4/The Hidden Power of Migrant Women: How Mobility Is Transforming the Global Economy

 

                             

The Hidden Power of Migrant Women: How Mobility Is Transforming the Global Economy

Migration is often described through numbers: millions of people crossing borders, countries receiving newcomers, families separated by distance, and governments debating borders and security. Yet behind these statistics is another story that receives far less attention—the growing economic and social power of migrant women. Women are not simply accompanying migration flows. They are workers, entrepreneurs, caregivers, professionals, students, consumers, taxpayers, community builders and, increasingly, economic actors whose mobility is changing the way societies function.

Across the world, women represent a substantial share of international migrants. Their movement is driven by many forces: employment opportunities, education, family reunification, economic insecurity, political instability and the search for greater independence. But the meaning of women's migration has changed profoundly. In many societies, migration can provide women with access to employment and income that may be difficult to obtain at home. A woman who crosses a border for work may become the principal financial supporter of her family, send money to relatives, finance children's education, support elderly parents or invest in a home or small business.

The economic consequences extend far beyond the individual migrant. Migrant workers contribute to host economies through their labour, consumption, taxation and participation in essential sectors. Women migrants are particularly visible in occupations that sustain modern societies but are frequently undervalued: healthcare, domestic work, childcare, hospitality, agriculture, cleaning and social care. In ageing societies, their contribution can become indispensable. Hospitals, households, care institutions and service industries increasingly depend on workers whose lives and histories extend across national borders.

This creates a striking contradiction. The global economy increasingly depends on migrant women's labour, while migrant women themselves can remain economically and socially vulnerable. Many work in sectors characterized by low wages, temporary contracts, informal employment or limited social protection. Domestic and care workers may perform essential work inside private households while remaining less visible to labour institutions and public policy. Professional migrant women can face a different barrier: their qualifications may not be fully recognized, forcing doctors, engineers, teachers and other skilled professionals to work below their level of training.

The result is an enormous gap between contribution and recognition.

The international movement of people also has a powerful financial dimension. Migrants send billions of dollars to families and communities in their countries of origin. These remittances can help households pay for food, housing, healthcare and education and can provide a degree of economic stability when local employment opportunities are limited. For women migrants, remittances can also become a mechanism of family survival and long-term investment. The money earned abroad can influence the economic future of an entire household thousands of kilometres away.

But money is only one part of the story.

Migration can transform gender relations. A woman who earns her own income may acquire greater bargaining power within her household. She may make independent financial decisions, contribute more strongly to family assets or become an entrepreneur. Her experience abroad can also change expectations about education, employment and women's participation in public life. Migration therefore has the potential to transfer not only money across borders, but also ideas, skills, aspirations and social norms.

At the same time, migration does not automatically produce equality. Women can face discrimination based on gender, nationality, immigration status, language, class and occupation. Irregular status can make workers particularly vulnerable because the fear of losing employment or facing immigration enforcement may discourage them from reporting exploitation. Women working in isolated environments can face additional risks because their workplaces may be private homes or informal settings where labour protections are difficult to enforce.

This is why the economic debate surrounding migration cannot be separated from the question of rights.

A global economy that benefits from migrant women's labour while failing to provide decent working conditions creates a structural imbalance. The care economy offers one of the clearest examples. Wealthier countries increasingly require care workers because populations are ageing and families need assistance. Migrant women frequently fill these gaps. But when care work is poorly paid or insufficiently protected, the economic system effectively transfers the cost of social reproduction onto workers who may have limited bargaining power.

There is another hidden dimension: the global redistribution of care.

When a woman migrates to another country to care for children, older people or households, someone must often take over the care responsibilities she leaves behind. Her own children may be cared for by relatives, grandparents or other women. Economists and researchers sometimes describe this phenomenon through the concept of global care chains—a system in which care responsibilities move across borders along with workers. One household's solution to a care shortage can therefore create another household's care gap somewhere else.

