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To add to which, the people who are most likely to get visas to move to much richer countries tend to be the ones that start off in their own country's upper mi

To add to which, the people who are most likely to get visas to move to much richer countries tend to be the ones that start off in their own country's upper middle class (allowing them to tick all the right educational boxes to become software developers or nurses, or at least have savings to pay people smugglers). They can still be materially a lot richer and often enjoy many other lifestyle benefits from moving overseas even if they have to drop down the status ladder and forget about owning land and having servants, but it does make the decision a bit more of a tradeoff than a salary comparison might suggest. The option of moving isn't really there for the people who are so poor there's no upside to staying in their own country.

golemiprague 5y ago
That really depends on geography, if you border with a rich country also the poor people can migrate illegally just by crossing the border, that's what happening with Mexico and the US or Africa and Europe. But indeed those people don't always do so well in their new country, it just creates more problems. In general migration is not such a great solution because once too many people migrates from the same place it just creates a nation within a nation and you are setting the country for the next civil war, whether proper war or low key between all the different groups. The best way to solve the issue is within each country, China did much more to alleviate poverty for a huge number of people comparing to what migration achieved.