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The general consensus is, I believe, that immigration has negative short-term effects on wages for low-paid workers or people just starting their careers, but e
by pfg 11y ago
The general consensus is, I believe, that immigration has negative short-term effects on wages for low-paid workers or people just starting their careers, but eventually leads to economic growth due to higher demand. Some countries even rely upon immigrants to keep their social security system up and running, due to their own citizens aging rapidly and not having enough population growth. I believe Germany is one such example.
For the countries currently losing most of their qualified and educated citizens, it's certainly not a good thing.
- elipsey 11y agoI think this is correct, but I'm having trouble finding proper peer reviewed publications on the subject. The search is very noisey for obvious reasons. Here's someone who says that immigration contributed moderately to the rise of wage inequality by increasing the supply of low-skilled labor during the 1980's, but that the effect on native worker outcomes was very slight: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118131?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118131?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... EDIT: "Some countries even rely upon immigrants to keep their social security system up and running, due to their own citizens aging rapidly and not having enough population growth. I believe Germany is one such example." That's interesting. Maybe this could help with demographic problems here in the U.S. For example amnesty could capture new tax and social security revenues from millions of younger workers. Demand might be lower at a legal minimum wage however.
- gotchange 11y agoI'm wondering why Germany doesn't implement and administer an immigration program like the Diversity Visa in use in the USA if they're so desperate to have migrants to shore up the shrinking population at home?