This reality forces governments to reconsider how they measure economic value. Traditional economic indicators can capture employment, production and income, but unpaid care work remains largely invisible. Yet economies cannot function without people caring for children, supporting older people, maintaining households and enabling other workers to participate in paid employment.

Migrant women occupy an important position within this invisible infrastructure.

Their contribution also reaches entrepreneurship. Across migrant communities, women establish small businesses, provide services, trade goods, create cultural enterprises and build networks connecting countries of origin and destination. These activities can generate employment and strengthen local economies. Digital technologies have further expanded the possibilities, allowing migrant entrepreneurs to maintain commercial and social connections across borders.

Education is another long-term channel through which migration can transform societies. When migrant women gain access to education and professional opportunities, the benefits can extend to the next generation. Children growing up in migrant households may inherit not only financial resources but also multilingual abilities, international networks and broader educational aspirations. Migration can therefore become part of a family's long-term strategy for social mobility.

However, these potential gains depend heavily on policy.

When countries recognize foreign qualifications, protect labour rights, facilitate legal employment and provide access to education and healthcare, migrant women have greater opportunities to contribute according to their skills. When migration systems are restrictive, fragmented or discriminatory, talent can remain trapped in low-paid employment and economic potential can be lost.

The question is therefore not simply whether migration benefits economies. The more important question is under what conditions migration produces shared prosperity.

This distinction matters because the global migration system is not neutral. Highly educated professionals may have relatively clear pathways to legal employment, while women working in domestic, agricultural or care sectors can face far more precarious conditions. The same global economy can therefore offer opportunity to one migrant woman while exposing another to exploitation.

The future of migration policy will increasingly depend on whether governments recognize this diversity.

Women migrants should not be treated solely as beneficiaries of humanitarian policies or as statistical components of labour markets. They are economic actors in their own right. Their decisions influence households, labour markets, businesses, communities and international financial flows. Their work connects countries that may be separated geographically but increasingly linked economically.

The transformation is already visible. Migration is changing who performs essential work, where income is generated, how families organize care, how skills move between countries and how communities maintain connections across borders.

The hidden power of migrant women lies precisely in this ability to connect systems.

They connect the household to the labour market, the local economy to the global economy, the country of origin to the country of destination, and today's income to tomorrow's opportunities. Yet their contribution remains too often hidden behind immigration statistics and political debates.

A more accurate understanding of the global economy must therefore place migrant women closer to the centre of the discussion.

The future of migration will not be defined only by borders, visas and numbers. It will also be defined by the millions of women whose work crosses those borders every day—women caring for children, treating patients, harvesting crops, managing businesses, cleaning homes, studying, teaching, building companies and supporting families across continents.

Their mobility is not simply a consequence of globalization.

It is one of the forces shaping globalization itself.

And if governments, employers and international institutions want migration to contribute to inclusive and sustainable economic development, the starting point should be clear: recognize the work of migrant women, protect their rights, invest in their skills and give them the opportunity to participate fully in the economies they already help sustain.

The global economy has been transformed by human mobility.

But behind that transformation are human beings—and increasingly, women whose economic power has been underestimated for far too long.

document- and data-based investigative report
Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi
ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development

أخي، هذا هو N°2 كاملًا بصيغة تقرير استقصائي قائم على البيانات والوثائق، مع التركيز على البعد العالمي ثم تونس. اعتمدتُ على أحدث معطيات متاحة من منظمة العمل الدولية والبنك الدولي، بدل الاكتفاء بمقال رأي.

Youth Unemployment Is More Than a Jobs Crisis: What the Data Reveals About a Generation Left Behind

Youth Unemployment Is More Than a Jobs Crisis: What the Data Reveals About a Generation Left Behind

Document- and Data-Based Investigative Report

Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi
ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development

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Youth Unemployment Is More Than a Jobs Crisis

Youth unemployment is often presented as a simple economic indicator: the percentage of young people who want to work but cannot find a job. But the numbers tell a much deeper story.

