7 ms·

This an interesting article because it reframes current immigration discussions from humanitarian issues to economic ones. I'd like to see more modelling on wa

by Dwolb 8y ago

This an interesting article because it reframes current immigration discussions from humanitarian issues to economic ones. I'd like to see more modelling on wage depression to see why this wouldn't have a widespread negative impact. Additionally this seems like a weird point: >Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work. If lucrative work were available, wouldn't native-borns already be doing it?

mozumder 8y ago
How can they if they have to work full time to take care of their babies? Part of the problem with today's economy is that it's basically impossible for a middle-class woman to have a child and work. There needs to be a large population of unskilled laborers to do these kinds of low-level jobs that a person with a college degree won't do. This is why data shows areas with a large population of lower-class have a higher fertility rate.
- godzillabrennus 8y ago
  That’s why they aren’t having kids and the population is declining.
- chrchang523 8y ago
  Your model strongly predicts that fertility of preexisting natives would be higher in areas with more unskilled immigrants. The opposite is true, and the effect is not small. It is safe to reject your model. Moreover, if you do not adjust your beliefs in response to contrary evidence, it is appropriate to presume that you are arguing in bad faith rather than trying to figure out the truth, and dismiss everything else you say on this subject. (This principle is equally applicable to someone arguing the other side of this particular issue in similar bad faith, of course; reversed stupidity is not intelligence.)
  - JamisonM 8y ago
    Your model strongly predicts that fertility of preexisting natives would be higher in areas with more unskilled immigrants. The opposite is true, and the effect is not small. It seems like you have a lot of confounding variables to work through to make this case with such confidence, if you have research that makes this case I would like to see links to it.
    - chrchang523 8y ago
      Yes, there are confounding variables; population density in particular jumps out. But once you acknowledge that population density has enough negative causal impact through various channels on native fertility to be worth explicitly controlling for, you've already rejected mozumder's model: what effect does immigration have on population density?
      - JamisonM 8y ago
        Why would one acknowledge that population density has a "negative causal impact" without evidence of such? You can argue that density and fertility are correlated, sure, but causation is a much higher bar. Why would you restrict the model such that you assume that any increase in density at any starting level of density would decrease fertility? Why would you assume that without evidence?
        chrchang523 8y ago
        Okay, I was assuming you had at least a little bit of familiarity with the field. There are a lot of papers which cover this. Starting with a Google search on population density and fertility rate, without including "causes" in the search, the top academic results I get are: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387817300135 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438781... https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981 http://paa2004.princeton.edu/papers/41719 http://paa2004.princeton.edu/papers/41719 The population density-fertility rate assumption was not made without evidence.
  - mozumder 8y ago
    Data shows the opposite of what you say. I guess that means you are arguing in bad faith?
    - JamisonM 8y ago
      I am interested in what the data does say, but we should articulate what this discussion is about. I take your post to mean that: - access to affordable childcare increases fertility rates - inflows of lower-skilled workers to an area would increase access to affordable childcare - a way to increase the quantity of lower-skilled workers would be through immigration The 3rd point above I think is trivial to accept, I am inclined to believe the other two points but would want to see the evidence that this is actually how things shake out.
    - chrchang523 8y ago
      See my comment above. I've pointed to data that backs up my conclusion. You have not, and I predict that it will be trivial to tear massive holes in whatever source(s) you end up citing.
  - pjschlic 8y ago
    Did you have (even a vague) source for this - I'm willing to search for it given even a vague gesture? I think this indeed sounds like it could be strong evidence, so I'd love to see it. Indeed, I would also think that a high skill population living mixed with a low skill population would have a higher birth rate than a high skill population NOT near a low skill population.
    - chrchang523 8y ago
      You can start from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... and its list of sources, and drill down from there. Remember to subtract births to recent immigrants from the numerator, and number of recent immigrants from the denominator. It won't take long to verify my claim.
sudhirj 8y ago
A lack of good child care options pulls half of all reproductive people out of the workforce.
- branchless 8y ago
  people looking after their own children are: 1. providing good child care 2. adding value
  - noncoml 8y ago
    > 2. Adding value Don’t you think that a PhD in their thirties would add more value if they instead focused on their studies subject?
    - narrator 8y ago
      If the marginal income tax rates were lower sure, but once you add in how much gets taken off the top by the government and how much child care costs, it really doesn't justify most jobs that make less than 6 figures.
    - branchless 8y ago
      What % of people is this? Vast majority this isn't the case. Many degrees are worthless so don't lump them in.
    - wycs 8y ago
      It depends. As we know intelligence is highly heritable and an extremely large component of one's productivity, it may make more sense, in terms of having an impact, for extremely high-IQ people to focus on have a large number of children, especially considering how rare having a large number of children is among those with high IQs.
      - gls2ro 8y ago
        I think the “intelligence” we are talking it is more a mix between nature and _nurture_. So it is not enough just for people with high IQ to have many children. The adult needs to follow their passion/dream/work to develop the intelligence and contribute back to the society.
oldcynic 8y ago
Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.
- repolfx 8y ago
  Hmm, seems like there may have been a reason for the old traditions after all. The Economist's point is weird/wrong for another reason. Immigrant women have babies too. They can't be both looking after their own children and looking after other people's simultaneously. Expensive childcare doesn't seem like the kind of problem you can permanently fix by just allowing tons of immigration from third world countries.
