First, our paper on international migration is an overview of the most significant problems involving the asymmetries between capital and labour in the process of internationalization previous to 2012. While capital had its obstacles removed between countries practically without limits, labour continued to face many obstacles to move, particularly into high income countries.

This had serious consequences regarding labour market conditions. Curtailing the mobility of labour relative to capital meant for capital to take advantage of the lower labour costs in less developed countries by shifting from higher to lower labour cost countries. And the constant threat of these shifts served to erode the economic and political power of labour in high income countries. Likewise, capital benefited from the insecurity that immigrant labour had to face in receiving countries since IT weakened their ability to voice their demands and contributed to precarious labour conditions. This was reinforced by the fact that, particularly since the 1990s, the feminisation of international migration fed these trends. Women were able to move into manufacturing employment and the care sectors, located in the lower echelons of the labour market, with unstable employment contracts with a high level of occupational segregation. In particular, immigrant women fed the high level of demand in the care economy and they migrated often leaving their families behind, thus reinforcing the formation of “international families” and the growth of “care chains” giving rise to many questions regarding inter-family dynamics and changing gender roles.

The paper also explores the questions of whether migration undermines development or whether it speeds it up. It points out that it has labour market impacts that can be negative in the countries with emigrant labour since it often involves the loss of the most educated and skilled population. On the other hand, it generates remittances that can be very high and therefore can have a positive effect for individual families and communities as well as for the country as a whole. There is also a general a consensus that remittances play an important role in poverty alleviation and in reducing income inequality.