12.2. International Migration

As per World Economic Forum, Demographic forces, globalization, and environmental degradation mean that migration pressures across borders will likely increase in the coming decades. And cross-border challenges demand cross-border solutions.

Global policy efforts, therefore, must focus on better cooperation and dialogue among the affected countries. This includes promoting fair burden-sharing, facilitating remittance flows, protecting labor rights, and promoting a safe and secure working environment for migrants.

A well-designed integration policy for international migrants includes:

♤ First, strengthening the ability of labor markets to absorb migrants—by enabling immediate ability to seek work and providing better job matching services.

♤ Second, enhancing access to education and training—by providing affordable education, language and job training.

♤ Third, improving skill recognition—by adopting simple, affordable and transparent procedures to recognize foreign qualifications.

♤ Finally, supporting migrant entrepreneurs—by reducing barriers to start-ups and providing support with legal advice, counseling and training.

A second issue related to international migration is that of Brain drain. Outflow of trained manpower is cause for concern, as it adversely affects the quality and quantity of local human capital formation. As a democratic country built on the cornerstone of individual rights, India cannot forbid its citizens to leave. It can, however, put in place systems that would make it possible for the country to benefit from the investment made in the young through subsidized education, particularly technical and medical.

One way to ensure this would be to adopt a system like Australia’s deferred tuition plan. Under this system, all tertiary education is subsidized by the government, with students paying only a portion of the cost as fees. Graduates who go on to work in sectors deemed as priority by the government are not required to pay any additional amounts, but those who migrate or move to non-priority sector have to pay the subsidy amount over a set number of years. This ensures that higher education remains affordable and that government’s education subsidy is not misused.