According to the following, people who migrated to European countries are . . . like all those Turkish people who are worse off than those who stayed at home. Let us see why and how.
Many Turkish people who migrated to European countries are worse off than those who stayed at home
Many people migrate to another country to earn a decent income and to attain a better standard of living. But my recent research shows that across all destinations and generations studied, many migrants from Turkey to European countries are financially worse off than those who stayed at home.
Even if there are some non-monetary benefits of staying in the destination country, such as living in a more orderly environment, this raises fundamental questions. Primarily, why are 79% of the first-generation men who contributed to the growth of Europe by taking on some of the dirtiest, riskiest manual jobs – like working in asbestos processing and sewage canals – still living in income poverty? There is a strong indication that the European labour markets and welfare states are failing migrants and their descendants.
In my recent book, Poverty and International Migration, I examined the poverty status of three generations of migrants from Turkey to multiple European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. I compared them with the “returnees” who moved back to Turkey and the “stayers” who have never left the country.
The study covers the period from early 1960s to the time of their interview (2010-2012), and draws on a sample of 5,980 adults within 1,992 families. The sample was composed of living male ancestors (those who went first were typically men), their children and grandchildren.
For my research, the poverty line was set at 60% of the median disposable household income (adjusted for household size) for every country studied. Those who fall below the country threshold are defined as the income poor.
Data for this research is drawn from the 2000 Families Survey which I conducted with academics based in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The survey generated what is believed to be the world’s largest database on labour migration to Europe through locating the male ancestors who moved to Europe from five high migration regions in Turkey during the guest-worker years of 1960-1974 and their counterparts who did not migrate at the time.
It charts the family members who were living in various European countries up to the fourth generation, and those that stayed behind in Turkey. The period corresponds to a time when labourers from Turkey were invited through bi-lateral agreements between states to contribute to the building of western and northern Europe.
The results presented in my book show that four-fifths (79%) of the first-generation men who came to Europe as guest-workers and ended up settling there lived below an income poverty line, compared with a third (33%) of those that had stayed in the home country. By the third generation, around half (49%) of those living in Europe were still poor, compared with just over a quarter (27%) of those who remained behind.
Migrants from three family generations residing in countries renowned for the generosity of their welfare states were among the most impoverished. Some of the highest poverty rates were observed in Belgium, Sweden and Denmark.
For example, across all three generations of migrants settled in Sweden, 60% were in income poverty despite an employment rate of 61%. This was the highest level of employment observed for migrants in all the countries studied. Migrants in Sweden were also, on average, more educated than those living in other European destinations.
My findings also reveal that while more than a third (37%) of “stayers” from the third generation went on to complete higher education. This applied to less than a quarter (23%) of the third generation migrants spread across European countries.
Turkish guest workers in a Berlin park in the 1980s. DPA/Alamy
Returnees did well
Having a university education turned out not to improve the latter’s chances of escaping poverty as much as it did for the family members who had not left home. The “returnees” to Turkey were, on the other hand, found to fare much better than those living in Europe and on a par with, if not better than, the “stayers”.
Less than a quarter of first- and third-generation returnees (23% and 24% respectively) experienced income poverty and 43% from the third generation attained a higher education qualification. The money they earned abroad along with their educational qualifications seemed to buy them more economic advantage in Turkey than in the destination country.
The results of the research should not be taken to mean that international migration is economically a bad decision as we still do not know how impoverished these people were prior to migration. First-generation migrants are anecdotally known to be poorer at the time of migration than those who decided not to migrate during guest-worker years, and are likely to have made some economic gains from their move. The returnees’ improved situation does lend support to this.
Nor should the findings lead to the suggestion that if migrants do not earn enough in their new home country, they should go back. Early findings from another piece of research I am currently undertaking suggests that while income poverty considerably reduces migrants’ life satisfaction, there are added non-monetary benefits of migration to a new destination. The exact nature of these benefits remains unknown but it is likely to do, for example, with living in a better organised environment that makes everyday life easier.
However, we still left with the question of why migrants are being left in such poverty. Coupled with the findings from another recent study demonstrating that more than half of Europeans do not welcome non-EU migrants from economically poorer countries, evidence starts to suggest an undercurrent of systemic racism may be acting as a cause.
If migrants were welcome, one would expect destination countries with far more developed welfare states than Turkey to put in place measures to protect guest workers against the risk of poverty in old age, or prevent their children and grandchildren from falling so far behind their counterparts in Turkey in accessing higher education.
They would not let them settle for lower returns on their educational qualifications in more regulated labour markets. It’s also unlikely we would have observed some of the highest poverty rates in countries with generous welfare states such as Sweden – top ranked for its anti-discrimination legislation, based on equality of opportunity.
Overall, the picture for “unwanted” migrants appears to be rather bleak. Unless major systemic changes are made, substantial improvement to their prospects are unlikely.
In today’s world, the riskiest investments are in the Middle East and Africa, whilst Big Oil’s greenwashing campaign is in full swing, as described in RGnB.org. Aren’t Big Oils and Hydrocarbon economies of the MENA in cahoots?
