281 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2020. The movement of people across borders has the potential to generate significant mutual benefits: migrants gain access to higher wages, better living conditions, and opportunities for personal advancement, while host countries gain labour, skills, cultural diversity, and demographic vitality. This essay argues that migration does, to a large extent, benefit both the host country and the migrants, provided that appropriate policies are in place to manage the integration process and distribute the gains equitably.
Migration fills critical labour market gaps in host countries, sustaining economic sectors that would otherwise face severe workforce shortages.
Explain
Many developed and rapidly ageing countries face structural labour shortages in sectors ranging from healthcare and technology to construction, agriculture, and domestic services. Without the inflow of migrant workers, these sectors would face debilitating shortages that would constrain economic growth, reduce public service provision, and lower the quality of life for citizens. Migration thus provides host countries with an indispensable supply of labour that sustains their economies and public services.
Example
Singapore's economy is heavily dependent on migrant labour, with foreign workers comprising approximately 38% of the total labour force as of 2023. The construction sector relies on approximately 300,000 foreign workers, predominantly from Bangladesh, India, and China, without whom the country's ambitious infrastructure projects, including the expansion of the MRT network and the development of the Greater Southern Waterfront, would be impossible to execute on schedule. In the healthcare sector, foreign-trained nurses and doctors constitute a significant proportion of the workforce, helping Singapore maintain its world-class healthcare system despite a small domestic population. The United Kingdom's National Health Service similarly depends on foreign-born workers, who constitute approximately 16.5% of NHS staff, with the system's ability to function during the COVID-19 pandemic critically dependent on migrant healthcare workers from the Philippines, India, and Nigeria.
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This demonstrates that migration benefits the host country, as the labour provided by migrants is not a supplement but a structural necessity for the functioning of critical economic sectors and public services in many developed nations.
Migrants benefit enormously from access to higher wages, better living conditions, and opportunities for personal and professional development that are unavailable in their home countries.
Explain
For the vast majority of migrants, the decision to move is a rational response to the enormous disparities in wages, employment opportunities, and quality of life between their home and destination countries. Migration enables individuals to earn multiples of what they would receive for equivalent work at home, access superior healthcare and education for their families, and develop skills and professional networks that enhance their long-term prospects. The remittances they send home also constitute a significant source of income for families and communities in origin countries.
Example
Global remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached a record $656 billion in 2022, according to the World Bank, exceeding foreign direct investment and official development assistance combined. For countries like the Philippines, remittances from the approximately 10 million overseas Filipino workers constituted over 9% of GDP, funding education, healthcare, and housing for millions of families. In Singapore, the approximately 250,000 foreign domestic workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Myanmar earn wages that, while modest by Singaporean standards, are typically four to eight times what they could earn in equivalent employment at home, enabling them to finance their children's education, build homes in their home villages, and accumulate savings that transform their families' economic trajectories.
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This illustrates that migration benefits migrants, as the wage differentials and opportunities available in destination countries provide transformative improvements in living standards and intergenerational mobility that would be unattainable in their countries of origin.
Migration enriches host countries culturally and stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship, contributing to long-term economic dynamism and social vitality.
Explain
Beyond filling immediate labour gaps, migration brings diversity of thought, cultural perspectives, and entrepreneurial energy that enhances the host country's innovation capacity and cultural richness. Migrants, having already demonstrated the initiative and risk tolerance required to relocate across borders, are disproportionately likely to start businesses, patent inventions, and contribute to the creative industries. The cultural diversity that migration introduces also enriches the social fabric of host countries, broadening horizons and fostering cosmopolitanism.
Example
In the United States, immigrants or their children founded 45% of Fortune 500 companies as of 2022, including transformative enterprises such as Google, co-founded by Russian-born Sergey Brin, Tesla and SpaceX, led by South African-born Elon Musk, and Apple, co-founded by the son of a Syrian immigrant. A 2022 National Bureau of Economic Research study found that immigrants in the US were 80% more likely to found a company than native-born Americans. Singapore has similarly benefited from the entrepreneurial dynamism of its migrant community. The Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with India, signed in 2005, facilitated the entry of skilled Indian professionals who have contributed significantly to Singapore's technology and financial services sectors, while the government's Global Investor Programme actively courts wealthy migrants whose investments create jobs and economic activity in the city-state.
