Philippe Fargues

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Philippe Fargues (born 17 October 1948) is a French demographer. He is based at the European University Institute in Florence, where he was the founding Director of the Migration Policy Centre. He held senior positions at the National Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris and the American University in Cairo. He was Professor at Harvard and Sciences Po Paris and taught at various universities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His research interests include population, international migration and politics.

Biography

Philippe Fargues was born in Paris on 17 October 1948 (72 years old). He earned his bachelor of arts (1969), his master (1970) and his PhD (1974) in sociology from Université de Paris 5-Sorbonne. He also holds a masters in science in demography (1971) from Université de Paris 1-Panthéon and a Doctorat d’État in demography (2000) from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

He debuted his career as a lecturer at the Institut de Demographie de Paris, University of Paris-Panthéon from 1970 till 1972, he then moved to Beirut as a lecturer in demography at the Lebanese University till 1975. The same year he became a UN Expert, lecturer, and Head of research at IFORD, the UN Institute for Demographic Research and Training in French-Speaking Africa (Yaoundé), he came back to Beirut in 1978 as a researcher at CERMOC, the Centre for the study of Modern Middle East, (Currently Institut français du Proche-Orient -IFPO) which depends on the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, and a lecturer at the Lebanese University. In 1980 he moved to Ivory Coast for three years as the head of the “Human Resources” research unit, University of Abidjan. Between 1983 and 1992, he was a senior researcher and head of the “Developing Countries” unit at INED, lecturer at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (1984-1992), and at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1988-1992). After that he went to Cairo as the director of Centre d'études et de documentation économiques, juridiques (CEDEJ), which depends on the French Foreign Affairs Ministry until 1998, he then spent one year as a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. In 1999 he came back to France as the senior researcher and Head of the “International Migration and Minorities”, five years later he became the founding Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration at the European University Institute and the Co-Director of the Florence School on Mediterranean Migration and Development. In 2007, he went back to Egypt as a professor and director of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo, and at the same time, he was a part-time Director of CARIM at the European University Institute. Two years later he became the Robert Schuman Chair and Migration Policy Centre founding director at the European University Institute. Since 2017, Fargues is a Part-time Professor at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence . Philippe Fargues is also member of many different committees some of them are, the International Union for the Scientific Study of the Population (IUSSP), Association Française des Etudes sur le Monde Arabe et Musulman (AFEMAM), the Scientific Advisory Committee, Gaza 2010: Assessing Human Security Needs in the Gaza Strip, the Editorial Review Board for the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (Beirut) and more recently he became a member of the ILO Regional Office for Arab States’ Migration Advisory Group.

Fargues main research interests are: the population dynamics in relation with the social, political and economic environment; family, generation and gender and migration and refugee movements.

He taught courses in population studies and formal demography in diverse universities and countries, he designed the MA in Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo and co-directed summer schools at the European University Institute: Migration in the Euro-Mediterranean Area: Demographic, Economic, Legal, Political and Social Dimensions (2002). He also supervised PhD theses in population and migration studies at Sciences-Po Paris and EHESS.

Work on Migration

Philippe Fargues’ work on migration is very broad and cover many issues and point of views, most of the time he accompanies his researches and writings with statistics and demographic facts and theories. Some of the questions tackled in his work are, the cultural and demographic challenges of migration, the effect on the host country and the country of origin, he is particularly interested in the Middle East and North Africa region in relation to migration.

Who are the migrants arriving to Europe?

