It has often been argued that increasing development cooperation and foreign aid can reduce push factors and, in turn, reduce migration. As policymakers in many Western countries feel pressured to fight the causes of migration and forced displacement, foreign investment in major countries of origin has been praised as a powerful tool, and a “solution” to reduce the inflow of migrants.
Yet, research paints a more ambiguous picture, because economic development is more likely to increase, rather than decrease, migration. Some studies have demonstrated that the number of emigrants initially increases alongside economic growth, decreasing only once the country has reached a relatively high Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thus, studies there is a positive correlation between increasing development and increasing migration, particularly during the early stages of economic growth. This effect is known as the migration hump.
This tendency reflects the fact that the very poorest countries are often not the most common countries of origin, as poverty inhibits people’s capacity to move. Similarly, it is usually not the poorest who decide to leave their country, but rather those who have acquired the means to migrate, which may not only include financial means, but also some level of education. Increasing rural-to-urban migration within countries that have started an economic growth process leads to international migration in the long run. Increasing wealth results in not only greater incomes, but also more educational opportunities, and may thus increase both individual aspirations and capacities to leave the country for personal betterment. Yet, other studies have warned against interpreting a simplified causal relationship between economic development and increased migration, pointing towards other, more complex context factors at play that may explain why migration increases or decreases. While the “migration hump” phenomenon may hold true for some countries, it may not represent a universal mechanism by which development necessarily creates more migration.
