Pro-Migration Policy in a Data-Weak State: Pakistan's Migration Governance Gaps and the Case for Evidence-Based Reform

Abstract

Pakistan has an aggressive policy stance towards migration since the 1970s. Foreign employment is considered a development tool and migrant remittance as a macroeconomic tool. The Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BEOE), which was created under the Emigration Ordinance of 1979, is the main office where this policy is carried out. However, there are three basic flaws in this form of governance. First, it is based on migratory flows of low-skilled workers heading to the Gulf and does not explicitly take into account professional migration via non-BEOE channels (the channel most relevant to state capacity and brain drain issues). Second, it records only outflows, and is unable to record return migration, so cannot calculate net migration. Thirdly, a draft migration policy, which was prepared about three years ago, is not yet approved and governance institutions are functioning under a law of 1979, which is not aligned with the migration situation in Pakistan. Three research questions are tackled in the paper: What are the structures of the system of governance of migration in Pakistan and their historical roots; what are the specific data gaps in the existing system, and why do they matter for policy; and what reform framework would overcome the gaps identified in the governance system. Based on the Pakistan Migration Reports 2020 and 2024, this paper argues that Pakistan is a pro-migration country with a data weak governance system. It encourages emigration as a development policy, but failed to have an institutional structure to assess the results, control its skill composition, safeguard the workers, or turn the brain drain into brain circulation. To address four gaps in governance, recommendations are made including that laws should be modernized, existing occupation data should be enhanced, a return migration and professional outflows measure should be developed, and there should be a governance system for engaging the diaspora beyond financial remittances. Based on the four principles of legal modernization, expansion of the data system, occupationally targeted retention, and diaspora engagement on knowledge, the paper proposes a reform framework.

Keywords: Migration Governance; Pakistan; BEOE; Emigration Ordinance 1979; Data Gaps; Brain Drain; Remittances; Return Migration; Pro-Migration Policy; Reform