Immigration, integration and fiscal sustainability

Economic theory points out that immigration of even low-skilled immigrants may improve public finances in Western welfare states, and it is sometimes suggested that fiscal sustainability problems in Western countries caused by ageing populations could be solved by increasing immigration. We examine consequences of various immigration scenarios using the large-scale computable general equilibrium model Danish rational economic agents model describing the Danish economy. It turns out that increased immigration will generally worsen the Danish fiscal sustainability problem. Improved economic integration of immigrants and their descendants, however, may alleviate the problems of the public sector considerably. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann     

Welfare reform and immigrant fertility

Immigration policy is at the forefront of US policy discussions, and the use of welfare benefits by immigrants has been hotly debated. In 1996, Congress enacted welfare reform legislation, which imposed strict restrictions on welfare eligibility for noncitizens. However, a number of states restored access to welfare benefits to immigrants that had been cut out in the federal welfare reform law. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we examine whether immigrant women adjusted their childbearing in response to changes in the generosity of welfare benefits at the state-level. We find that noncitizen women reduced their fertility in response to cutbacks imposed by the legislation. Our findings, which prove robust to a number of identification and robustness checks, underscore how immigrants respond to state-level policies and provide insight into the potential impacts of comprehensive immigration reform, particularly the components related to the path to citizenship and access to public benefits.     

Stymied ambition: does a lack of economic freedom lead to migration?

We investigate the relationship between economic freedom and international migration for the 1980–2010 period using a dataset on migration from 91 emerging countries to the 20 most attractive OECD destination countries. We find that more economic freedom at home discourages high-skilled migration, but not low-skilled migration. The negative association between economic freedom and high-skilled emigration also holds when we estimate (dynamic) panel models that allow for endogeneity in the economic freedom-migration nexus. In sum, our findings suggest that high-skilled migration is especially responsive to the economic incentives resulting from economic freedom.     

Legalization and human capital accumulation

This paper presents new evidence regarding the effects of legalization on the training of immigrants who were granted legal status through the US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Our findings point to a large increase in the immigrants’ incidence of training relative to comparable groups of natives following legalization. While training gains are higher for males, wage gains are higher for females. We also show that an important part of these changes in labor market outcomes occurs through occupation changes by newly legalized immigrants.     

Immigration and Natives’ Attitudes towards the Welfare State: Evidence from the European Social Survey

Does immigration reduce natives’ support for the welfare state? Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002/2003) suggests a more qualified relation. For Europe as a whole, there is only weak evidence of a negative association between the perceived presence of immigrants and natives’ support for the welfare state. However, this weak average relationship masks considerable heterogeneity across countries. We distinguish two channels through which immigration could affect natives’ support for the welfare state: a pure dislike of immigrants and concerns about the economic consequences of immigration. We find that natives who hold both negative views react much more negatively to a given perceived share of immigrants than natives who hold neither view. However, there is no clear pattern concerning the relative importance of the two channels. Finally, we find that natives who hold either of these negative views of immigrants tend to be less supportive of the welfare state independently of the perceived presence of immigrants.     

欠发达地区农村居民社会福利认知的影响因素研究——以贵州省为例

对贵州省684名农村成年居民的实证研究结果显示,农村居民在社会问题归因上的社会归因意识较为强烈,在政策优先意识上倾向于经济优先意识,其福利需求意识比较强烈但福利权利意识尚较为淡薄,这表明低水平实践的社会福利在当前欠发达地区的农村社会话语序列中尚未处于重要位置。经济发展水平、社会福利制度背景、文化传统和人口结构特征等不同层次因素对农村居民的社会福利认知均具有显著的影响。     

Family Sponsorship and Late-Age Immigration in Aging America: Revised and Expanded Estimates of Chained Migration

We use the Immigrants Admitted to the United States (microdata) supplemented with special tabulations from the Department of Homeland Security to examine how family reunification impacts the age composition of new immigrant cohorts since 1980. We develop a family migration multiplier measure for the period 1981–2009 that improves on prior studies by including immigrants granted legal status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and relaxing unrealistic assumptions required by synthetic cohort measures. Results show that every 100 initiating immigrants admitted between 1981 and 1985 sponsored an average of 260 family members; the comparable figure for initiating immigrants for the 1996–2000 cohort is 345 family members. Furthermore, the number of family migrants ages 50 and over rose from 44 to 74 per 100 initiating migrants. The discussion considers the health and welfare implications of late-age immigration in a climate of growing fiscal restraint and an aging native population.     

Demographic Change and Immigration in Age-structured Epidemic Models

Immigration might be a remedy against the stress that low fertility causes to demographic and welfare systems. Sustained immigration, however, can alter both the demographic and epidemiological profiles of the receiving population. An age-structured SIR (susceptible-infective-recovered) model with realistic immigration under conditions of below replacement fertility is studied. Equilibria and threshold phenomena are characterized. The immigration profile and the epidemiological features of immigrants affect the reproduction number and the force of infection in the receiving population. Finally, an illustration is given, showing the potential effects of immigration for rubella control in Italy, by considering how the age profile of immigration influences the reproduction number of the disease.     

