Global Displacement Crisis: Over 108 Million People Displaced with Children Bearing the Brunt

In 2023, over 108 million people have been forced to flee worldwide, and 41% of these are children under the age of 18. This creates disparities in human development between migrant children and adolescents and those of the host country, which can, however, be mitigated by access to services and regularization programs. These data emerged from the study by Mette Foged (University of Copenhagen) and Sandra Rozo (World Bank) presented at the Banco di Napoli Foundation during the workshop "Economic and Social Integration of Immigrants and Refugees", organized jointly with the Department of Economic and Statistical Sciences (Dises) of the University of Naples Federico II and the Center for Studies in Economics and Finance (Csef). International experts participated, including Marco Pagano (University of Federico II), Christian Dustmann (University College London), Tommaso Frattini (University of Milan), Roberto Nisticò (University of Federico II), Dany Bahar (Brown University). The workshop concluded with a roundtable chaired by English journalist Bill Emmott (International Institute for Strategic Studies), former editor-in-chief of The Economist. "The value of this meeting," Emmott commented, "lies in its power to attract so many experts, to discuss a very important issue that concerns us all, but that is almost a paradox, because Europe and Italy need immigration, primarily for demographic reasons. Of course, control over development is necessary, because sometimes the citizen has a natural fear of the impact of this phenomenon." Among the topics of the day's work were also the impact of immigration on employment and wages in the labor market of the receiving countries of immigrants and the effects of immigration and integration policies on living standards and the inclusion of immigrants and refugees. "This workshop, which has gathered the most important economists in the world," commented President Orazio Abbamonte, "is part of a series of scientific meetings on issues that are not only current but central to the global future. And certainly, the reflections of powerful phenomena such as migration on the structures and dynamics of the capitalist economy, constitute a topic that must be confronted at the highest levels of scientific reflection. It is another of the registers along which the Foundation is trying to position itself to be not only participants but also protagonists in processes of knowledge, of analysis decisive for the future of the world."