ABSTRACT
Before focusing on the most recent migrations, I will sketch the main features of post-194 5 international migration and the explanations it elicited in social science.
The growth of international migration was notable after World War II principally from the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) to the Developed Market Economies (DMEs) of Europe, North America and Australia.1 Workers arrived in response to active recruitment policies by advanced industrial countries, whose labour demands outstripped local supply during the post-war period of economic reconstruction and growth. Workers were recruited either from colonies and ex-colonies or through other labour agreements, such as the famous Bracero programme between the USA and Mexico in the 1940s. Some measure of the growth of immigration in Western Europe is indicated in the growth of the minority populations of the period. Between 1950 and 1975 the ethnic minority population tripled from 5 to 15 million in Western Europe (the UK, Belgium, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland combined) (Castles and Miller 1993: 87-8).
