Saturday, May 26, 2007

Map of Africian Migration to Europe



hohandy said...


Just curious - why the need to refer to the European countries as "welfare states" rather "advanced post-industrialized economies" or somethng that actually describes the European economies that need these workers rather than making a political point? Sweden is commonly thought of the ultimate welfare state (less so now than it was, but still more than many of the others), and very few Africans seem to be going there. The US economy also depends on a flood of 3d world workers to take the lower-wage jobs, yet I don't think that anyone would describe the US as a "welfare state" - would they? I think there must be more helpfully descriptive reasons to describe African emigration to Europe than "welfare states need to attract workers".

Catholicgauze said...

Hi Hohandy, thanks for the comment. Welfare state was chosen over "advanced post-industrialized economies" (APIE) because welfare state is the correct term. These states are clearly on the socialist end. Plus, using a term like APIE implies all advanced, post-industrial economies are the same. Sweden is not America is not Japan.

As for Sweden, they do have a large guest worker population that is Arab. They were one of the first along with Germany to recruit foreign workers. Africans tend to be attracted by geographic closeness and former colonial ties- which Sweden lacks in both.

hohandy said...

So I guess the US is a "welfare state" because we attract large numbers of 3rd world immigrants to work at our lower-end jobs. Who knew??

Catholicgauze said...

The US has some social nets but no where near the level of Europe.

To clarify my previous comment: I use the definition that a welfare state is one of a highly socialized economy. A welfare state does not need an immigrant working population but it usually quickly develops one as a sense of entitlement in the native population.

Anonymous said...

Politics aside you couldn't have picked a worse looking bit of cartography.

Catholicgauze said...

You clearly don't have the same experiences as I do when it comes to ugly bad cartography. :)