Fargues is interested in the origins of the migrants arriving to Europe as well as their journey and status there. In his article, Un million de migrants arrivés sans visa en Europe en 2015: Qui sont-ils? that appeared in Population & Sociétés, he explains that migration to Europe gained in importance in 2014, especially illegal migration from the MENA region through the Mediterranean Sea. The paths taken by migrants in the Mediterranean Sea are shaped by the regional conflicts and the regulations determined by the future European host countries or the first country of asylum. Today most of the migrants entering Europe illegally are refugees, being persecuted in their country of origin or due to war, their number augmented drastically shaped by the situation in Syria, Iraq… In the country of first asylum, refugees are taken in charge by humanitarians but their economic situation quickly deteriorates leading them to leave for a second European country. The MENA region is not only a sender of migrants but some of its countries are receiving migrants as well, especially people coming from the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, as stated by Fargues. He defines three groups as the main migrants in these countries, the labor migrants coming mainly from Southern and Central Asia, the second group comes from MENA neighboring countries fleeing from wars and thirdly the “transit migrants” who pass by before going to Europe or to the Gulf.

Reasons for migrants to leave there countries

According to Philippe Fargues, there are many reasons and driving forces for Middle Eastern migrants to leave their country of origin today. One of the most explored reasons in Fargues’ work is the “Demographic “Gift”” from which benefits the young adult generation today. In fact, in the MENA region birth rate was really high until the 1980s and those who were born in this period had many brothers and sisters, adding to that with the development of education the new generations marry later, have fewer children, and women started to work as well. Thus people belonging to this generation are able to work without necessarily having to support entirely their parents (having many brothers and sisters who help as well) and on the other hand, they do not have to worry about numerous children and the cost they represent. Fargues argues that although this may look like a reason for young adults to remain and find work in their country this is not really the case, the “youth bulge” is accompanied by a strong competition on the labor market leading to high unemployment rates. And so in order to be able to make and save money, young adults find themselves migrating to other countries, especially when they are highly educated for example in Morocco “24% of the highly skilled labor are unemployed compared to 9% for those with no diploma”. Alongside to this demographic reason leading to migration, come the “environmental conditions” , with climate change happens many climate catastrophes may lead to migration, given the fact that in the MENA many poor inhabitants do not have the means to reconstruct and fix what have been damaged. In addition, in countries like Egypt or Palestine, it is estimated that the density of people per square kilometer will augment creating a serious issue of space. More than this, the political instability in the region (Israeli-Palestinian, Gulf war, or diverse civil wars), lead to migration aiming for a safer country offering more opportunities.

Demographic crisis in Europe

Even though Europe’s migration policies are becoming very complicated aiming to limit migrant entrance to the countries, Fargues claims that Europe needs those migrants if it wants to preserve a certain demographic weight. Actually, “by 2050 its population share will slip to about 6 percent of the global total” till then Fargues predicted negative natural demography and clear diminution of the European Union’s population. The author opposed two scenarios in case migration is stopped and in case it continues, and it is clear that the majority of the countries will observe an increase in population in case migration continues. When Compared to Africa where the population is estimated to increase sharply till 2050 as showed by the author, Europe is knowing a clear demographic crisis. In addition to that, the factor of age plays a very important role, most of the 27 European Union countries are facing an aging population compared to the MENA region for example, which is in front of a “youth bulge” as explained earlier. This increase in the aging population and decrease in youth in Europe is challenging its socioeconomic programs followed by a big number of countries, where the young working people help the state in financing elderlies through taxes. Also, given that migrants are generally young and apt to work, their presence in Europe is essential to finance the social securities the state provides to its people, although some would say that migrants bring with them young children that represents a cost for the state Fargues argue that they are seen as an investment while elderlies as a cost . Some critical of Fargues’ opinion may argue that allowing migrant in Europe will lead to a loss of the European identity and propose to introduce temporary migrants that will go back to their country after some time, but the author qualifies this as a short term solution leading back to the same problem after a certain time.