The above Image is of Canva
Big Oil’s greenwashing campaign
A released new memo and documents last week showed how the fossil fuel industry engages in “greenwashing” to obscure its massive long-term investments in fossil fuels and failure to reduce emissions meaningfully, writes Dan Bacher.
The new documents are part of a Committee’s ongoing investigation into the “fossil fuel industry’s role in spreading climate disinformation and preventing action on climate change,” according to a press statement.
“Even though Big Oil CEOs admitted to my Committee that their products are causing a climate emergency, today’s documents reveal that the industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come,” said Chairwoman Maloney.
Syria, Yemen, and Libya were on the list of the highest-risk countries in the third quarter of 2022
The Middle East and Africa (MEA) have been identified as the region with the highest risk offerings, with a score of 54 out of 100, for investors driven by “social unrest, food insecurity, rising debt, and inflation,” according to a leading data and analytics company, GlobalData.
Syria, Yemen, and Libya were on the list of the highest-risk countries in the third quarter of 2022.
The research showed that the Americas region’s risk score was 47.7 out of 100 during the third quarter, making it the second-highest area with investment risk, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 41 and Europe at 33.4.
“While rising oil prices have increased the revenue of major oil producers and exporters in the MEA, high fuel costs have adversely impacted low-income nations – especially given their heavy dependence on staple food imports from Russia and Ukraine,” GlobalData economic research analyst Puja Tiwari said.
Tiwari added: “Humanitarian crisis across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, along with skyrocketing poverty, is impacting the MEA region. Due to curtailment of wheat exports from two main producers in the world (especially wheat from Russia and Ukraine), many countries across the MEA are already facing a major food crisis.”
The research also showed that global risk rose from 44 and 44.9 out of 100 in the second and third quarters of 2022, respectively.
Tiwari said the major causes of global risk include rising costs due to the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and sanctions on Russia, followed by Europe’s energy crisis, China’s slowdown of growth, aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks, currency depreciation and stock market crashes.
“While governments of major economies are undertaking various fiscal measures to deal with the rising prices, this will weigh on already strained government finances. Moreover, with several economies tightening monetary policy, the increased borrowing costs will remain another challenge moving into Q4 and beyond,” Tiwari said.
Developing nations were justifiably jubilant at the close of COP27 as negotiators from wealthy countries around the world agreed for the first time to establish a dedicated “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable countries harmed by climate change.
It was an important and hard fought acknowledgment of the damage – and of who bears at least some responsibility for the cost.
But the fund might not materialize in the way that developing countries hope.
I study global environmental policy and have been following climate negotiations from their inception at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Here’s what’s in the agreement reached at COP27, the United Nations climate talks in Egypt in November 2022, and why it holds much promise but very few commitments.
3 key questions
All decisions at these U.N. climate conferences – always – are promissory notes. And the legacy of climate negotiations is one of promises not kept.
This promise, welcome as it is, is particularly vague and unconvincing, even by U.N. standards.
Essentially, the agreement only begins the process of establishing a fund. The implementable decision is to set up a “transitional committee,” which is tasked with making recommendations for the world to consider at the 2023 climate conference, COP28, in Dubai.
Importantly for wealthy countries, the text avoids terms like “liability” and “compensation.” Those had beenred lines for the United States. The most important operational questions were also left to 2023. Three, in particular, are likely to hound the next COP.
1) Who will pay into this new fund?
Developed countries have made it very clear that the fund will be voluntary and should not be restricted only to developed country contributions. Given that the much-trumpeted US$100 billion a year that wealthy nations promised in 2015 to provide for developing nations has not yet materialized, believing that rich countries will be pouring their heart into this new venture seems to be yet another triumph of hope over experience.
2) The fund will be new, but will it be additional?
It is not at all clear if money in the fund will be “new” money or simply aid already committed for other issues and shifted to the fund. In fact, the COP27 language could easily be read as favoring arrangements that “complement and include” existing sources rather than new and additional financing.
3) Who would receive support from the fund?
As climate disasters increase all over the world, we could tragically get into disasters competing with disasters – is my drought more urgent than your flood? – unless explicit principles of climate justice and the polluter pays principle are clearly established.
What COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, has done is to ensure that the idea of loss and damage will be a central feature of all future climate negotiations. That is big.
Seasoned observers left Sharm el-Sheikh wondering how developing countries were able to push the loss and damage agenda so successfully at COP27 when it has been so firmly resisted by large emitter countries like the United States for so long.
The logic of climate justice has always been impeccable: The countries that have contributed most to creating the problem are a near mirror opposite of those who face the most imminent risk of climatic loss and damage. So, what changed?
At least three things made COP27 the perfect time for this issue to ripen.
First, an unrelenting series of climate disasters have erased all doubts that we are now firmly in what I have been calling the “age of adaptation.” Climate impacts are no longer just a threat for tomorrow; they are a reality to be dealt with today.
Second, the devastating floods this summer that inundated a third of my home country of Pakistan provided the world with an immediate and extremely visual sense of what climate impacts can look like, particularly for the most vulnerable people. They affected 33 million people are expected to cost over $16 billion.
