ABSTRACT
Movements of people are a crucial element in global integration. Most destination
countries favour entry of the highly skilled, but restrict entry of lower-skilled workers,
asylum seekers and refugees. A major cause of migration is the growing inequality in
incomes and human security between more-and less-developed countries. Further
driving factors include uneven economic development; rapid demographic transitions;
and technological advances in transport and communications. Increasingly migrants do
not shift their social existence from one society to another, but maintain transnational
connections. The global economic crisis since 2008 has brought a hiatus in some of these
factors, but has not undermined their long-term significance. Australia’s traditional
model of permanent-settlement migration needs to be adjusted to the new realities of
global mobility and connectivity.