Cultural transmission and migration

In his work, Phillipe Fargues tackled the issue of “cultural identity” . In fact, given the demographic crisis and aging population from which suffers Western countries as well as the increase of young migrants with relatively high fertility. Migrants are often considered as a threat to the Western cultural identity, leading the states to transform Europe into an impenetrable “fortress” . Fargues is critical of this “fear of being replaced” and qualifies this way of thinking as a “logical error” because this view does not look at the broader image of the situation, actually, they consider that migrants will reproduce exclusively their cultural identity while living in Europe. But this is not at all what happens according to Fargues, who consider other factors like exogamy and intermarriage, even though this practice is not very common among the first generation of migrants, it becomes more and more common starting the second generations. Also, migrants are exposed continuously to the values and culture of the host country, they live and work among them, and as numerous as they can be they are still the minority and get influenced more than they influence. To prove his point that with time people integrate more and more their host society, Fargues took the example of Mexicans in Californian and found that with time the number of Mexicans who still speak Spanish diminish and while 35% of the second generation speak Spanish, only 5% of the third generation do the same. In the continuation of his argument, the author does not only assert that migrants are not a threat to European values and culture but they represent a way to reproduce it and expand it to their country of origin. In fact, benefiting from the “demographic gift” and thus from a new order of migration where marriage and children come after the settlement and work in a host country, migrants were given the opportunity to focus more on their self-development and integration, collecting not only “financial capital, but also human capital”. Following the same cycle, Fargues argues that along with financial remittances, migrants send to their home countries “ideational remittances” that affect the demographic transition. The effect on the fertility rate depends strongly on the host countries' cultures and values, as a matter of fact, in a comparative study he did in his paper International Migration and the Demographic Transition: a Two-Way Interaction, he claims that countries like Turkey and Morocco from where people migrate mainly to the West, observe a decrease in their fertility rates (correlation coefficient between emigration and fertility: -0.42 and -0.29). While on the other hand, Egypt that see her people migrating mainly to Gulf countries, see an increase in their fertility rate (correlation coefficient between emigration and fertility: +0.66).

Uprisings and migration in the Arab World

Given the many events that occurred starting 2010 in the Arab region, the Arab spring and the revolutions that happened in different countries, Fargues explored the relationship between uprisings and migration:  this relation is not necessary, and like revolts can lead to forced migration, migrants can play a very important role in the revolution happening in their country. The first struggle that people face when living a revolution is between “exit or voice” and the country become divided between those asking for better life conditions on the streets and those who want to leave and found these conditions abroad. In fact, with the “youth bulge” in the MENA region, it becomes clear that the young generation is the one that faces this dilemma, mainly because of a high unemployment rate. Fargues talks about the comparison that the young do between themselves and their “reference groups”, leading to the feeling of “relative deprivation”. This sensation is a driving force for both migration and revolt. More than that, with the rise of the level of education in Arab countries, young couldn’t accept, as their parents did, the oppression of non-democratic regimes anymore and at the same time had much more interesting opportunities abroad whether to continue their education or find a job. Usually the exit from the country is favored, while the option of voice came later on. According to Fargues, revolutions have already led to forced migrations but also to voluntary migrations based on the political and economic situation. Taking for example Syria, from where “7-10 million people” have been displaced while conflicts and revolts where rising across the country. Along with revolutions other factors exposed by Fargues play a role in migration, some like fear of instability and the religious belonging are related to the uprisings (case of Egypt) while others like education and family ties abroad are more common. He then explores the role that diaspora had played in Arab uprisings. In fact, people who had succeeded outside their home country are often look up to and can have a major role in influencing politics and ideas of their people. As stated by the demographer, with time governments started to see the importance of their diaspora, especially in the “political support” that they can give to the states through financial remittances and projects development. To integrate migrants more and more into politics, some laws have been passed, like being able to vote from abroad and carry double nationality. This link with the nation having been recreated the, financial and ideational remittances started to be accompanied by “political remittances” , thus political values are channeled by the migrant to his home society. Nevertheless, similarly to the notion of fertility and other values, transmitted political values are dependent on the ones followed in the host countries. The evolution of a revolution can also play a role in the return migration of migrants, if the economic and political situations stabilize they can consider coming back, but on the other hand, if the revolution does not create a secured economic and freedom atmosphere it will do nothing but increase the number of migrants.

References

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