The false advantages of recent immigration

[visigodo]

While I was in graduate school, I stumbled upon this research paper done by “Borjas and Hilton.” The paper is called Immigrants and the Welfare State, Borjas and Hilton’s article is about, reciting earlier findings that recent immigrants come from low skilled source countries and not only they use welfare programs more than natives but their participation in these welfare programs vary from program to program, suggesting that the assimilation process involves learning not only about labor market opportunities but also about the income opportunities provided by the welfare state through their neighborhood networks. In 1998, almost three-quarters of U.S. immigrants lived in only six states: California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois. In contrast, only one-third of native-born citizens lived in those states suggesting the clustering tendencies, generous welfare programs of these states and the low wages, unemployment are all factors in addition to low skills and neighborhood network.

This article by Borjas and Hilton, also discredit the hypothesis that asserts that when immigrants initially arrive they earn much less than the natives, but as they become more familiar with the American labor market, their earning begin to increase gradually as time passes they come closer and closer to the earnings of natives then catch up, and as they become more assimilated gaining more skills they surpass the natives. This false assertion may perhaps be a legitimate excuse for previous waves of immigrations, but is not clearly what has occurred in the current U.S. wave of immigration. The explanation given is that these immigrants are not random selection of the country they come from, but rather they’re more driven entrepreneurial types. Therefore Borjas illustrates that immigrants are not catching up because you are not tracing the same immigrants over time, what you are looking at is the earning of people at different ages dividing them by two groups of native and immigrants.

In summary:

1) What this paper suggests is that over the past 30 to perhaps 40 years, the recent wave of immigrants to the U.S. has been of low skilled.
2) And therefore use and are prone to using more government welfare programs.
3) Previous to the 30 to 40 years of migration, the U.S.’s past wave of migration came a different type of immigrant. These immigrants were of higher skilled aptitude and therefore on average earned more than the native U.S. population. (Remember WWI, and WWII and other catastrophic events in Europe, that’s the explanation why these immigrant groups where successful)

NOW: Apply this simple knowledge to the typical immigrant which comes into the E.U., and suddenly you’ll see and understand our problem.

I invite you to read this paper when you have the time.

[nordicyouth]

Awesome. We need some common sense on this issue at last...

[alexandrian]

It depends on the origin of the immigrants. For example, Egyptians are the best educated ethnic group in America, and Israelis and Iranians are not far behind. Also, Greek-Americans, Persian-Americans, and Arab-Americans (specificially Egyptian and Lebanese) tend to have higher income than the average American. This is probably due to the fact that those countries are far from America and it takes a considerable amount of resources and will to get to the States. Also American consulates tend to be stricter when handing out visas from those places. Another thing could be that education systems in these countries tend to be decent, with many foreign influences, and that since these nations are Caucasian, the immigrants from these places are mostly Christian (except Iran) and the fact that mostly the elite from those places get to America, probably makes up for why they are so successful relative to the native population.

When it comes like nearby areas like Mexicans to America and Maghrebians to Europe, they are more plentiful in number and its easier to get to, so you find more low-skilled immigrants who usually cluster together. Because they cluster they find no need or will to assimilate plunging them in a cycle of chronic poverty and disenfranchisement, wholly of their own doing.

[Deinokratos]

During that first wave of immigration however, one forgets that there were a plethora of high-paying jobs for low-skilled workers.

and i would be interested in seeing an exact source on comparisons between the level of skill of the first wave of immigrants in the 1900's compared to immigrants at the end of the 20th century.. what accounts for this lack of "skills" what skills did a Sicilian or Slovak immigrant have when they came to the United States in 1925? In my city in the Midwest these people were almost entirley employed by the Steel Industry(my city was the 2nd largest American producer of Steel up until the 1970's) These groups didnt come over as doctors or lawyers or even as machinists, but they often learned these trades by their second generation here.

[visigodo]

Hi Deinokratos,

The study done by Borjas and Hilton is aimed at showing that past migration groups as apposed to recent migration groups depended less on the social programs provided by the host nation. We can debate that perhaps past governmental social welfare programs may have not been as lucrative as apposed to recent expansion of these programs, in other words less money to go around in the 20s, 30s, 40s, as apposed to an increase in these programs due to LBJ and Kennedy and others who were in the White House. There may have also been employment that required less skill as apposed to recent history. The study itself does not go into specific job skills that on average the different immigrants groups at different point in times may have possessed. Although catastrophic events such as the two great wars, as in the case of WWI, and WWII did indeed bring an influx of highly skilled groups into the U.S. This study dispels some of the flawed arguments that certain groups maintain when they argue for an all open border : Such as that, “Immigrants no matter who they are will not only inevitably catch up in earnings to the native population, but will surpass on average what a native earns in his/her lifetime, thus all immigrants provide a benefit to any host nation”. The study showed that only past immigrants for whatever reason maybe, where able to accomplish this. Perhaps it may have been the lack of high skill demand at different times. (Expansion of telecommunications, innovation in biological sciences, the advent of computers, etc…etc are examples of generally recent advancements) Nonetheless the recent immigrants into the U.S. are not able to catch-up, because the shift in the labor demand has changed. The U.S. is no longer focused solely on manufacturing, but rather on more skilled type employment. Leaving the immigrant of today, less apt to catch up and more prone to rely on government programs.

If you are further interested in this paper you may find it on the, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1996.