Behind every percentage point are young people delaying independence, postponing family formation, abandoning education, accepting precarious work or considering migration because they cannot see a viable economic future where they live.

The latest evidence suggests that the global youth employment crisis has not disappeared. In 2025, the global youth unemployment rate reached approximately 12.4%, up from 12.3% in 2024, while around 260 million young people were estimated to be neither employed nor in education or training — the group commonly described as NEET.

These figures reveal an important distinction: unemployment is only one part of the problem.

A young person who is officially unemployed is visible in labour-market statistics. A young person who has stopped looking for work, remains outside education, performs unpaid care work or survives through irregular informal activities may be much less visible.

That is why youth unemployment should not be examined separately from the broader question of whether young people are successfully transitioning from education into productive and decent work.

The hidden crisis behind the unemployment rate

The International Labour Organization has repeatedly emphasized that young people face labour-market disadvantages that are structurally different from those experienced by older workers. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, young people were around three times more likely than adults to be unemployed.

The problem is therefore not simply a temporary shortage of vacancies.

It is a transition problem.

Young people enter labour markets with less experience, weaker professional networks and, in many cases, qualifications that do not perfectly match employer demand. When economies slow down, they are often among the first groups affected because employers can postpone hiring inexperienced workers more easily than they can replace established employees.

The consequences can extend far beyond the first period of unemployment.

A young person who spends years outside stable employment may accumulate less professional experience, fewer social-security rights and weaker connections to employers. The result can become a cycle in which unemployment itself makes future employment more difficult.

This is why the first years of working life matter so much.

The global numbers are better — but not good enough

There is one reason for cautious optimism.

The ILO reported that 64.9 million young people aged 15–24 were unemployed globally in 2023, the lowest number recorded so far in the twenty-first century and almost four million below the 2019 level.

But a lower number of unemployed young people does not automatically mean that young people are enjoying better employment opportunities.

Population growth, labour-force participation and the number of young people outside the labour force all influence the headline unemployment rate.

This is why another indicator deserves much greater attention: NEET — young people who are not in employment, education or training.

In 2025, the ILO estimated that roughly 262 million young people, approximately one in four young people aged 15–24, were NEET.

This changes the way the crisis should be understood.

The question is no longer simply:

How many young people cannot find jobs?

It is:

How many young people are failing to establish a meaningful connection with education, training or employment?

That is a much larger development challenge.

The geography of opportunity is unequal

The global youth labour market is deeply unequal.

In low-income countries, young people often face a different problem from their counterparts in richer economies. Instead of simply being unemployed, they may be pushed into informal, low-paid and insecure activities because remaining without income is not economically possible.

The ILO has highlighted the persistence of high NEET rates, informal employment and working poverty as evidence that labour-market exclusion is not captured by unemployment statistics alone.

In other words, having a job is not necessarily the same as having an economic future.

A young person working long hours for an income insufficient to escape poverty is employed statistically, but may remain economically excluded in practice.

This distinction is particularly important for developing economies.

Tunisia: when unemployment becomes a structural problem

Tunisia provides a powerful example of why youth unemployment deserves to be analysed as a structural development issue.

World Bank data based on the ILO's modeled estimates put Tunisia's youth unemployment rate at approximately 38.1% in 2025. The corresponding figures were about 38.9% in 2024 and 38.5% in 2023.

This means that roughly four out of every ten young people in the labour force were unemployed according to the modeled international series.

The national picture also remains difficult. The World Bank reports that Tunisia's overall unemployment rate stood at 15.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025, down from 16.5% a year earlier, while labour-force participation remained relatively low at 45.9%.

The contrast is striking.

A country can experience a gradual improvement in overall unemployment while still confronting an exceptionally difficult transition for young workers.

