This paper is a review of the broad human development trends in the South Asian region over the last twenty years. It attempts to identify the changing patterns, the region’s persisting sluggish performance on human development indicators in general as well as country-specific and intracountry...

What are the underlying drivers of human development? This essay argues that long-term human development, in incomes, social conditions, security and so on, is fundamentally driven by capitalist dynamics and state functioning. The big issue is not state versus market, or growth versus equity, or...

This paper argues that mobility and migration have always been an intrinsic part of human development. Migration can be considered as a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom itself. However, any meaningful understanding of migration needs to simultaneously analyse agency and structure....

This paper reviews the treatment of migration in Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs), conducted in 14 different countries. The analysis suggests that for the very poor, migration is most often rural to rural and rural to urban and not across borders. The drivers of migration are context...

Over half of Bolivian heads of household are lifetime migrants. This paper looks at the long term impact of internal migration over human development in Bolivia. Three issues frame these effects. First, twenty five years of rural to urban migration have transformed the demographic profile of...

The purpose of this paper is to explore how irregular status impacts a range of human development outcomes for labour migrants. The analysis indicates that for poorer labour migrants, irregular (or undocumented) migration provides a positive, private return to income and livelihood improvements...

This paper presents empirical estimates of a gravity model of bilateral migration that properly accounts for non-linearities and tackles causality issues through an instrumental variables approach. In contrast to the existing literature, which is limited to OECD data, we have estimated our model...

This paper assesses recent migration trends in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Within the last decade (1999-2009) the Russian Federation became the world’s second largest recipient of migrants after the United States, while the Ukraine became the fourth largest and Kazakhstan...

In the study of international mobility, refugees make up a very specific population. In contrast to most migrants, forcibly displaced persons have little opportunity for expanding livelihoods, and are usually faced with realities that deny them a dignified life and fulfilment of their...

Human development (HD), a process designed to enhance human lives directly, is contrasted with economic development, which entails the expansion of material things intended to fulfill human needs. Human development empowers people to participate in the improvement of their own well-being. The...