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This demonstrates that migration benefits the host country, as the diversity, entrepreneurial energy, and innovation that migrants bring generate long-term economic dynamism and cultural enrichment that far exceed the short-term costs of integration.
Counter-Argument
Sceptics argue that low-skilled migration depresses wages for the host country's most vulnerable workers, citing a Bank of England study that found a 10 percentage point increase in immigrant share in low-skilled sectors was associated with a 1.88 per cent wage reduction. Singapore's 2013 Population White Paper protest, drawing thousands to Hong Lim Park, demonstrated widespread public concern about competition for jobs, housing, and public transport.
Rebuttal
However, these distributional concerns are problems of policy design, not inherent flaws of migration itself. Singapore's subsequent introduction of the Fair Consideration Framework and progressive increases to Employment Pass qualifying salaries demonstrate that wage-depression effects can be effectively mitigated through regulation. Meanwhile, the aggregate benefits of migration, including filling critical labour shortages in healthcare and construction, sustaining economic growth, and generating record global remittances of $656 billion in 2022, are transformative at a scale that targeted policy adjustments can equitably distribute.
Conclusion
In conclusion, migration benefits both the host country and the migrants to a significant extent, as the evidence demonstrates that it generates economic growth, fills labour market gaps, enriches cultural life, and provides migrants with transformative opportunities for advancement. While challenges of integration and distribution exist, they are problems of policy design rather than inherent flaws of migration itself. Societies that embrace well-managed migration position themselves for greater prosperity and dynamism in an increasingly mobile world.
Introduction
While the economic case for migration often appears compelling in the aggregate, the lived reality for many migrants and host communities tells a far more complicated and frequently troubling story. Migrants often face exploitation, discrimination, and precarious living conditions, while host-country citizens, particularly the less skilled, may experience wage depression, cultural dislocation, and strain on public services. This essay contends that the claim that migration benefits both parties is only partially true, as the benefits are unevenly distributed and the costs are frequently borne by the most vulnerable on both sides of the equation.
Low-skilled migration can depress wages and worsen working conditions for the host country's most vulnerable workers, exacerbating domestic inequality.
Explain
While migration may generate aggregate economic benefits for the host country, these benefits are not evenly distributed. An influx of low-skilled migrant workers increases competition for jobs at the bottom of the labour market, putting downward pressure on wages and working conditions for native-born workers in the same sectors. The workers most affected are typically the host country's own poorest and least educated citizens, who have the fewest alternatives and the least political voice, meaning that migration can worsen the very inequality it is supposed to alleviate.
Example
In Singapore, the extensive reliance on low-wage foreign workers in construction, cleaning, and food service sectors has been criticised for suppressing wages for lower-skilled Singaporean workers. A 2013 government White Paper on Population, which projected a population increase to 6.9 million by 2030 partly through continued immigration, provoked one of the largest public protests in Singapore's history, with an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people gathering at Hong Lim Park to voice concerns about depressed wages, overcrowded public transport, and competition for housing. The government subsequently introduced the Fair Consideration Framework in 2014 and progressively raised the qualifying salary for Employment Passes to ensure that firms did not undercut Singaporean workers. In the United Kingdom, a 2015 Bank of England study found that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of immigrants in low-skilled service sectors was associated with a 1.88% reduction in wages for native workers in those sectors.
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This demonstrates that migration does not equally benefit both parties, as the wage-depressing effects of low-skilled migration are disproportionately borne by the host country's most vulnerable workers, raising serious questions about the equitable distribution of migration's benefits.
Many migrants face exploitation, discrimination, and precarious living conditions in host countries, undermining the claim that migration benefits the migrants themselves.
