Migration And Development In The Caribbean

This book represents the product of a two-year research project and a four-year personal journey to explore the relationship between migration and economic development in the Caribbean area. Does Caribbean immigration to the United States assist or impede the economic development of the Caribbean? Would the curtailment of immigration affect the stability of the Caribbean? Can a certain mix of development strategies significantly reduce the pressures for migration? What can the United States and the Caribbean countries do separately and together to improve the prospects for economic development while permitting migration at manageable levels? This book begins with these questions and ends with some answers.

Originally published in 1992, this text considers out-migration from the Caribbean in an analytical manner. Its comparative approach, involving three islands (Jamaica, Barbados and St Vincent) and the range of micro-environments within those islands, is based on data from extensive surveys and in-depth interviews. Analysis of the migration process reflects the perspective of Caribbean potential migrants themselves.

Over the past two decades, studies on the migration-development nexus often portray small states as one homogeneous group, ‘developing countries’, without considering their critical and peculiar challenges or inherent vulnerabilities, due mainly to their size. This book explores key dynamics of migration and development in a small states setting. It includes case studies from small states in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific that will help policy-makers to embrace migration as an inevitable phenomenon and devise policies that will maximise the benefits from migration at a minimal cost.