  - friedman23 8y ago
    >They can't be both looking after their own children and looking after other people's simultaneously Why not?
  - eloff 8y ago
    I've typically seen in the developing world that the nanny looks after her kids as well, but families tend to prefer childless nannies for obvious reasons. Very often in such cases the host family will help with some of the child related expenses of the nanny. Much like some kind of communal family.
  - rock_hard 8y ago
    I guess you’d be surprised by reality buddy, because that’s exactly how my nanny did it when I grew up...she took care of her two kids and me at the same time...it’s like people who have three kids, totally possible and being done everywhere.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - 8y ago
glenstein 8y ago
>This an interesting article because it reframes current immigration discussions from humanitarian issues to economic ones. I think that's exactly right, but also an unfortunate reflection on the way it needs to be framed to make people pay attention.
branchless 8y ago
Add 10% to the economy, let's imagine for once it's passed onto wages, also up 10%. Rents up 10%. Everyone working longer for the landlords. Gains go to land under the current system. We already added women to the workforce more, rents went up.
- fwn 8y ago
  The proposition that all gains in productivity are absorbed by rental charges sounds completely off to me. How would that even work? Just imagine: If housing were that great of an investment, everyone would get enough credit to build, making effectively everyone a landlord.
  - robryan 8y ago
    It depends how tight the rental market is, if there is a lot more demand than supply it is possible that the full increase would be absorbed in rental increases.
    - branchless 8y ago
      Which is the case in most urban centres, where most people are.
baybal2 8y ago
Once there was a time in Europe when every fief couldn't be more happy to get more subjects for free, and the usual travel restriction was on leaving your place, not moving to a new one. It was the first world war that changed everything. Things like migration control, passports, visas, formal institute of citizenship, all traces to the time when the imaginary no. 1 boogyman was not Ben Laden and "angry Arab guys," but the German Kaiser and "angry Prussian guys" The system of rigid citizenship, closed by default borders, and enslavement to a piece of paper called passport was forced onto the world under pretext "if you would not let us do this, the scary Kaiser will be upon you" This day, it is the permanent surveillance state being pushed into mainstream buy the very same sort of people, and it will be upon the Western countries in no time if that party will not be punched hard in the face with all resolve.
- mortenjorck 8y ago
  This sounds like the kind of interesting perspective one picks up from a good book or podcast series. Do you have one to recommend on this subject?
  - baybal2 8y ago
    Well, this is all my own, near life long, research: what is power, how modern state came to be, and how one can manipulate it. Few interesting factoids from it: Did you know that theocracy vs bureaucracy was not a decided topic in Europe until mid 19 century? It was a single letter of a British envoy to China that shocked the crown so much as for it to institute the His Majesty Civil Service modelled after Chinese model of professional institute of career bureaucrats. Something that is traced to first Chinese states in known history. My grandpa said that every modern state is made by "the 3 grave sins of Chinese people:" 1. Invention of paper, 2. Invention of money, 3. Invention of gunpowder. Indeed, without those there will be no career bureaucrats, no central banks, no conscript armies, and no modern state. And on Prussians, rulers of the old Europe were not as much afraid of Prussian people themselves, than the spread of ideological "Prusianness." Today, the most relevant comparison to them are members of Ikhvan ul Muslimin in the middle east, and how Arab gerantocracy, and nobility is afraid of them as fire. Just as with Prussia, Qatar is not as scare to Arab rulers than "Qatariness" - the virulent Qatari identity. An identity of people who are not afraid to demand their rulers to be rightful, and reward them with great loyalty for that.
skybrian 8y ago
One reason is that people have different ideas what "lucrative" means. Native-born workers often have advantages (such as speaking the language and understanding the culture) that let them mostly-realistically aspire to better jobs. Even when out of work, they aren't going to decide to be, say, farmworkers, which looks like a a hard, low-paying, temporary, dead-end job to them. Their aspirations have priced them out of the market. Of course this isn't universal. Immigrants sometimes compete with other people who have a strike against them. Here's an article about the challenges hiring line cooks: https://medium.com/@foodrepublic/how-can-restaurants-fix-the-kitchen-staffing-crisis-64609d6c3959 https://medium.com/@foodrepublic/how-can-restaurants-fix-the...
0xbear 8y ago
>Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work. I'm sure the same argument was made in favor of slavery way back when it was still legal. After all, slaveowners were free to pursue more meaningful things while their slaves were collapsing of heat exhaustion and malnutrition while working on the plantation. Illegal immigrants often find "employment" at below minimum wage, and in inhumane working conditions, because otherwise what's the reason to hire them over locals? They're also more likely to be abused or mistreated, because what are you gonna do, go to the police? A less harsh variant of this often happens with H1Bs, which I know all too well because I was an H1B myself 15 years ago: you get hired for a job that's way below your skill/pay level, and then you keep your mouth shut until you get a green card, which for some nationalities takes a decade or more. Glorified indentured servitude. If you lose your job - GTFO of the country in 2 weeks. Doesn't matter if you have a child or whatever, GTFO anyway. It boggles the mind that people could be in favor of illegal immigration and H1B abuse, especially if these same people are in favor of worker rights and unionization.
ataturk 8y ago
What if the article is just propaganda? I don’t see how letting 3rd world people strip mine the resources I paid for is a help to me? My wife and I have been in a crisis for months because our son’s school has taken in so many esl kids that nothing is being done to teach him—it is like he got 1/2 a 2nd grade this past year! It is so bad that my wife is now a “former liberal”—America’s kids should come first. We pay the damn taxes. We keep the place clean and decent and nobody is just going to come here and stake a claim to it and run us off so they can turn it into the shithole mess they fled from with gangs and child rapists. Fuck that and fuck them.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by Dwolb 8y ago