This is why the youth indicator deserves separate attention rather than being hidden inside the national unemployment rate.

Education does not automatically guarantee employment

One of the most important questions raised by Tunisia's labour market is the relationship between education and employability.

For many years, higher education has been presented as the principal route toward better employment. But the expansion of university education can produce a difficult outcome when the economy does not generate enough high-productivity jobs for graduates.

The result is a potential mismatch between what education systems produce and what labour markets demand.

This does not mean that education has lost its value.

Quite the opposite.

It means that education must become more closely connected to changing economic opportunities, practical skills, entrepreneurship, technology, research and private-sector demand.

The World Bank approved a US$100 million project in 2025 aimed specifically at strengthening higher education and improving students' employability in Tunisia. The existence of such an investment illustrates the scale of the challenge: employability has become a central development issue rather than a secondary education concern.

The gender dimension cannot be ignored

Youth unemployment also has a strong gender dimension.

A headline youth unemployment rate can conceal major differences between young men and young women. The World Bank maintains separate indicators for male and female youth unemployment and for young people who are NEET, reflecting the fact that labour-market exclusion is not experienced equally across genders.

Women may face additional barriers related to care responsibilities, transportation, social expectations, workplace conditions and access to certain sectors.

The result is that a country can reduce unemployment overall while still leaving large groups of young women disconnected from economic opportunity.

This is why employment policy cannot be reduced to simply increasing the number of vacancies.

It must also address who can realistically access those vacancies.

The AI question: will technology create opportunities or deepen exclusion?

A new uncertainty is now emerging.

Artificial intelligence is changing the demand for skills across the global economy. For young workers, this creates both an opportunity and a risk.

On one hand, young people may be better positioned than older workers to acquire new digital skills and adapt to emerging technologies.

On the other hand, young graduates often depend on entry-level positions to obtain their first professional experience. If companies increasingly automate routine entry-level tasks, the traditional first step into professional employment could become more difficult.

The ILO has warned that artificial intelligence and automation could intensify challenges for some educated young people seeking their first jobs, particularly in high-skilled occupations.

This creates a paradox.

The generation that is often described as "digital native" may possess strong technological familiarity while simultaneously facing a labour market in which the traditional entry-level pathway is changing.

The solution cannot be to resist technology.

It must be to ensure that young people acquire the skills that allow them to work with it.

The real cost is measured in lost potential

Youth unemployment is frequently discussed in terms of economic losses: lower production, lower tax revenues and higher social expenditure.

But the human cost may be even larger.

Every year spent outside productive employment can mean fewer opportunities to develop professional skills. Every young graduate who leaves the country because there is no suitable opportunity represents not only a personal decision but potentially a loss of human capital for the society that educated them.

And every young person who abandons education because employment appears inaccessible represents a possible long-term loss of productivity.

The cost is therefore cumulative.

A society that fails to integrate its young population into productive economic life is not merely experiencing an employment problem.

It is failing to convert human potential into development.

Migration becomes part of the employment story

When domestic labour markets cannot provide sufficient opportunities, migration can become an alternative economic strategy.

For individuals, migration may represent a search for higher wages, professional experience, stability or dignity.

For countries of origin, however, large-scale youth migration can have contradictory consequences.

Remittances can support families and strengthen household incomes. Migrants can acquire skills and international experience. Diaspora networks can create new economic connections.

But the departure of large numbers of highly educated or skilled young people can also contribute to shortages in sectors where domestic investment has already been made in education and training.

Youth unemployment and migration should therefore not be treated as two unrelated subjects.

In many countries, they are part of the same economic equation.

What governments should measure differently

The evidence suggests that policymakers should move beyond a single headline unemployment rate.

A serious youth-employment strategy should monitor at least five dimensions:

First, unemployment: how many young people are actively seeking work but cannot find it?

Second, NEET: how many are disconnected simultaneously from employment, education and training?

Third, job quality: how many young workers have stable, adequately paid and protected employment?