The floods, in addition to a spate of other recent climate calamities, provided developing countries – which happened to be represented at COP27 by an energized Pakistan as the chair of the “G-77 plus China,” a coalition of more than 170 developing countries – with the motivation and the authority to push a loss and damage agenda more vigorously than ever before.
Activists from developing nations pressed for a loss and damage fund during the COP27 U.N. climate conference, the first held in Africa. AP Photo/Peter Dejong
Finally, it is possible that COP-fatigue also played a role. Industrialized countries – particularly the U.S. and members of the European Union, which have traditionally blocked discussions of loss and damage – remain distracted by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and seemed to show less immediate resistance than in the past.
Importantly, for now, developing countries got what they wanted: a fund for loss and damage. And developed countries were able to avoid what they have always been unwilling to give: any concrete funding commitments or any acknowledgment of responsibility for reparations.
Both can go home and declare victory. But not for long.
Is it just a ‘placebo fund’?
Real as the jubilation is for developing countries, it is also tempered. And rightly so.
For developing countries, there is a real danger that this turns out to be another “placebo fund,” to use Oxford University researcher Benito Müller’s term – an agreed-to funding arrangement without any agreed-to funding commitments.
Writing prior to COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, Müller boldly declared that developing countries would never again “settle for more ‘placebo funds’.” I very much hopes he has not been proven wrong at Sharm el-Sheikh.
The COP27 delivered partial success in an agreement on a fund for those vulnerable countries; however, it still needs to provide an understanding of the most basic requirements for stopping the current climate breakdown. That is mainly to slash the burning of fossil fuels as promptly as possible. In the meantime, life carries on. Like in the story that follows, it is not building better with less at this conjecture and not about decarbonising all active ingredients but, like Azerbaijan sharing investment plans within the concept of ‘smart’ cities and villages.
Azerbaijan shares investment plans within concept of ‘smart’ cities, villages
BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 21. Azerbaijan cooperates with the world’s leading companies in the building of ‘smart’ cities and villages, Azerbaijani Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev said on November 21 during an international conference on ‘smart’ cities and villages, being held in Baku, Trend reports.
According to Nabiyev, the concepts of ‘smart’ cities and villages contribute to the efficient use of water and other natural resources.
“In the next five years, $2.5 trillion will be invested in these concepts. Azerbaijan has been working in this direction since 2020. Our ministry has studied the experience of leading countries when elaborating on the concepts. Within the framework of the ‘Online Azerbaijan’ concept, large-scale work is being carried out to integrate state systems, switch to ‘cloud’ technologies and other work,” the minister noted.
Besides, Nabiyev noted that the effectiveness of the concept of ‘smart’ cities and villages may differ depending on the region.
“When implementing these projects, we take into account the factor of development of local companies and their localization,” he said.
The minister pointed out that over the past two years, 472,000 households in Azerbaijan have been provided with fiber-optic communication, and by 2024 even the most remote villages will be provided with it.
Speaking about the development of these projects, Nabiyev said that more attention should be paid to ensuring the security of information systems.
“In the next three years, 932 highly qualified specialists in the field of cybersecurity will be trained in Azerbaijan,” he added.
ANSAmed in its Culture invites all to the Day of the Mediterranean, to the voyage through senses that unite people, hopefully for each and every one.
Day of the Mediterranean, voyage through senses unites people
UfM’s music and social media for 28 November celebration
18 November 2022
NAPLES – The Day of the Mediterranean, launched in 2020, will be held again on 28 November 2022. The day is a way to recognize the importance of Mediterranean culture and cooperation and to embrace the rich diversity present in the region. The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) highlights these aspects while launching various events and initiatives focused on music which will take place across the region. Starting from Spain, with a concert of the Arabic Orchestra of Barcelona and of the singer Judit Neddermann, on 26 November. The concert is organized by the European Institute for the Mediterranean and by the UfM secretariat in collaboration with local authorities. While the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) is coordinating civil society organizations across 25 Euro-Mediterranean countries, with 36 different free musical shows at community level, which will take place simultaneously on 28 November.
The Day of the Mediterranean will also provide new drive to build a common identity in the region, from European countries to those of the MENA region. The UfM launched an on-line campaign called “The Mediterranean, a voyage through the senses”, inviting all citizens to think about their common origins and what unites us as a Mediterranean population by filming a short video, sharing a picture or publishing a post in which one of our sense is most stimulated by the idea of the Mediterranean. The Day will also provide the opportunity to present themes of public interest, mobilize political will and resources to face the region’s problems, by remembering the creation of the Barcelona Process on 28 November, 1995.
Therefore the Day of the Mediterranean is a precious reminder of this commitment, to continue to work on this process despite the challenges. Among the initiatives, the ALF secretariat is organizing a special celebration at its headquarters. Among these celebrations there will be a multicultural musical exhibition and the projection of the logo on the building of the von Gerber home, which is located on the seafront in Alexandria, Egypt. The Mediterranean Day was launched in 2020 by 42 Member States of the UfM who declared 28 November the yearly celebratory date.
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