mozumder 8y ago

How can they if they have to work full time to take care of their babies? Part of the problem with today's economy is that it's basically impossible for a middle-class woman to have a child and work. There needs to be a large population of unskilled laborers to do these kinds of low-level jobs that a person with a college degree won't do. This is why data shows areas with a large population of lower-class have a higher fertility rate.

godzillabrennus 8y ago
That’s why they aren’t having kids and the population is declining.
chrchang523 8y ago
Your model strongly predicts that fertility of preexisting natives would be higher in areas with more unskilled immigrants. The opposite is true, and the effect is not small. It is safe to reject your model. Moreover, if you do not adjust your beliefs in response to contrary evidence, it is appropriate to presume that you are arguing in bad faith rather than trying to figure out the truth, and dismiss everything else you say on this subject. (This principle is equally applicable to someone arguing the other side of this particular issue in similar bad faith, of course; reversed stupidity is not intelligence.)
- JamisonM 8y ago
  Your model strongly predicts that fertility of preexisting natives would be higher in areas with more unskilled immigrants. The opposite is true, and the effect is not small. It seems like you have a lot of confounding variables to work through to make this case with such confidence, if you have research that makes this case I would like to see links to it.
  - chrchang523 8y ago
    Yes, there are confounding variables; population density in particular jumps out. But once you acknowledge that population density has enough negative causal impact through various channels on native fertility to be worth explicitly controlling for, you've already rejected mozumder's model: what effect does immigration have on population density?
    - JamisonM 8y ago
      Why would one acknowledge that population density has a "negative causal impact" without evidence of such? You can argue that density and fertility are correlated, sure, but causation is a much higher bar. Why would you restrict the model such that you assume that any increase in density at any starting level of density would decrease fertility? Why would you assume that without evidence?
      - chrchang523 8y ago
        Okay, I was assuming you had at least a little bit of familiarity with the field. There are a lot of papers which cover this. Starting with a Google search on population density and fertility rate, without including "causes" in the search, the top academic results I get are: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387817300135 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438781... https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981 http://paa2004.princeton.edu/papers/41719 http://paa2004.princeton.edu/papers/41719 The population density-fertility rate assumption was not made without evidence.
- mozumder 8y ago
  Data shows the opposite of what you say. I guess that means you are arguing in bad faith?
  - JamisonM 8y ago
    I am interested in what the data does say, but we should articulate what this discussion is about. I take your post to mean that: - access to affordable childcare increases fertility rates - inflows of lower-skilled workers to an area would increase access to affordable childcare - a way to increase the quantity of lower-skilled workers would be through immigration The 3rd point above I think is trivial to accept, I am inclined to believe the other two points but would want to see the evidence that this is actually how things shake out.
  - chrchang523 8y ago
    See my comment above. I've pointed to data that backs up my conclusion. You have not, and I predict that it will be trivial to tear massive holes in whatever source(s) you end up citing.
- pjschlic 8y ago
  Did you have (even a vague) source for this - I'm willing to search for it given even a vague gesture? I think this indeed sounds like it could be strong evidence, so I'd love to see it. Indeed, I would also think that a high skill population living mixed with a low skill population would have a higher birth rate than a high skill population NOT near a low skill population.
  - chrchang523 8y ago
    You can start from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... and its list of sources, and drill down from there. Remember to subtract births to recent immigrants from the numerator, and number of recent immigrants from the denominator. It won't take long to verify my claim.

