The numbers that show Britain is one of the world’s most welcoming countries to migrants

Pro-immigration campaigners outside the UK Home Office in 2023 – Shutterstock

What do Russia, China, India and Japan all have in common? A problem with immigrants, according to Joe Biden.

The US President said on Wednesday that “xenophobia” was to blame for those countries’ lack of economic growth, an extraordinary swipe which caused dismay among allies in New Delhi and Tokyo.

Speaking to a predominantly Asian-American audience at a campaign fundraising event, Biden said the US economy was on a healthier footing precisely because of the country’s openness to new arrivals. “One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” he said.

“Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India… because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong.”

Surprising as it was, data seems to support Mr Biden’s claim – at least when it comes to economic projections and public sentiment towards immigration.

In fact, the figures seem to go one step further, and suggest something of a gap between large swaths of the West – including the UK – and other parts of the world when it comes to embracing migrants.

We dive into the numbers below.

A benefit or a burden? 

Countries with the highest number of immigrants are typically more likely to see them as an asset, as opposed to a burden, according to a 2018 study by the US-based Pew Research Center.

Surveying a selection of 18 countries that host half the world’s total population of migrants, those with the highest numbers (more than seven million immigrants) overwhelmingly supported the notion that their presence made the nation stronger. These included the US, Germany, the UK, France and Canada.

By contrast, a majority of respondents in several countries with relatively smaller migrant populations – Hungary, South Africa and Israel – saw them as a burden.

But Russia, which played host to more than 11.6 million foreign-born nationals at the time of the survey, bucked the general trend and appeared to share the dim view of migrants more typical of countries with less exposure.

More than 60 per cent of respondents in the country said immigrants were a burden, while just 18 per cent said they thought arrivals from abroad made the country stronger.

Attitudes to migrant workers

The UK is among the most welcoming countries for migrants, figures suggest, particularly when immigration is tied to work. Nearly 60 per cent of Brits believe anyone who wants to come to the UK to work should be allowed to do so, provided there are jobs available, and one in 10 say that migrants should be welcomed regardless, according to a 2022 study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London. No other nation among the 17 studied by KCL researchers recorded such an open outlook.

In Japan – one of the nation’s singled out by Mr Biden for its stance on migrants – just 40 per cent agreed people should be allowed to live in the country in order to fill a job vacancy. In Russia, only 21 per cent were of the same opinion.

China was not among the countries surveyed. Those registering the lowest levels of support for people coming for work, provided jobs were available, were Indonesia at 12 per cent, and the Philippines at 15 per cent.

Views on integration

Pew Research Center’s research reveals countries are hugely split on whether they feel immigrants attempt to adapt to their way of life or not. In Japan, famed for its strict, unspoken set of etiquette rules, some 75 per cent thought that incomers adopted their customs – the highest of any country.

The next highest was Mexico, where more than half of respondents thought migrants mirrored their ways. By comparison, Russians and Hungarians were the least likely to believe immigrants integrate, with just 17 and 10 per cent respectively saying they did so.

Meanwhile, on either side of the Atlantic, 54 per cent of Americans said they believed immigrants tried to blend in, while 43 per cent of Brits were of the same opinion.

Migrant populations by country

When it comes to the country which hosts the highest total number of migrants, there is one clear winner. Figures from 2020, the latest year for which globally comparative data is available, show the US housed 50.63 million foreign-born nationals at the time.

China, another of the countries namechecked by Biden, played host to just over one million by contrast. Japan housed 2.77 million migrants, while India was home to 4.88 million, according to the data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Some 11.6 million foreign-born nationals were registered as living in Russia. The UK, for its part, had a migrant population of 9.36 million people.

On the other side of the world, Australia hosted 7.69 million migrants, while the country with the lowest total number was communist Cuba, with a migrant population of just 3,024.

India tops the emigration charts

When it comes to the other side of the coin, India tops the tables as the country with the largest number of nationals living elsewhere in the world.

Some 17.9 million Indians were based in another nation as of 2020, according to Pew’s research. Mexican nationals were the second most likely to have emigrated, with 11.2 million living elsewhere, while 10.8 million Russians were registered as émigrés.

They were closely followed by Chinese nationals, 10.5 million of whom were resident outside of China. About 8.5 million Syrians were also living in another country, a figure fuelled by mass displacement caused by the country’s devastating civil war.

So, has immigration been good for Britain?

While Pew’s data from 2018 indicated that a majority of Britons polled at the time thought migrants benefited the country, the picture does appear to have shifted somewhat in more recent years.

A poll carried out by YouGov in April revealed that 38 per cent of people thought immigration was in fact bad for the UK, up from 29 per cent in 2019. Meanwhile, just 19 per cent of Brits believed immigration to be a mostly good thing, down from 29 per cent of the population five years ago.

The only two groups to remain steady were those who held the view that immigration was a mixed picture, with both good and bad aspects, and those who said they didn’t know – the former hovering at just above 30 per cent of those polled and the latter just below 10 per cent.

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