- Why do most countries appreciate free trade across borders, while labour movement has to be regulated and controlled, asks Professor Philipp Schröder, who, together with Herbert Brücker from the University of Bamberg in Germany has researched labour movements in 15 OECD countries.

- In principle it is same pattern. Migrant workers come to a country to fill a demand in the same way products are imported because they are in demand, adds Philipp Schröder.

The researchers´ paper has just been published in the international, scholarly magazine European Union Politics. They point out how countries from the same regions copy each other’s clampdowns towards international labour. Throughout the last 20 years, the 15 OECD countries, which the researchers are focusing on, have gone only one way, and that is to tighten up the rules.

Transmits from country to country

- If Sweden, for instance, introduce rules that state that only doctors and those who are well-educated can enter the country, then Denmark will have to follow suit, if we want to avoid being left with the low educated labour, says Philipp Schröder.

This tendency can be seen all over the world. Once a country tightens the immigration rules, the countries in the same region follow suit. Then the first country tightens the rules again, and when all countries progressively introduce the same rules, then we are back to square one. It is an endless process.

Waste of resources

Nevertheless, the tendency shows that countries introduce control systems with a view to securing well-educated immigrants.

In the long run, it is a waste of resources when individual countries spend time and money on passing, and then implementing the same rules and control.

- It would save a lot of administrative resources in each individual country if big political organisations such as EU established equal rules forscreenings of migrant workers, says Philipp Schröder.

The research has, among other things, taken its starting point in immigration policies in 15 different OECD countries, including USA, Canada and the Northern European countries, in a period stretching from 1985 to 2005.

Contact

Professor Philipp Schröder
Department of Economics and Business 
Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences 
Telephone: (+45) 89 48 63 92 
Mobile: (+45) 30 22 91 23 
E-mail: psc@asb.dk
Website: http://www.asb.dk/staff/nat/psc.aspx