sudhirj 8y ago

A lack of good child care options pulls half of all reproductive people out of the workforce.

branchless 8y ago
people looking after their own children are: 1. providing good child care 2. adding value
- noncoml 8y ago
  > 2. Adding value Don’t you think that a PhD in their thirties would add more value if they instead focused on their studies subject?
  - narrator 8y ago
    If the marginal income tax rates were lower sure, but once you add in how much gets taken off the top by the government and how much child care costs, it really doesn't justify most jobs that make less than 6 figures.
  - branchless 8y ago
    What % of people is this? Vast majority this isn't the case. Many degrees are worthless so don't lump them in.
  - wycs 8y ago
    It depends. As we know intelligence is highly heritable and an extremely large component of one's productivity, it may make more sense, in terms of having an impact, for extremely high-IQ people to focus on have a large number of children, especially considering how rare having a large number of children is among those with high IQs.
    - gls2ro 8y ago
      I think the “intelligence” we are talking it is more a mix between nature and _nurture_. So it is not enough just for people with high IQ to have many children. The adult needs to follow their passion/dream/work to develop the intelligence and contribute back to the society.

oldcynic 8y ago

Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.

repolfx 8y ago
Hmm, seems like there may have been a reason for the old traditions after all. The Economist's point is weird/wrong for another reason. Immigrant women have babies too. They can't be both looking after their own children and looking after other people's simultaneously. Expensive childcare doesn't seem like the kind of problem you can permanently fix by just allowing tons of immigration from third world countries.
- friedman23 8y ago
  >They can't be both looking after their own children and looking after other people's simultaneously Why not?
- eloff 8y ago
  I've typically seen in the developing world that the nanny looks after her kids as well, but families tend to prefer childless nannies for obvious reasons. Very often in such cases the host family will help with some of the child related expenses of the nanny. Much like some kind of communal family.
- rock_hard 8y ago
  I guess you’d be surprised by reality buddy, because that’s exactly how my nanny did it when I grew up...she took care of her two kids and me at the same time...it’s like people who have three kids, totally possible and being done everywhere.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8y ago

glenstein 8y ago

>This an interesting article because it reframes current immigration discussions from humanitarian issues to economic ones. I think that's exactly right, but also an unfortunate reflection on the way it needs to be framed to make people pay attention.

branchless 8y ago

Add 10% to the economy, let's imagine for once it's passed onto wages, also up 10%. Rents up 10%. Everyone working longer for the landlords. Gains go to land under the current system. We already added women to the workforce more, rents went up.

fwn 8y ago
The proposition that all gains in productivity are absorbed by rental charges sounds completely off to me. How would that even work? Just imagine: If housing were that great of an investment, everyone would get enough credit to build, making effectively everyone a landlord.
- robryan 8y ago
  It depends how tight the rental market is, if there is a lot more demand than supply it is possible that the full increase would be absorbed in rental increases.
  - branchless 8y ago
    Which is the case in most urban centres, where most people are.