Fourth, skills mismatch: how closely do education and training correspond to actual labour-market demand?

Fifth, transition time: how long does it take for a young person to move from education into stable employment?

These indicators tell a much more complete story than unemployment alone.

The policy challenge: from job creation to opportunity creation

The central policy question should therefore change.

Governments should not ask only:

How many jobs were created?

They should also ask:

Who obtained those jobs?

Were they decent jobs?

Did they provide a pathway toward economic independence?

Did they use the skills of young graduates?

Did they reduce the number of young people outside education, employment and training?

This requires stronger coordination between education ministries, labour ministries, employers, universities, vocational institutions and local development agencies.

It also requires better labour-market information.

Young people cannot prepare for jobs they cannot see.

Education systems cannot adapt to labour-market demand if they do not have reliable information about which skills employers actually need.

Employers cannot recruit effectively if training institutions operate separately from the realities of production.

The employment crisis is therefore also an information crisis.

The generation left behind — or the generation prepared for the future?

The phrase "generation left behind" can easily become a description of despair.

But the data does not justify concluding that an entire generation is doomed.

Young people remain one of the world's greatest economic resources.

The United Nations estimates that there are around 1.2 billion people aged 15–24 globally, representing approximately 16% of the world's population. By 2030, this number is projected to approach 1.3 billion.

That is not simply a demographic statistic.

It is a development opportunity.

The countries capable of transforming this enormous population into skilled, productive and innovative workers could gain substantial economic benefits.

But demographic potential does not automatically become economic growth.

It requires investment.

Investment in education.

Investment in vocational training.

Investment in digital infrastructure.

Investment in entrepreneurship.

Investment in decent work.

And, above all, investment in the ability of young people to move from learning to earning.

Conclusion: the real crisis is the gap between potential and opportunity

The global youth employment crisis is often reduced to a percentage.

But the data reveals something much larger.

Youth unemployment is a symptom of a deeper gap between the potential of a generation and the economic opportunities available to it.

The latest international evidence shows that global youth unemployment remains high, while hundreds of millions of young people remain outside employment, education or training.

Tunisia illustrates the seriousness of the challenge even more clearly: despite some improvement in overall unemployment, youth unemployment remains extraordinarily high by international standards.

The issue is therefore not simply whether young people can find "a job."

The deeper question is whether societies are creating economic systems capable of turning education, talent and ambition into productive opportunity.

If they succeed, today's young population can become one of the greatest engines of economic transformation of the twenty-first century.

If they fail, the consequences will extend beyond unemployment.

They will appear in migration, inequality, declining trust, wasted human capital and lost economic potential.

The choice is not between young people and the labour market.

The choice is whether the labour market will be redesigned to make meaningful space for the generation that will inherit the future.

Youth unemployment is not merely a jobs crisis.

It is a test of whether societies are capable of converting an entire generation's potential into opportunity.

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Key data sources

• International Labour Organization — Employment and Social Trends 2026.

• International Labour Organization — Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024.

• International Labour Organization — Youth Employment and NEET indicators.

• World Bank — Tunisia labour-market and unemployment data.

• World Bank — Tunisia Human Capital Data Portal.

• World Bank — Higher Education and Employability Project in Tunisia.

• United Nations — Global youth demographic data.

Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi
ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development

TITRE N3

أكيد أخي، العنوان رقم 3 بصياغة قوية ومهنية تناسب التقرير الاستقصائي:

Migration Is Reshaping the World

Migration Is Reshaping the World: How Human Mobility Is Transforming Economies and Societies

Document- and Data-Based Investigative Report

Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi
ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development

OK

Migration Is Reshaping the World: How Human Mobility Is Transforming Economies and Societies

Document- and Data-Based Investigative Report

Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development

Migration is one of the most powerful forces reshaping the twenty-first century. It changes where people live, where economies grow, how families survive and how societies understand borders, identity and opportunity.

