Some years back, a comedian told a joke about a friend saying, “I believe in the pope.”
“Don’t you kind of have to?” The comedian had responded. “He’s not a shadowy figure running through the woods like Bigfoot.”
It’s like asking, “Are you for or against the weather, or as migration research Hein de Haas asked, “Have you ever asked an economist if he is in favor or against the economy?”
Or, as an old joke goes, “Do you believe in the Pope?:
The pope, weather and economy are just facts of life. Sometimes we like them. Sometimes they work favorably for us. Often they are complex forces beyond our control but there are people and policies to mitigate our concerns about them. (For weather, warnings and AC or heat. For migration, policies that understand the complexities of human behavior and its impact. For the pope, well, that is beyond this writer. Best leave that the Catholics and God.)
de Hass, a social scientist sets out in his book How Migration Really Works to show that migration is a longstanding part of human behavior. Rather than letting it polarize us and incite violence, we can treat it as we do the economy, adjusting policy to respond to conditions that lead to fluctuations in local areas and tenable solutions. But first, we have to shed some myths about migration that have taken root.
In his thirty years of studying migration, de Hass has spoken to international leaders, presidents, prime ministers and representatives telling them migration is a larger part of the geopolitical change that happens constantly. At his book launch talk, available on YouTube, de Haas said that politicians responded to his message with “We know you’re right, but implementing this would be political suicide.” (The “this” are policies that acknowledge migration has always happened and always will.)
He’d been trying to be a non-partisan social scientist speaking truth to power, so their responses made him realize, he needed to persuade average people. So he tackled 22 myths in How Migration Really Works to give us clear eyes about the realities of migration.
The first main myth he tackles is that migration is at an all-time high and is rapidly accelerating. (It isn’t.)
de Haas shows two simple graphs to make his point. First, since 1960, the total number of migrants worldwide has climbed. But, de Haas points out, so has the population on earth. In fact, the proportion of the world’s population on the move internationally has remained steady at about 3.3%. 83% of people never migrate, 13% migrate to another part of their own country, and .3% of migrants are refugees who settle in a neighboring country, hoping to return to their home country. In the past, many international migrants were “circular migrants,” spending a season or year or going to another country for periods of time before returning home.
From Europe’s perspective, which is now experiencing “inmigration” rather than “outmigration,” the change feels dramatic, noted de Haas in his 2024 book talk, because for 4-5 centuries, Europeans were the migrants, going to other continents as “colonists, soldiers, enslavers, missionaries, settlers and ordinary migrants.” During those centuries, inhabitants of the destination continents (North America, South America, Asia, including India, and the Caribbean and South Pacific) felt like they were being invaded. Afteral,l the newcomers came with weapons and guns previously unseen in those nations.
How Migration Really Works is one of the most apolitical treatments of an issue that prompted this year’s riots in Ireland, France, and the UK. In de Haas’ three decades of study at the University of Oxford and the University of Amsterdam, he documented trends to show that migration is “not running out of control” but is rather a matter of border and hiring policies inhibiting what was previously a circulation of migrants. For instance, migrants from Morocco went to Spain, which is across the Straight of Gibraltar, for a summer or a gap year before returning home. (He might have added more studies on the U.S. southern border, which, for decades, Mexicans and Latin Americans crossed in farm season (or for day jobs) and returned to their homes.)
“We often think about migration as who is coming, but not who is going,” asserted de Hass.
When migration is free, people tend to return to their home countries, but when restrictions increase, it traps people who only meant to migrate for a short period to stay. They meant to improve their economic status from short-term jobs to stay longer than they intended in another country. As borders tighten and visas are limited, it drives up the economic and physical costs of migration, forcing people into more permanent migration.
Neither tighter border restrictions nor the promise of improving economic standing in the poorest countries are making an impact on migration, de Haas’ studies show. He asks, “What drives people to leave their home nation to move to another country?”
How about about students studying abroad, academics teaching internationally, nurses who can earn higher wages in another place, English as a second language teachers eager to experience other parts of the world?
Our aspirations, education levels, and labor demand drive migration trends, de Haas’ research shows. Humans leave an origin country where the economy has been strong enough to ensure education levels are decently high, where there’s enough money to fund a move, and where people want to pursue other ideas of the good life or positions in their specialization.
Research shows that most migration is from rural to urban within a person’s country. People tend to stay close to home, but if they move, they clump within cultural groups that initially support immigrants, and encourage their children to achieve educational and life each other out of poverty.
They assimilate and adapt to their adopted country; they do. de Haas found that migrant children quickly adopt the language and customs of the destination country, but the strong networks between immigrants tend to help first-, second- and third-generation migrants achieve better living standards including higher education and salaries. By the third generation, the descendants reflect the culture of their destination country more than the country and culture of origin.
In addition to addressing myths like migration leads to more crime (it doesn’t) and immigration has led to mass segregation (it doesn’t) the book challenges left-leaning myths such as “climate change will drive migration” and immigration lifts all boats (it doesn’t). In all 22 myths, de Haas seeks to show the issue of migration is complicated and requires thoughtfulness about what kind of jobs and economies the citizens of destination countries want as well as what kind of diversity they are willing to embrace.
Realizing de Haas’ research gives a global snapshot glosses over the local experience. The world’s population was over three billion in 1960, whereas it’s over seven billion in 2024. Even though illegal migration is only a small amount of total migration, there can be influxes in certain places, creating bottlenecks, as a piece in August’s The Atlantic shows.
In “Seventy Miles in Hell” Caitlyn Dickerson reports on her 70-mile trips with migrants through the Darien Gap, which connects the American continents. She meets a Venezuelan doctor and teacher reluctantly leaving their economically devasted nation, hoping to return someday. She meets Chinese nationals, among dozens of others on her multiple trips. Every traveler had someone sponsoring their travels, promising them jobs on the other side, and a unique story.
The number of people traveling through Darien Gap has skyrocketed allowing some people to monetize on the demand created by streams of people who will fill jobs in the U.S. that educated and unionized Americans prefer not to work. Even at subpar wages, they have the thrift and agency to transform their situation into a better life for themselves and their children. The story illustrates what de Haas found about the aspirations, backgrounds, agency and skills of migrants, as well as their hope that maybe someday, they’ll be able to return to an improved home country.