Introduction
Globalization refers to the increasing connections across the world among people, nations and societies. One part of globalization is that it has enabled individuals who have a visa to work in a different country for a set period of time, which is referred to as a guest worker (Czaika & de Haas, 2014). However, there are two ways to support guest worker: push factor and pull factor. Pull factors are things in the destination country that attract the individual or group of people to leave their home. They include better economic opportunities, more jobs, promise of a better life, better climate, peaceful and comfortable living conditions. A push factor is those things that force the individual to migrate. They include conflict, drought, famine, extreme religious activity, poor economic conditions, lack of job opportunities, racial and other types of discrimination, political intolerance and persecution of people who question the government (Rosenberg, 2019). This essay will discuss push and pull factors for the guest worker.
Push factors for guest worker
Low wages
Low wages tend to trigger people to leave their countries and move to countries that offer high or fair wages. Low wages are too minimal such that it is not enough to support a family. Low wages only satisfy some needs partially leaving the individual and the family needy. Low wages further leads to poverty due to lack of adequate basic needs. For example, in Africa, workers are paid low wages yet the cost of living is high. Therefore, those wages are not enough to support and meet the needs of the families of these workers. In third world countries in Africa, they have a weak economy and the cost of living is high yet they are given low wages. According to the World Bank, about 70% of immigrants in the United States moved into the United States searching for better wages because of low wages they are paid in their home countries (Golding, 2016). Essentially, low wages in countries that have a high cost of living makes life difficult since it is not enough to meet their needs, therefore making people move to countries that offer high wages enough to support their families and meet their needs.
Unfavorable Government policies
Unfavorable government policies tend to push away investors to go and invest in other countries that have favorable policies that attract and support investors. Countries that have government policies that tend to restrict businesses and kind off harsh to businesses push away potential and existing investors to go and invest in countries that have favorable government policies. In essence, policies that encourage entrepreneurship attract people basically for investments. For example, it is determined that immigrants have brought economic benefits to the United States since government policies on businesses and entrepreneurship of some countries have driven away some investors who have eventually settled to invest in the United States because it has a favorable government policy with regards to business. Evidence show that most immigrants are founders of big business companies in the United States such as Yahoo! and PayPal (Golding, 2016).These investors were driven away by the unfavorable policies in their countries. In essence, unfavorable and harsh government policies on businesses drive away investors to seek better places with better policies to invest in.
Pull factors for guest worker
More jobs with better wages
Availability of more job opportunities and better wages is a pull factor that attracts people to migrate from their home country to another country that has more jobs and offering better wages as compare to those that they earn in their home country. For example, many people are moving from Asian and African countries to Europe and the Middle East who are attracted by more job opportunities and better wages in these countries. This is evident by the high number of immigrants from Nepal to Qatar because Qatar is known to have more job opportunities with regular and better wages. Specifically, manual jobs in Napal one earns $150 per month while the same job in Qatar, one earns $700 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2017). Life in the origin countries for immigrants is quite difficult as it is characterized by minimal job opportunities, irregular incomes and low wages. Therefore, it is hard to support a family in such countries and as well to make individual investments and development. As a result, people will be attracted and move to countries that have more jobs and pay more wages so as to be able to meet their individual needs and also to meet the needs of their families as a whole.
High demand for labour
High demand for labour in host countries is one of the major causes of migration of people from other countries that have shortages of job opportunities. Apparently, people in countries with high population size and consequentially have minimal job opportunities not enough to support the large population, are likely to move to countries that have a high demand for labour because of job opportunities available in these countries that are easily obtained. For example, Japan’s population has become older and smaller therefore; as a result it has led to increased unproductive population creating shortages in labor. Therefore high demand of labor has been intense in Japan which has pushed the Japanese government to balance its deep conservative perception on immigration and allow new and young workers into the country. Essentially, according to a 2018 Pew survey, it showed that 59% of Japanese perceive that immigrants are vital and truly make the country stronger (Marsh & Griffiths, 2018). In essence, high demand for labour in one country and an excess surplus of labour together with high rates of unemployment creates globalization as people from countries that have a high surplus of labour leading to high rates of unemployment move to countries that have a high demand for labour so as to secure jobs.
Conclusion
To sum up, globalization has actually been triggered by push and pull factors of movement as people seek for greener pastures in order to make their lives better. The reason for migration from one country to another is majorly due to seeking of better opportunities to enhance an individual life or for his or her family. It is therefore evident that low wages, unfavourable government policies, high demand for labour, and more jobs with better wages are determinants of better global movement resulting in globalization.