But behind every migration statistic lies a human story: a worker searching for a better future, a family separated by distance, a student seeking education, or a community transformed by the arrival or departure of people.

A world on the move

International migration is not a marginal phenomenon. It is a central feature of the global economy, demographic change and international development.

The International Organization for Migration's World Migration Report 2026 estimates that approximately 304 million international migrants were living outside their country of birth by mid-2024, representing about 3.7% of the world's population. Although the vast majority of people remain in their country of birth, the number of people living abroad has increased over time.

IOM Plataforma de publicaciones+1

This number is more than a demographic indicator. It reflects the growing connections between labour markets, families, education systems and economies across borders.

Migration is often discussed through the lens of border crossings, asylum applications or irregular arrivals. Yet the broader reality is much more complex. People migrate for employment, education, family reunification, safety, entrepreneurship and many other reasons. Some movements are temporary, while others lead to permanent settlement.

The central investigative question is therefore not simply how many people migrate.

It is who benefits from migration, who bears its costs, and how governments manage its consequences.

Migration and the global economy

One of the strongest links between migration and development is employment. Workers move across borders because labour demand is not distributed equally around the world. Some economies face shortages in healthcare, construction, agriculture, information technology and other sectors, while others struggle to generate enough jobs for their growing working-age populations.

Migration can help connect these two realities.

The ILO and IOM have documented the importance of migrant workers to economies in destination countries. Migrants contribute labour, skills, consumption and, in many cases, entrepreneurship. Their work can support sectors that depend on an international workforce.

IOM Publications Platform+1

However, the economic contribution of migrants should not be confused with the quality of the jobs they occupy.

A person may be essential to an economy while remaining vulnerable to exploitation, excessive recruitment fees, discrimination, unsafe working conditions or limited access to social protection. The existence of employment does not automatically guarantee dignity or security.

This is one of the central contradictions of modern migration: economies may depend on migrant workers while public policies fail to provide equal protection for all workers.

Remittances: the financial bridge between countries

Migration also transforms economies through the money migrants send to their families.

These transfers, known as remittances, can help households pay for food, housing, healthcare, education and small businesses. In countries where domestic incomes are low or employment is unstable, remittances can become an important source of financial security.

The World Bank estimated that remittances sent to low- and middle-income countries reached approximately $656 billion in 2023. The institution also noted that remittances exceeded foreign direct investment and official development assistance in that year.

Banque Mondiale+1

But remittances are not a substitute for national development.

They can reduce household vulnerability, yet they do not automatically create productive industries, improve public services or resolve unemployment. Their impact depends on how families use the funds, the cost of transferring money and the economic conditions in the receiving country.

An important question for policymakers is therefore whether remittances can be connected to broader development strategies without placing the burden of national economic support on migrant families.

The human cost of migration

Economic statistics cannot fully describe the consequences of migration.

When a parent leaves to work abroad, a family may gain financial stability but lose daily contact. When a young graduate migrates because suitable employment is unavailable, the individual may gain professional opportunities while the country of origin loses part of its skilled workforce.

Migration can also expose people to serious risks, particularly when legal pathways are limited.

The IOM's 2026 analysis emphasizes that restricting safe and regular migration pathways can push some movement toward more dangerous and irregular routes, increasing risks for migrants and costs for states.

IOM Nederland+1

This raises a fundamental policy issue: border control alone cannot explain or resolve the forces that drive migration.

Economic inequality, conflict, environmental pressures, labour demand and family networks all influence decisions to move. Effective policy must address these underlying factors while protecting the rights and safety of people on the move.

Migration, inequality and the global distribution of opportunity

Migration can reduce inequality for some individuals while reinforcing inequalities for others.

A worker who moves from a low-income country to a high-income economy may increase their earnings considerably. But the ability to migrate legally, safely and affordably is itself unequally distributed. People with education, financial resources, professional networks and access to visas may have more options than those without them.

