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Jordan is different and may want to remain so

Jul 05,2019 - Last updated at Jul 05,2019

Paraphrasing Tolstoy’s claim "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way", each country may be very different than others, but at times they behave alike. Country differences are many and, therefore, can be skipped for making the following point: Many countries today behave alike when it comes to the treatment of refugees or economic migrants.

For example, Europe was among those that spearheaded the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that prescribes countries to receive those who leave their countries for fears of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality and membership of a particular social group or political opinions. The convention came to life, despite objections by the then Soviet Union and its satellites, to encourage dissidents to flee oppressive regimes, thus demonstrating the high moral grounds of the democratic West compared with the oppressive regimes in east Europe. Similarly, migrants were welcomed during the time, as post-war reconstruction resulted in fast economic growth and labour shortages.

But both politics and economics change over time and so do countries in terms both of government policies and citizens’ attitudes. Today, the treatment of refugees has hardened. Countries in the line that links Poland to Italy have recently elected far-right governments espousing values that are in contrast to those of the convention. Curbing economic migration is a common theme of populist governments. This approach can be summarised in Brexit that it is led by an Englishman with the unlikely (Bulgarian) name “Boris”, whose ancestry can be traced to Turkey. No need to also mention another promoter of restricting migration, the current president (another immigrant) of the United States that, for the record, has not signed the aforementioned Convention for Refugees.

The point in the above train of thought is that under stress and short-sighted political motivations, countries risk rolling from high moral grounds down to practices that contravene the by-now universally adopted values.

This brings in the exceptionality of Jordan. It is not party to the Refugee Convention that has been signed only by two Arab countries, namely Yemen in 1980 and Egypt in 1981, though with various reservations with respect to nationality rights, access to public education, welfare assistance, labour and social security. And rather paradoxically, neither Jordan nor any other Arab country has signed the Arab Convention on Regulating Status of Refugees in the Arab Countries, adopted by the League of Arab States in 1994. Yet, Jordan has consistently received masses of refugees to whom it has, to various extents, granted nationality, access to education and social services and, above all, employment rights.

Thus, after legalisation, refugees effectively become economic migrants. According to the employment unemployment survey (EUS) the employment share of non-Jordanians was 31 per cent in 2017.

Still, 31 per cent is not quite as much as the 40 per cent that was stated at the recent launch of the well-articulated National Strategy for Social Protection 2019-2025. The statement continued adding that “20 years ago, 90 per cent of the labour force was Jordanian”. Yet another EUS survey 20 years ago indicated that the share of Jordanians was 84 per cent.

These estimates may evade the enumeration of non-Jordanians by half or more, while relevant definitions also may have changed over time. Moreover, going by trends, one can argue that the 6 per cent overestimate in 1998 and 10 per cent underestimate of the employment share of Jordanians today are not that much, though it still amounts to a few hundred thousand workers. However, the point is what was intended by stating such dramatic changes at the launch, especially in the presence of the prime minister.

Was the intention to signal that Jordan will change its approach to “refugees cum economic migrants?” If so, Jordan may risk losing its internationally acclaimed title “A Refugee Haven”.

Or was is it some belief that Jordanian unemployment can be reduced simply by substituting non-Jordanians?  This has been tried repeatedly for decades, and has failed. Moreover, restricting the supply of migrants may not raise wages sufficiently to attract Jordanians. What Jordan needs for labour policies, if well-designed, to bear fruit is a structural transformation of the economy, not vice versa.

There is more to be added to “20 years ago, 90 per cent of the labour force was Jordanian, now it is 60 per cent only”. First, past surveys had not been as well-designed as more recent ones to measure the employment size of non-Jordanians. So some of the increase may be due to statistical mismeasurement.

Second, the big share of non-Jordanians is not new: An early Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation/UNDP report found that migrant workers accounted for more than 30 per cent of the total employment as far back as in the 1980s. Moreover, reports by the World Bank in 2007 and Al Manar in 2008 have documented that non-Jordanians were already getting half of created jobs in the first half of the 2000s and this has also been the case since 2010. If anything, little has been new in this respect in the last three or four decades.

Third, it is not so much that “if you do not get the facts, the facts will get you”. If anything, it is on facts, admittedly some fake ones, that countries have increasingly adopted the inward policies towards refugees and migrants in the last decade.

What is more important is to regain the high moral ground and apply sound economic analysis and policies, including for reducing unemployment. The availability of statistics can help but only if they are used with caution and are backed by good intentions and sound judgements. Some statistics in Jordan are questionable but its intentions and judgment should not be so.

 

Zafiris Tzannatos has served in senior positions in international organisations and as resident adviser to Arab governments and has held academic appointments in Europe and as professor and chair of the Economics Department at the American University of Beirut

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