Poverty, International Migration and Asylum: Introduction

Abstract

In recent years, substantial numbers of people have migrated – or sought to migrate – from regions that are afflicted by poverty and insecurity to more prosperous and stable parts of the world. By the year 2002, the United Nations estimated that about 180 million persons – or roughly 3 per cent of the world’s population – were living in a country where they were not born. Nearly 12.5 per cent of the population in Austria, 19.3 per cent in Canada, 10 per cent in France, 22.4 per cent in Switzerland and 12.3 per cent in the United States was foreign-born. Even Japan, which is thought of as being very homogeneous and geographically immune to immigrants, now reports major problems with illegal immigration.