This creates a global hierarchy of mobility.

Some people can travel for education, employment and investment with relative ease. Others face restrictive visa systems, expensive recruitment processes, discrimination or dangerous journeys.

The result is that migration is not only about the freedom to move. It is also about the unequal ability to benefit from movement.

Tunisia and the wider Mediterranean

For Tunisia, migration is closely connected to employment, education, family networks, remittances and relations with Europe.

The country occupies a position within a wider Mediterranean migration system that includes countries of origin, transit and destination. Its relationship with migration cannot be understood solely through the number of people leaving its territory or arriving at its shores.

A comprehensive investigation should examine several dimensions:

• The reasons young Tunisians consider leaving the country.

• The relationship between unemployment, education and migration intentions.

• The economic contribution of Tunisians living abroad.

• The experiences of Tunisian workers and students in destination countries.

• The situation of migrants and refugees living in Tunisia.

• The effects of migration policies on families, communities and local economies.

These questions require national statistics, migration surveys, official reports, interviews and testimonies. A headline figure alone cannot establish why an individual migrates or whether migration has improved their life.

The politics of migration data

Migration statistics are often presented as objective evidence, but their interpretation requires care.

The number of international migrants is a stock indicator: it measures people living outside their country of birth at a particular time. It is not the number of people who crossed a border during a year.

Likewise, the number of arrivals, departures, asylum applications, refugees and internally displaced people refer to different populations and should not be treated as interchangeable.

The IOM and the United Nations use distinct statistical frameworks to measure these categories. Reliable reporting must therefore identify the definition, date, geographic coverage and source behind every figure.

Population Division+2

This distinction is essential for investigative journalism. Confusing migrant stocks with annual flows can exaggerate or distort the scale of a migration trend.

What governments should measure

A serious migration policy should move beyond counting arrivals and departures.

Governments and researchers should examine:

1. Employment: Are migrants finding decent and adequately protected work?

2. Income: How much do migration and remittances improve household living standards?

3. Skills: Are migrants able to use their qualifications, or are they working below their level of training?

4. Protection: Do migrants have access to legal rights, healthcare and social security?

5. Mobility pathways: Are safe, regular and affordable routes available?

6. Integration: Can migrants participate fully in the economic and social life of their communities?

7. Development: Does migration contribute to sustainable growth in both origin and destination countries?

These indicators provide a more complete picture than migration totals alone.

Conclusion: migration is a choice shaped by unequal opportunities

Migration is reshaping the world because the world itself is changing.

Jobs are distributed unevenly. Education creates aspirations that may not be fulfilled locally. Conflicts and environmental pressures force people from their homes. Ageing economies seek workers, while younger populations search for opportunity. Families use international mobility to build economic security across borders.

The evidence shows that migration can generate substantial benefits for migrants, their families, countries of origin and destination economies. But these benefits are not automatic. They depend on the rights people enjoy, the conditions under which they move and the policies that govern their lives.

The real challenge is not to decide whether migration is good or bad.

It is to understand how migration works, who benefits from it, who remains vulnerable, and what governments can do to make human mobility safer, fairer and more beneficial for development.

A world on the move requires more than stronger borders. It requires better labour markets, inclusive education, reliable data, effective international cooperation and respect for human dignity.

Migration is not merely a movement of people across geographical boundaries.

It is a movement of skills, money, aspirations, cultures and opportunities.

And the future of migration will depend on whether societies can transform that movement into shared prosperity rather than deeper inequality.

Documentary and data sources

• International Organization for Migration — World Migration Report 2026: Migration and migrants — a global overview .

• United Nations — International Migrant Stock 2024 dataset .

• World Bank — Remittances: recent developments and outlook .

• International Labour Organization — Migration and migrant workers: global overview .

• International Organization for Migration — Global Overview of Migration Routes 2025 .

Prepared and published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development