Many scholars, including Joaquin Arango (2004) and Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller (2003), also note that immigration since the 1970s has taken on distinct features. First, nation-states have exercised more control over immigration, drawing an increasingly more pronounced line between desired and undesired immigrants. On the one hand, there is state-engineered competition for skilled labor, particularly among traditional destination countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States. On the other hand, border controls, mainly directed at immigrants deemed illegal, have been intensified. Despite the increased border control, however, human trafficking has become more salient. The second character of the latest immigration movements is the increasing number of actors shaping immigration flows. Attempts to manage international immigration have been coming from different levels of society, ranging from transnational immigrant communities to the United Nations. The third feature of the current migration trends is the changing demography of immigrants. Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans have gradually replaced the Europeans as the major immigrant population. In addition, the gendered composition of immigrants has changed. Women now account for around 50 percent of the total immigrant population. As well, more women than before move as independent immigrants. Whereas this change remains merely a statistical fact to many scholars, it has compelled others to try to bring women back into the history of immigration, which has largely been written in a gender-neutral or genderless tradition. A good example is the book Women, Gender, and Labour Migration: Historical and Global Perspectives (2001), edited by Pamela Sharpe, which offers perspectives on immigration that take gender into account.
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