COVID-19 Will Have Long-Lasting Effects on Migration in Fair Observer.
BildFair ObserverThis article is an editorialized version of some of our recent research, which is currently under peer-review at an academic journal. With this version, we hope to reach a broad audience and bring people’s attention to what we believe will be one of the many unfortunate consequences of COVID-19.
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Michelle L. O'Brien is currently a postdoc in the Social Science Division at New York University Abu Dhabi. Dr. O’Brien was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University, after earning her PhD in Sociology at the University of Washington. Her research is focused on the demographic consequences of violence and armed conflict.
In our research, we use scholarship from demography to argue that after extended suppression of migration, OECD countries will see a migration rebound, akin to a 'baby boom' for fertility rebounds. We then draw on sociological theories to argue that the consequences of these migration spikes will include hostility toward immigrants, the political mobilization of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and even violence. As these sentiments are mobilized, voters are more likely to support restrictive immigration policies, starting the vicious cycle of suppression and spikes all over again. There is another particularity of the COVID-19 restrictions that makes prejudice and hostility towards immigrants more likely. Because it was a pandemic that precipitated the border closures means that migrants have already been stigmatized as carriers of disease. We argue that, without interventions, COVID-19 will negatively impact immigrants and the migration systems on which the global economy and national labor markets rely.