International Migration and Human Development

This paper reviews the relationship between international migration and human development. First, it reviews what we know about the factors that drive migration from developing to developed countries. Second, it reviews existing knowledge about the impact of international migration and remittances on the economic and human development of migrants’ source countries. These first two sections of the paper are accompanied by an assessment of the gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled with further research. The last section of the paper outlines policies that could help raise the development impact of migration and remittances. First, governments should extend absentee voting rights to overseas citizens. In addition, facilitating migrants’ access to and use of financial services could bring substantial benefits. Furthermore, governments can profitably devote self-discovery and enterprise promotion efforts to small-scale activities. Finally, there could be substantial benefits from encouraging overseas citizens to retire at home while taking advantage of accumulated retirement benefits from their migration host countries.