3.8A - Racial Tensions
Open borders, deregulation and encouragement of foreign direct investment has created culturally mixed societies and thriving migrant diasporas in some locations, but tensions have resulted elsewhere (Rise of extremism in Europe and trans-boundary water conflicts in south-east Asia)
For a large number of countries a significant part - or even a majority - of their total population consists of immigrants.
In 2015, 84% of the UAE's population was immigrant, 29% in Switzerland, 14% in Germany and the USA, and 11% in the UK.
Globalisation has contributed to immigration and there are now large diasporas from many countries resident in other countries. A diaspora is the name given to the dispersal of a population overseas; since 1700 about 10 million Irish have emigrated overseas, creating the Irish diaspora.
Several factors have increased the pace of migration:
- Open border to migration, such as within the EU since 1995
- FDI, encouraging TNC workers to move overseas
- Deregulation of some job markets, allowing foreign qualified workers/
- Humanitarian crises, like the Syrian civil war and war with Islamic State, which has created large numbers of refugees (5 million in the case of Syria) which have been fleeing to Europe since 2011.
Most EU countries, as well as many other countries, now have culturally mixed populations. Large scale migration is not without costs. Migrants need housing, jobs, education for their children and other services. At a certain rate of immigration all of these will come under strain and this risks a rise in tensions with some of the host country population who may view the migration as 'too many, too fast'. There is evidence in Europe that migration has increased social and political tensions and even led to a rise in extremism.
- The UK Brexit vote in 2016 to leave the EU had the scale and pace of immigration as a key area of debate.
- Anti-immigration political parties have been rising in popularity since 2010, for example UKIP in the UK, the Front National in France, the Dutch Party for Freedom and Freedom Party of Austria.
- In 2014, 51% of the Swiss voted in favour of stopping mass immigration in a national referendum.
- Even in the USA, a country of immigrants, the benefits of migration from Mexico and elsewhere have been questioned - with one of President Trump's key election policies being that he would built a wall between them.
Few people in developed countries vote for extremist political parties that seek to ban immigration or return immigrants to their home country. However, such sentiments are more common than they once were.