Explain
The narrative that migration benefits migrants often focuses on the aggregate gains in income and opportunity while glossing over the harsh realities that many migrants endure. Low-skilled migrant workers in particular frequently face exploitative working conditions, wage theft, inadequate housing, restricted freedom of movement, and systemic discrimination. The kafala system in the Gulf states, the exploitation of undocumented workers in the West, and the precarious conditions of foreign domestic workers across Asia all demonstrate that the benefits of migration for migrants are far from guaranteed.
Example
The construction of infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was marred by widespread reports of migrant worker exploitation, with The Guardian reporting that over 6,500 South Asian workers had died in Qatar between 2010 and 2020, many from heat-related causes while working in extreme temperatures under the kafala sponsorship system that tied workers to their employers and restricted their ability to change jobs or leave the country. In Singapore, while conditions are generally better regulated, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of the approximately 300,000 migrant workers housed in dormitories, where overcrowded conditions led to massive outbreaks that accounted for the vast majority of Singapore's total infections in 2020. The crisis prompted significant reforms, including improved dormitory standards and mandatory medical coverage, but highlighted the precarious conditions that had existed largely unnoticed before the pandemic.
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This challenges the claim that migration benefits the migrants, as the widespread exploitation, dangerous living conditions, and systemic discrimination endured by many migrant workers demonstrate that the benefits of migration are contingent on protections and rights that are frequently absent in practice.
Large-scale migration can strain public services, housing, and social cohesion in host countries, generating backlash that ultimately harms both migrants and the host society.
Explain
Rapid and large-scale migration places significant demands on a host country's housing stock, transport infrastructure, healthcare system, and educational institutions, particularly when the pace of inflow exceeds the capacity of these systems to expand. When native-born citizens perceive that migration is worsening their access to public goods and services, resentment builds, fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment, social polarisation, and the rise of populist political movements. This backlash ultimately harms both migrants, who face increased hostility and discrimination, and the host society, whose social cohesion is eroded.
Example
In Sweden, which accepted the highest number of asylum seekers per capita in the EU during the 2015 migration crisis with approximately 163,000 applications, the rapid influx placed severe strain on housing, schools, and social services in municipalities unprepared for the scale of arrivals. Integration challenges, including high unemployment rates of over 40% among recent immigrants and the emergence of socially segregated suburbs, fuelled the rise of the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party that became the second-largest party in the 2022 parliamentary elections. In Singapore, public concern over the pace of immigration and the strain on infrastructure led the government to slow the rate of foreign workforce growth after 2013, tightening work permit quotas and increasing foreign worker levies. The government's calibrated approach acknowledged that the benefits of migration depend critically on managing its pace relative to the host society's absorptive capacity.
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This demonstrates that migration does not automatically benefit the host country, as rapid or poorly managed inflows can overwhelm public services, erode social cohesion, and generate political backlash that harms both the migrant community and the broader society.
Counter-Argument
Proponents of migration argue that it fills critical labour gaps, with foreign workers comprising 38 per cent of Singapore's total labour force, and generates transformative entrepreneurial dynamism, as immigrants or their children founded 45 per cent of Fortune 500 companies. Global remittances of $656 billion in 2022 exceeded foreign direct investment and development aid combined, demonstrating mutual benefit of enormous scale.
Rebuttal
Yet these aggregate statistics obscure the harsh realities endured by many individual migrants. The Guardian reported over 6,500 South Asian worker deaths in Qatar between 2010 and 2020 under the exploitative kafala system, and Singapore's COVID-19 outbreak among the approximately 300,000 dormitory-housed migrant workers exposed overcrowded living conditions that had been largely overlooked before the crisis. When migration's benefits are measured at the macro level while its costs are borne by the most vulnerable individuals, the claim of mutual benefit is at best a partial truth that papers over systemic exploitation.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the claim that migration benefits both the host country and the migrants is a simplification that obscures the significant costs borne by vulnerable populations on both sides. Low-wage migrants frequently endure exploitation and precarious conditions, while host-country workers in competitive sectors face real wage pressure and social disruption. A more honest assessment acknowledges that migration produces winners and losers, and that realising its potential benefits requires far more robust protections, equitable distribution mechanisms, and integration support than most countries currently provide.