Immigration Policies Will Change
Could European and United States immigration policies, which close international borders to migrants from developing countries, be replaced by competition for immigrants from those developing countries? A report from the Hoover Institution foresees just such a scenario over the next 30-40 years for Europe, the U.S., Japan and China. The report is titled How Will Demographic Transformations Affect Democracy in the Coming Decades?
The report cites drought, a fast-growing young population and popular discontent with government for triggering Syria’s civil war. A surge of over a million Syrian refugees sought asylum in Europe, fomenting the growth of nationalist and anti-immigration policies. The same combination of climate change, demographic trend and poor governance contributed to the flood of migrants making their way to the southern border of the United States. The report’s authors write this “toxic brew” is expected to impact many parts of the world. “Better governance will be needed in developing countries to help them cope with stresses from climate change and to carry out policies that will reduce migration pressures.”
But the report warns against characterizing these surges of immigrants as hostile invasions, but rather as seekers of safety and security. “Today’s European and U.S. economies need workers, particularly young workers to compensate for the rapid aging of their work forces. Immigration—if well regulated and manageable in volume—represents an opportunity to revive and increase prosperity.” Seeing an opportunity rather than a problem, the report sees “twin demographic challenges” with a common solution.
“The advanced industrial democracies are experiencing a demographic implosion—a historically unprecedented decline in fertility rates, leading to rapidly aging populations and shrinking labor forces. …more young workers will be needed not only to generate the income to support unprecedented proportions of aging retirees with extensive health care needs, but also to keep societies creative and energetic from the standpoint of culture and innovation.”
At the same time, high birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the Middle East, South Asia and Central America, are producing “demographic explosions of children and youth” that stress ecosystems, and worsen desertification and water shortages. Over the next 40 years countries of sub-Saharan Africa are projected to add nearly a billion working age people.Governments unable to cope with the stresses add political conflict to the environmental and demographic impetus for emigration.
The report contends that government policy-making is the core solution to both the population implosion in rich countries and the population explosion in developing countries. “A more open but well-regulated and orderly immigration regime will reinvigorate the workforce of the rich countries and help them cope with the fiscal pressures produced by their aging populations and slowing economic growth. At the same time, such migration will serve as a pressure-release valve for emerging economies” Migrants also are a source of cash remittances back to family members, boosting economies in their countries of origin. Improved governance in developing countries will better position them to lower fertility and reduce population growth, manage environmental issues, and provide more economic opportunity.