oa Family and Child Welfare, Support and Protection

Despite the fact that international migrants comprise 3.1 percent of the world population, international migration is at the heart of societal, economic and political debates. This may be attributed, in part, to the fact that the estimated 214 million international migrants are not evenly distributed among countries and regions. Citizens in some countries comprise a minority compared to expatriates. The case of the Arab Gulf countries is a classical model of this demographic imbalance. Moreover, while females comprise 49 percent of international migrants, sex composition of international migrants is imbalanced among countries and regions.

Because of the economic nature of migration, keeping aside forced migration, some members of families leave their origin for better-paid jobs in destination countries. This phenomenon contributes to family breakdown between origin and destination. Family breakdowns are associated with an array of socio-economic correlates and result from major problems related to child rearing and female-headed households, in the case of household head migration. Acknowledging the important positive economic impact of migration, negative socio-economic impacts of migration should be considered and explored, and policy interventions at the micro and macro levels should be introduced.