Coming Out of the Shadows and the Closet: Visibility Schemas Among Undocuqueer Immigrants

ABSTRACT

Centering the experiences of 31 undocuqueer immigrants, this study seeks to understand the ways that undocuqueer immigrants negotiate the boundaries of social performance by revealing or concealing their gender, sexuality, and immigration status. Findings of this study reveal how, in order to avoid the constant threat of rejection (both legal and social), undocuqueer immigrants engage visibility schemas and make strategic decisions about coming out of the shadows and the closet across different contexts. Undocuqueer immigrants’ narratives reveal the ways the closet resembles the shadows in that both provide protection from the outside world, yet neither are considered suitable places for sustaining life. This study raises implications for both research and policy by considering how the intersection of gender, sexuality, and immigration status nullifies neoliberal narratives of coming out as an empowering process and illustrating the uneven landscapes of social acceptance and political control that undocuqueer immigrants must negotiate.     

Popular Criteria for the Welfare Deservingness of Disability Pensioners: The Influence of Structural and Cultural Factors

Research has shown that several criteria underlie people’s opinions about the welfare deservingness of benefit recipients. However, it remains unknown which factors are associated with the emphasis that people place on such criteria. Using a 2006 Dutch national survey on the welfare deservingness of disability pension recipients, we study the influence of structural and cultural factors on people’s emphasis on three deservingness criteria: control, need, and reciprocity. OLS regression analyses show that people’s emphasis on specific deservingness criteria is strengthened by structural factors that indicate the possibility of resource competition such as the following: age, lower levels of education, unemployment, and lower income. However, actual personal experience with receiving welfare benefits weakens criteria emphasis. Cultural factors such as the espousal of views from the political right and the possession of a strong work ethic are associated with a heightened emphasis on deservingness criteria.     

Immigrants and Canadian-born: A consumption behaviour assessment

Immigration has always been of great significance to Canada. This study undertakes an examination of the demand-side impact of immigration on the Canadian economy. Consumption patterns, both aggregate and disaggregate, are estimated using the data base provided by the 1986 Statistics Canada Survey of Family Expenditures. Aggregate results indicate that immigrant consumption spatterns approach those of the Canadian-born over time while the disaggregate analysis provides several exceptions to this finding. While immigrants tend to behave like their Canadian-born counterparts in areas of shelter, household operation and health care, significant differences are observed in the majority of other categories analyzed.     

On Integrating Immigrants in Germany

Immigration to Germany in the decades following World War II made the Federal Republic the host of the largest number of immigrants in Europe. The size of the population with an immigration background is on the order of 15 million, nearly one‐fifth of the total population. (Many of these are ethnic German returnees.) Although restrictive policies and a less dynamic economy in recent years slowed the annual number of immigrants and asylum seekers, the interrelated demographic influences of very low fertility, negative natural population increase, and population aging make continuing future immigration likely and, judged by influential domestic interests, desirable. Anxieties about inadequate integration of immigrants in German society are, however, apparently strongly felt by large segments of the native population. The “Grand Coalition” government that took office in November 2005 considers the formation of an effective policy of integration a high priority. On 14 July 2006 an “Integration Summit” was convened in the Chancellery with the active participation of representatives of immigrant groups. Chancellor Angela Merkel called the Summit “an almost historical event.” Reproduced below in full is a non‐official English translation of a government statement (entitled “Good coexistence—Clear rules”) presented to the participants at the opening of the meeting. Intended as a “start of the development of a national integration plan,” the statement highlights existing deficiencies of integration, especially problems with second‐ and third‐generation immigrants: lack of mastery of the German language, weaknesses in education and training, high unemployment, lack of acceptance of the basic rules of coexistence, and violation of the law. The importance of these issues is underlined by a demographic fact noted in the statement: by 2010 it is expected that in Germany's large cities 50 percent of the population under age 40 will have an immigrant background. The statement recognizes the government's responsibility to help immigrants learn German and become better informed about the country's laws, culture, history, and political system. In turn, it demands reciprocal efforts from migrants living permanently and lawfully in Germany. The original German text of the statement is available at the Bundeskanzleramt home page: « http://www.bundesregierung.d »     

Changes in Trip Duration for Mexican Immigrants to the United States

Using the Mexican Migration Project sample, this paper explores the patterns of trip duration for Mexican immigrants to the United States and the reasons for the patterns observed. I found that the most important factors leading to changes in trip duration are US immigration policy, the conditions of the Mexican economy, and the development of social networks. It appears that the legalization of many immigrants after passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act encouraged short-term migration, but the build-up at the US-Mexico border may have changed this pattern leading to longer duration in the United States. Furthermore, changes in the exchange rate, a devaluation of the peso relative to the dollar, for example, leads to more return migration, as immigrants are able to get more value for his dollars in Mexico. On the other hand, an expansion of networks and resources for immigrants in the United States leads to longer duration in the United States.     

