Towards a Social Cohesion in the UK - Dissertation Example

A majority of European countries also experience an increase in inward and outward flows of migrants, which happens during the last two decades as a consequence of significant political and social changes. According to Boswell (2005: p.1), in 2001 net immigration in Europe amounted to 3 per 1,000 inhabitants, and the region hosted a population of 56.1 million migrants, in comparison to 40.8 million in North America. These figures, taken along with the UNPD data above, indicate clearly that today’s Europe is the desired point of destination for migrants from every corner of the world, and experts predict a further increase of migrants’ population in European high-income countries because the labour and skills shortages are currently rising there.

The United Kingdom (UK), just as many other high-income countries, now also has net immigration, although formerly it has been for a long time considered as a country of net outward migration (Hickman et al. 2008). A large proportion of the so-called “new migrants” came to the UK from the European Union (EU) countries and former British territories (India, Kenya, Jamaica, etc.), but the majority of new migrants arrive from “third-country nationals”, such as Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, Somalia and others (Hickman et al. 2008: p.11).

Gordon et al. (2007) emphasise that while new migrants come from different places, they commonly share similar characteristics: they are relatively youth, have above average qualifications, and rated positively by employers. Many of them work in catering and hospitality, many immigrants from the EU are concentrated in construction, while those who came from richer countries tend to take up positions in financial and bank sectors, as well as in business services (Ibid.) Figure 1 illustrates estimates of total long-term international migration in the UK.

One can agree that since 2004 both the inflow of foreign nationals (immigration, pink line) and the net long-term migration (green bars) are the largest ones in the history of the country (Boswell 2008).