The subject is delicate. People who open a conversation with “you know, it’s the fault of the foreigners” are likely to indulge in some bigotry, collective blaming, or scapegoating. People who say “there are too many migrants” often do so with the tone that invites the retort that “there are too many racists”, but who’s counting?
And then, of course, some start the conversation with the pre-emptive, “I am not racist, but” and then you know you need to run for the hills.
Don’t run for the hills. Don’t close your eyes to imagine yourself on your boat at sea or in a resort hotel with very expensive gatekeeping. Look at the facts.
In the 10 years leading up to 2022, Malta’s population grew by a third – 28.6% growth, to be precise. Since 2022, the population has grown by 4%. The latest figures say 563,000 people live on this pair of islands. One in every four of us was born elsewhere, compared with one in 20 a decade ago.
That is a massive change! Good or bad, it doesn’t matter for our argument. It’s massive! Consider increasing the share of anything from a 20th to a quarter: hamburgers as a ratio of your dietary intake, days you work overtime, and share of clothes dyed orange in your wardrobe. It’s too significant to look away from or to allow us to continue without a proper policy debate.
Also, let’s not look at this from an isolated perspective. Let’s compare it with the rest of Europe. 2022 figures show that migrants amounted to 65.8 of every 1,000 persons in Malta, the highest European ratio by a mile.
The distant second is Luxembourg, a small country with 48.1 per 1,000. But Luxembourg is on the highway network with three surrounding countries, not an archipelago. Compared with other islands, Cyprus’s migrants count 34 per 1,000, and Ireland’s 30.5.
Consider countries where politics is hysterical about migrant populations: Germany at 24.7, Hungary at 9.8, Italy at 7 and France at 6.3. Malta’s ratio of migrants is 10 times that of France. It’s a matter of pride that we did not vote for Norman Lowell at the rates the French picked Marine Le Pen.
These numbers clearly show that Malta is facing a very particular situation with migration, especially given its scale and rapid growth rate. You don’t need to be a seasoned sociologist to perceive the problems we are experiencing.
Officially, a smaller share of the Maltese population is at risk of poverty now than 10 years ago. Yet, there are ways life has become harder. The cost of renting a property in Malta has increased by 60% in the last 14 years. That’s not the highest rate of increase in Europe. Rent has increased more significantly in Estonia, Lithuania, Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Austria and Slovenia.
But Malta’s rate of increase is still three times that of the EU average. And those other countries tend to have a wider variety of options and price differences to accommodate different budgets. On the other hand, Malta is a very small place and householders’ budgets have not grown by 60% in 14 years.
Migration helps drive rent prices up. Superficially, it’s caused by increased demand. More people compete for space. Industries, such as gaming, attract well-paid immigrants who can afford to pay more. Their share in numbers may be lower than low-income migrants but their impact on prices for everybody else is considerable.
It is wrong to assume that the poor and the homeless are likely to be foreign nationals- Manuel Delia
It is wrong to assume that the poor and the homeless are likely to be foreign nationals. 52% of homeless individuals surveyed in 2022 were Maltese. Many were driven out of their homes by domestic violence and mental and psychological health issues. But all found they could not afford to rent to live decently elsewhere.
Theoretically, a one-bedroom apartment in the central areas will cost, on average, €850 a month, though supply is hard to come by. That’s almost exactly equivalent to the minimum wage. To live comfortably, not more than a third of your income should go into your housing cost. These figures don’t add up.
On the other side of the pincer movement, the opposite end of the highly paid gaming specialists, there is the underclass of migrants imported effectively as slaves. Anecdotally, many of them are South Asian men who pay the savings of their families for the privilege of getting a permit to work here and then spend years working in Dickensian conditions to earn back what they spent to get here. Recent claims suggest some migrants have been working for €3 an hour, just over half the minimum wage at law. We have seen pictures of people living a dozen to an apartment, sharing beds on rotation like grunts on a submarine.
Consider for a moment an adult human’s need for physical intimacy. In 2012, 44% of immigrants arriving in Malta for the first time were women. In 2022, that share went down to 35%, contributing to the widest gender gap in the EU. Women in Malta amount to 48% of the population, and that gap is getting wider every year as more men are flown in to work. We seem to assume that, unlike us, these men do not want or even need life partners. Given the isolation of migrants from the rest of the community and the ratio of migrant men to women of two to one, frustrations must be terrible.
Consider the key to social mobility – education – and how a new imbalance is growing along racial lines. Malta’s public schools have Europe’s second-lowest share of the compulsory-age school population. An economic profile on the quality of education is emerging.
Research shows that students attending a Maltese private school are likely to be two years more advanced in their learning when compared to a public school. Children of high-earning immigrants, as well as children of wealthier Maltese, make it to independent schools. Poorer Maltese and immigrant children are increasingly ghettoised in public schools.
This is not as inevitable as we have come to think. In 17 of the EU’s 27 member states, more than 90% of all pupils attend public schools, including students in the wealthiest countries: the Netherlands, Finland, Germany and Austria. In Malta, it’s less than 60%. Education, which is supposed to be the great leveller, is increasingly exacerbating inequality in our country.
The temptation is to ‘solve’ these challenges through populist notions, such as ‘Stop them coming’ or ‘Throw them out’. Rather, the discussion should be about how we can improve life for people living here.
If migrants are invited here, can we afford to generate productive employment in decent conditions?
Can we continue to afford to live in our own houses? Can we guarantee an equality of opportunity for all? Can we ensure that the poor can access the means to improve their condition? Can we live in a just society, however many we are?
Let’s talk about that.