Mass migration & fear of burden

The recent sectarian hype in the Middle East between the Sunnis and the Shias along with the lust for resources from the countries from global north have been causing many crises in the region. The ongoing armed conflicts and wars throughout the region are the most catastrophic problems the region has been facing for a while now. Most of the parties to the conflicts are not considering the suffering that their conflicts bring about. The humiliation of the minority communities in Iraq have become a regular issue in the country. The barrel bombs are the new normal in Syria. Heavy fighting among the Saudi backed Government, militant groups and Iran backed Houthis are taking place in Yemen at intervals. Clash among different armed groups loyal to different political bodies have been taking place in Libya.

Such a dire scenario across the Middle East has been pushing the inhabitants of the conflict plagued region to flee their war-torn native-land and seek refuge in other regions of the world. Understandably, most of the people, who have been fleeing the conflict, are choosing the European countries within the EU for a secured future.

Some of the EU member states, including the UK, have been again and again emphasizing the fear that the influx of refugees into the EU would bring about fresh burden on them. The increasing entrance of the refugees into the EU would put the member states into hazardous condition, as claimed by many intellectual corners within the EU. There are widespread believe that EU’s economy would struggle to accommodate such large inflow of refugees. Such fear is coupled with concerns that the ‘demands’ for food security, social security, racial security etc. would increase drastically with the increase of the number of inhabitants within the EU. Moreover, the inhabitants, both nationals and refugees, would have to ‘struggle’ to find employment in the present circumstances where the number of inhabitant is increasing by every passing day with the increase in number of refugees in the region. Such urge for employment is very likely to cause chaos within the societies in the EU as there would be a largely increased demand for employment compared to the existing scope for employment itself. Many corners within the greater EU society have been campaigning their concern that employment to refugees takes jobs away from residents and drive wages down, while the inflow of thousands of children places pressure on a country’s education system.

Benefits from influx of refugees: Human Resource

With the increase of a country’s standard of living, the cost of labour increase as well. However, with the increase of a country’s standard of living if the population increases too, the cost of labour would not increase. Rather, in such scenario, the cost of labour would start to fall despite increase in standard of living, because increase in population would also help increase competition in the labour market. More specifically saying, when the number of labourers is proportionate or greater than the number of employment available, the labourers would surely be inclined to sell their labour in cheaper price in order to sustain their livelihood in the competitive market.

Moreover, large population means large domestic market. Any commercial product made within a country, which has alarge population, would be consumed faster than those countries where the sizes of population are comparatively smaller. Countries like China and India have become attractive markets for other economies across the world because of their large population. Businesses outside China and India understand very well that entrance of their commercial products in the markets of China and India assures them of huge consumers and, thus, a faster consumption of their products.

At present, Europe has an impending problem on its hands that could have disastrous repercussions – an ageing labour force alongwith a declining birth rate resulting in declining population and , thus, a declining labour force and a declining number of consumers within the EU market. In order to maintain Europe’s economic growth and industrial output, an inflow of young workers is desperately needed. Such an inflow is also necessary to fund the pensions of Europe’s expanding elderly population. An influx of people is what the region needs right now – and that is exactly what is currently being offered through crisis across Middle East, i.e. influx of ‘refugees’ into the region.

Wrapping up

Although there are various worrisome concerns regarding the influx of refugees into the EU, the impacts of influx of refugees into Europe have been wrongly interpreted by some European intellectual corners. In reality, the above discussion reflects that the refugees will unlikely be burden to the economy of the member states within the EU and to the EU itself. Instead, extending a hand of ‘refuge’ to the ‘refugees’ would not just be morally correct, but would be economically beneficial as well.