The world’s geography of migration is changing, and with it our understanding of economic development, national success and the role of public policy.
Every few years a new set of migration statistics appears, accompanied by headlines about which countries are “winning” the global competition for people. The latest OECD figures comparing permanent immigration between 2019 and 2024 appear, at first glance, to tell a familiar story. Immigration is rising. Countries are competing for skilled workers. Population mobility is increasing. Globalisation continues.
Beneath the rankings lies a more profound story. The most surprising result is not that immigration continues to grow, but where it is growing fastest. Poland heads the OECD rankings with a remarkable 129 per cent increase in permanent immigration. Lithuania follows close behind. Mexico, Spain, Costa Rica and Ireland also recorded dramatic increases, while several countries long associated with immigration experienced more modest growth. Others, including Colombia, Latvia, Czechia, Sweden and Norway, recorded declines.
The traditional picture of migration flowing overwhelmingly towards a small number of wealthy western nations no longer captures reality. Immigration is becoming more dispersed. Economic opportunity itself is becoming more geographically diverse.
Poland offers perhaps the clearest example of this transformation. For much of the 20th century Poland was synonymous with emigration. Millions left in search of work and security. Today it has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing destinations for international workers. Rising wages, sustained economic growth and expanding industries have transformed it from a source of labour into a destination for labour. Ireland has undergone a similar transition over recent decades, while Japan, long resistant to large-scale immigration, has cautiously expanded migration pathways in response to demographic decline.
Migration increasingly follows economic geography rather than historical habit. Workers move towards expanding labour markets wherever they emerge. Capital and labour are becoming ever more mobile components of an increasingly interconnected global economy.
From a world-systems perspective, this is hardly surprising. Capitalism has always reorganised the movement of both capital and labour. Investment seeks profitable locations, production shifts across borders and workers respond to changing opportunities. Migration is therefore not simply a humanitarian or cultural phenomenon. It is one of the principal mechanisms through which global capitalism reallocates labour to support economic incorporation and expansion.
This wider perspective also challenges simplistic assumptions about immigration itself. Immigration is often presented either as an unquestioned good or as an overwhelming threat. Neither position adequately captures its complexity. Immigration is a policy instrument whose consequences depend upon the economic model into which it is inserted.
Australia provides an illuminating case. For decades immigration has become deeply embedded within Australia’s economic strategy. Population growth stimulates housing demand, retail spending, infrastructure investment, university enrolments and labour-force expansion. Higher population produces larger aggregate GDP and creates the appearance of continuous economic momentum.
Yet aggregate growth is not necessarily the same as improved living standards. Australia has simultaneously experienced declining housing affordability, congested infrastructure, pressure on public services and persistently weak productivity growth. Population growth has often compensated for structural weaknesses rather than addressing them. Immigration has become part of an economic model that depends heavily upon land development, property investment and consumption rather than sustained productivity improvements.
This raises uncomfortable but necessary questions. Should immigration primarily support economic growth? Should it address ageing populations? Should it fill genuine skills shortages? Should humanitarian obligations receive greater emphasis? Or should immigration policy be integrated into a broader national strategy that encompasses housing, infrastructure, environmental sustainability, education and industrial development?
Too often these questions are debated in isolation. Governments celebrate higher migration while struggling to provide affordable housing. Business groups call for larger workforces while paying less attention to productivity-enhancing investment. Critics point to infrastructure pressures without recognising the significant economic contributions migrants themselves make. The debate becomes polarised when it should instead become integrated.
The OECD figures suggest that successful societies will increasingly be those capable of aligning immigration with long-term national development rather than treating migration as an economic end in itself.
For Australia this may require a significant shift in thinking. Immigration policy cannot substitute for industrial strategy, productivity growth, scientific capability, better urban planning or environmental stewardship. Nor should migrants themselves become convenient scapegoats for failures in housing policy, infrastructure investment or tax reform. The responsibility lies with governments to ensure that migration occurs within a coherent national framework capable of delivering rising living standards alongside environmental sustainability and social cohesion.
The OECD rankings remind us that migration is becoming a permanent feature of the 21st-century world. People will continue to move as economies evolve, technologies change, populations age and climate pressures intensify. The real question is not whether countries experience immigration but what kind of societies they choose to build through it.
In the end, perhaps the most revealing statistic is not Poland’s extraordinary rise or Canada’s continued attractiveness. It is the recognition that migration has become a mirror reflecting the deeper choices nations make about their economic models. Some use immigration to complement productivity, innovation and long-term development. Others rely upon it to sustain growth models that postpone more difficult structural reforms.
The challenge for Australia is to ensure that immigration becomes part of a genuinely national development strategy – one that expands opportunity, strengthens productivity, protects the environment and enriches democratic society – rather than simply another mechanism for measuring success by the size of the population or the growth of gross domestic product.
Stewart Sweeney
Stewart Sweeney is a writer and public policy advocate with a longstanding interest in the evolution and future of capitalism. He migrated from Scotland to Adelaide in 1975 to work with Premier Don Dunstan on industrial democracy. A former academic and trade unionist, he continues to contribute to public debate on economic justice, democratic reform, and sustainable development. His work reflects a deep commitment to the common good and the role of public purpose in shaping Australia’s future.