Assessing immigrant policy options: Labor market conditions and postreform declines in immigrants’ receipt of welfare

Researchers infrequently have focused on assessing the degree to which the changes in welfare policy legislated during the 1990s have affected immigrants' receipt of welfare. Using data from the March Current Population Survey, we analyze the contribution of local labor market conditions to the explanation of relative declines in immigrants' receipt of welfare from 1994 to 2000. The results of a series of models that included labor market-area and state fixed effects indicate that employment and unemployment rates across metropolitan statistical areas and states account for at least one-third of the observed relative decrease among immigrants. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Gravity of High-Skilled Migration Policies

Combining unique, annual, bilateral data on labor flows of highly skilled immigrants for 10 OECD destinations between 2000 and 2012, with new databases comprising both unilateral and bilateral policy instruments, we present the first judicious cross-country assessment of policies aimed to attract and select high-skilled workers. Points-based systems are much more effective in attracting and selecting high-skilled migrants than requiring a job offer, labor market tests, and shortage lists. Offers of permanent residency, while attracting the highly skilled, overall reduce the human capital content of labor flows because they prove more attractive to non-high-skilled workers. Bilateral recognition of diploma and social security agreements foster greater flows of high-skilled workers and improve the skill selectivity of immigrant flows. Conversely, double taxation agreements deter high-skilled migrants, although they do not alter overall skill selectivity. Our results are robust to a variety of empirical specifications that account for destination-specific amenities, multilateral resistance to migration, and the endogeneity of immigration policies.     

You can go home again: Evidence from longitudinal data

In this paper we analyze the economic and demographic factors that influence return migration, focusing on generation 1.5 immigrants. Using longitudinal data from the 1979 youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY79), we track residential histories of young immigrants to the United States and analyze the covariates associated with return migration to their home country. Overall, return migration appears to respond to economic incentives, as well as to cultural and linguistic ties to the United States and the home country. We find no role for welfare magnets in the decision to return, but we learn that welfare participation leads to lower probability of return migration. Finally, we see no evidence of a skill bias in return migration, where skill is measured by performance on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test.     

Labour-market status and first-time parenthood: the experience of immigrant women in Sweden, 1981-97

This paper investigates the impact of labour-market attachment on first births of foreign-born women in Sweden. The study uses a longitudinal, register-based dataset consisting of the entire population of immigrants from ten nations and a 5-per-cent random sample of natives. The effects of earned income are evident, with increased income levels increasing the probability of becoming a mother for all observed nationalities. The effects of various forms of participation and non-participation in the labour force do not vary greatly between immigrants and the Swedish-born. Among all subgroups, we find a higher propensity to begin childbearing among those who are established in the labour market. Contrary to popular belief, receiving welfare benefits clearly reduces first-birth intensity for immigrants but not for natives. The similarity in patterns across widely different national groups supports the notion that various institutional factors affecting all subgroups are crucial in influencing childbearing behaviour.     

The fiscal impact of immigration to welfare states of the Scandinavian type

In this paper, we examine the potential of immigration to strengthen fiscal sustainability, which is under pressure by an ageing population in many European countries. We look at a particularly challenging case, namely that of Denmark, which has extensive tax-financed welfare programmes that provide a high social safety net. The analysis is based on a forecast of the entire Danish economy made using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. We present life cycle estimates of the potential fiscal impact of immigration considering the cost of immigration on the margin as well as on average. The main conclusion is that immigrants from Western countries have a positive fiscal impact, while immigrants from non-Western countries have a large negative one, which is also the case when considering only non-refugee immigrants. The negative effect is caused by both a weak labour market performance and early retirement in combination with the universal Danish welfare schemes.     

Generation,ethnicity, and marriage: Historical patterns in the Northern United States

Immigration was a prominent feature of American life during the early decades of the twentieth century. About 40% of the white population was of foreign birth or parentage, and immigrants were increasingly from diverse national origins. Using data from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1910 U.S. Census, we examine generational and ethnic differences in marital timing. The analysis reveals a striking pattern of delayed marriage among native whites with foreign parents, but marked ethnic variation in the extent of marriage delay within the second generation. We hypothesize that locational factors, especially diverse economic opportunities, were important in shaping this marriage pattern. Separate multilevel analyses are conducted for females and for males living in urban and in rural places. Although significant effects for a variety of contextual factors are found, generational and ethnic differences in nuptial timing persist in multivariate models.     

The migration challenge for PAYG

Immigration has been popularised in the economics literature as a tool that could be used to balance troubled PAYG pension systems. Pivotal research by Razin and Sadka shows that unskilled immigration can overcome the pension problem and, further, boost the general welfare in the host economy. However, a large strand of current economics research is engaged in identifying mechanisms through which unskilled immigration, while solving the pension problem, is causing undesired shifts in general welfare. This work shows that recurring unskilled immigration will not only reduce the general welfare but may also be challenging the pension system by reducing the pension benefits themselves. Further interpreting the actual data, it is suggested that immigration policies are designed either based on public finances only or in a political environment of gerontocracy.