International migration for poverty alleviation? The neoliberal element in the debates on migration for development and poverty alleviation

There is a vast literature on the contributions of international migration to development and poverty alleviation. However, there are also scholars who raise the critique that the increasing emphasis on the development potential of migration has an ideological dimension. This chapter discusses economic and social remittances, brain drain, and return migration as the mechanisms through which international migration can significantly affect development and poverty in the countries of origin. An integral part of this effect is the neoliberal element, which arguably shifts the focus from governments to individual migrants as the proper agents of development and poverty alleviation. The perspectives that celebrate the role of migration and remittances in poverty alleviation and consider them as self-help development “from below” have a lot in common with the neoliberal philosophy.