baybal2 8y ago

Once there was a time in Europe when every fief couldn't be more happy to get more subjects for free, and the usual travel restriction was on leaving your place, not moving to a new one. It was the first world war that changed everything. Things like migration control, passports, visas, formal institute of citizenship, all traces to the time when the imaginary no. 1 boogyman was not Ben Laden and "angry Arab guys," but the German Kaiser and "angry Prussian guys" The system of rigid citizenship, closed by default borders, and enslavement to a piece of paper called passport was forced onto the world under pretext "if you would not let us do this, the scary Kaiser will be upon you" This day, it is the permanent surveillance state being pushed into mainstream buy the very same sort of people, and it will be upon the Western countries in no time if that party will not be punched hard in the face with all resolve.

mortenjorck 8y ago
This sounds like the kind of interesting perspective one picks up from a good book or podcast series. Do you have one to recommend on this subject?
- baybal2 8y ago
  Well, this is all my own, near life long, research: what is power, how modern state came to be, and how one can manipulate it. Few interesting factoids from it: Did you know that theocracy vs bureaucracy was not a decided topic in Europe until mid 19 century? It was a single letter of a British envoy to China that shocked the crown so much as for it to institute the His Majesty Civil Service modelled after Chinese model of professional institute of career bureaucrats. Something that is traced to first Chinese states in known history. My grandpa said that every modern state is made by "the 3 grave sins of Chinese people:" 1. Invention of paper, 2. Invention of money, 3. Invention of gunpowder. Indeed, without those there will be no career bureaucrats, no central banks, no conscript armies, and no modern state. And on Prussians, rulers of the old Europe were not as much afraid of Prussian people themselves, than the spread of ideological "Prusianness." Today, the most relevant comparison to them are members of Ikhvan ul Muslimin in the middle east, and how Arab gerantocracy, and nobility is afraid of them as fire. Just as with Prussia, Qatar is not as scare to Arab rulers than "Qatariness" - the virulent Qatari identity. An identity of people who are not afraid to demand their rulers to be rightful, and reward them with great loyalty for that.

skybrian 8y ago

One reason is that people have different ideas what "lucrative" means. Native-born workers often have advantages (such as speaking the language and understanding the culture) that let them mostly-realistically aspire to better jobs. Even when out of work, they aren't going to decide to be, say, farmworkers, which looks like a a hard, low-paying, temporary, dead-end job to them. Their aspirations have priced them out of the market. Of course this isn't universal. Immigrants sometimes compete with other people who have a strike against them. Here's an article about the challenges hiring line cooks: https://medium.com/@foodrepublic/how-can-restaurants-fix-the-kitchen-staffing-crisis-64609d6c3959 https://medium.com/@foodrepublic/how-can-restaurants-fix-the...

0xbear 8y ago

>Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work. I'm sure the same argument was made in favor of slavery way back when it was still legal. After all, slaveowners were free to pursue more meaningful things while their slaves were collapsing of heat exhaustion and malnutrition while working on the plantation. Illegal immigrants often find "employment" at below minimum wage, and in inhumane working conditions, because otherwise what's the reason to hire them over locals? They're also more likely to be abused or mistreated, because what are you gonna do, go to the police? A less harsh variant of this often happens with H1Bs, which I know all too well because I was an H1B myself 15 years ago: you get hired for a job that's way below your skill/pay level, and then you keep your mouth shut until you get a green card, which for some nationalities takes a decade or more. Glorified indentured servitude. If you lose your job - GTFO of the country in 2 weeks. Doesn't matter if you have a child or whatever, GTFO anyway. It boggles the mind that people could be in favor of illegal immigration and H1B abuse, especially if these same people are in favor of worker rights and unionization.

ataturk 8y ago

What if the article is just propaganda? I don’t see how letting 3rd world people strip mine the resources I paid for is a help to me? My wife and I have been in a crisis for months because our son’s school has taken in so many esl kids that nothing is being done to teach him—it is like he got 1/2 a 2nd grade this past year! It is so bad that my wife is now a “former liberal”—America’s kids should come first. We pay the damn taxes. We keep the place clean and decent and nobody is just going to come here and stake a claim to it and run us off so they can turn it into the shithole mess they fled from with gangs and child rapists. Fuck that and fuck them.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]