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MIGRATION-EUROPE: Young Foreign Workers Shore Up Pension Systems

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Oct 6 2006 (IPS) - The contributions of young immigrants from the developing South hold out a solution for pension systems in the European Union, where rapid population ageing is placing heavy pressure on social security.

Myriad studies have pointed to the imminent crisis in social security systems in the EU. But this could be avoided thanks to hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers from poor countries, whose labour contributes to the well-being of societies in the industrialised North.

That was one of the conclusions reached this week at the 11th International Metropolis Conference on migration, which has drawn 700 respected researchers, civil society activists, and political leaders from every continent to Lisbon, under the theme “Paths & Crossroads: Moving People, Changing Places”.

The Oct. 2-6 conference was organised by Metropolis Portugal, of the International Metropolis Project – a global forum for research and policy on migration, diversity and changing cities – in conjunction with the Portuguese High Commissariat for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities (ACIME), and sponsored by the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD).

The conference addressed “a wide range of issues related to globalisation, diversity and current complex migratory phenomena,” according to the Metropolis web site, and participants shared a common denominator: the need for “humanistic and responsible” immigration policies.

The United Nations “World Economic and Social Survey 2004: International Migration” report stated that “Studies also show that migrants tend to be net contributors to fiscal revenue: what migrants, on the whole, pay in taxes is greater than what they cost the State in welfare payments, education and additional infrastructure.”

It added that “Because migrants tend to be of working age, they also relieve the fiscal burden of future generations in low-fertility countries.”

An illustrative case is that of Spain, a country of 42 million, where according to Professor Rosa Aparicio Gómez at the Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid, the state registered an annual fiscal surplus of between 1.15 and 1.4 billion dollars in the 1996 to 1998 period, thanks to immigrants.

And a 2005 study by researcher André Corrêa d’Almeida with the Immigration Observatory in Portugal showed that in this country, with just a quarter of the population of neighbouring Spain, the state coffers took in 413.5 million dollars in contributions from immigrant workers in 2001.

A similar phenomenon is seen in other European countries like Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries – the main European destinations of workers from the southern hemisphere.

Statistics like these undermine the arguments in favour of the increasingly restrictive immigration laws adopted by many EU countries, which have made it more and more difficult to obtain a visa or refugee status, and have even included the building of border fences.

Jorge Gaspar, a researcher at the University of Lisbon’s centre for geographic studies, said immigrants in urban regions play a crucial cultural role by “revitalising” city centres in decline.

Addressing the conference, Portugal’s socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates called for a unified EU immigration policy that would entail cooperation at the borders, harmonisation of the rules regarding conditions of entry and visas for short stays, and common support for the countries of origin of foreign workers.

Although without criticising his fellow European leaders who advocate policies based on high walls and fences to curb immigration flows, Sócrates pointed out that today Portugal is one of the bloc’s most open countries, and that as prime minister, he was one of the eight heads of state and government of Mediterranean countries who recently called on the EU presidency to pay more attention to immigration issues.

After citing changes adopted this year in Portugal, such as reforms making the nationality law more flexible and temporary residence permits offered to foreign workers, Sócrates said “no intelligent policy on the phenomenon of migration is possible without true international cooperation.”

He added that migration policies must be “humanistic and responsible,” and noted that “foreign workers have contributed to economic growth and to guaranteeing the future of the social security system” – words that earned him loud applause.

Ensuring the long-term sustainability of social security systems in Europe will be a difficult joint task, because according to a study released last week by Eurostat, the EU statistics office, three out of 10 of the bloc’s citizens will be over 65 four decades from now.

By 2050, there could be 130 million people over 65 in the EU, compared to 75 million today and 66 million in 1995, prior to the bloc’s expansion to 25 members.

Italy has the oldest population, followed by Spain, Germany, Greece and Portugal, according to Eurostat. And the highest figures for life expectancy are for women in Finland, Hungary and Portugal.

Immigration thus appears as a source of relief for two or three generations of Europeans who otherwise would have no possibility of offering a dignified retirement to their parents and grandparents.

According to U.N. estimates, between 1960 and 2005 the number of international migrants in the world more than doubled, to 191 million today.

And with respect to undocumented immigrants, between six and eight million are living in Europe, around 11 million in the United States, and between 30 and 40 million worldwide, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

For his part, Gaspar said that besides mushrooming in size, migration flows have undergone profound changes in the last quarter century. In the past, the phenomenon largely involved rural to urban migration, at both the national and international levels.

But today, “international migration flows are mainly between cities,” said the Portuguese researcher, who added that the change brought “advantages with respect to integration.”

Gaspar noted that in the Americas, Europe and Africa, “big cities are more and more similar, in their infrastructure, services and social relations,” which means that “when they land on the old continent, immigrants recognise things like transportation or clothing brands – all of the things that are familiar in today’s globalised world.”

Censuses show that immigrants in Europe are concentrated in the biggest cities. In Paris, they make up 14.5 percent of the population, compared to 5.6 percent nationwide; in Amsterdam they represent 48 percent of the population, compared to 17 percent in the Netherlands as a whole; and in Frankfurt they account for 27.8 percent of the population, compared to 8.9 percent in all of Germany.

The reasons for that, said Gaspar, are simple: cities provide more opportunities for employment and social mobility, as well as greater chances of finding other people from the immigrant’s country of origin.

The researcher advocated the need to “give places soul” and character, which means immigrant communities should be encouraged to develop their own businesses. “Small businesses play a very important role,” as well as recreational and sports centres, activities that “bring people together globally.”

“Immigrants from Angola or Brazil who come to Lisbon today, for example, first lived in cities in their countries of origin, like Luanda or Belo Horizonte,” added Gaspar, who pointed out that “the situation was very different in the 1960s, when the Portuguese left their villages to go to Paris, which for them was like another planet.”

Maria Lucinda Fonseca, director of Metropolis Portugal and chair of the organising commission, told IPS that “this is the biggest international conference ever held on this issue,” which is important to study because “the world has entered a new era with respect to migration.”

To deal with this new reality, Fonseca said that what is needed is “better administration of transnational migration flows, and this largely depends on fair, transparent international cooperation, and a true multilateral commitment.”

Beatriz Padilla, a researcher with the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, acknowledged the significance of the conference, “but only as a forum for academic and political debate among non-governmental organisations and civil society.”

What was missing in this week’s conference, the young sociologist from Argentina commented to IPS, “was a merging of the theoretical and practical aspects, and a real exchange and sharing of experiences among representatives of the various countries of origin of migration flows.”

Rui Marques, the head of Portugal’s High Commissariat for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities, described the meeting as crucial “for understanding that immigration is one of the essential characteristics of this century.”

Marques said there are two key concepts for integration of immigrants in receiving societies: multiculturalism and interculturalism. In other words, “we must accept that if we invite people from other cultures to our table, they are under no obligation to use silverware when they eat.”

A similar view was expressed by former U.S. diplomat Charles Buchanan, director of FLAD and president of Metropolis Portugal.

“It will always be necessary to continue improving global migration policies, through analysis, research and comparative studies, respecting and taking into account other cultures, countries, and realities,” said Buchanan, who is also a prominent environmental activist.

To do that, “visionaries are needed, people with the right ideas to bring about progress, because what we are really talking about is people, the human factor,” said the former diplomat who confessed that he was “ashamed” by the long fence that the U.S. government plans to build along the Mexican border to keep out immigrants.