Question

A small country reports that the number of people immigrating to the country each year has increased from 1,000 to 2,000 over a decade (10 years). Someone posts this statistic on social media and says that this kind of increase is bad news. But is it really? The report also notes that the population of the country has increased from 10,000 to 25,000 during the same period of time. Use percentages to describe, in another way, how the rate of immigration has changed over the 10 year period. Which do you feel is better for comparing immigration rates over time: reporting immigrants by the number of people who immigrate each year or by reporting immigrants as a percentage of a country's population for each year? Explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

Immigration is a process through which individuals become permanent residents or citizens of another country. Historically, the process of immigration has been of great social, economic, and cultural benefit to states. The immigration experience is long and varied and has in many cases resulted in the development of multicultural societies; many modern states are characterized by a wide variety of cultures and ethnicities that have derived from previous periods of immigration.

Most existing studies of the economic impacts of immigration suggest these impacts are small, and on average benefit the native population.

Comparison of the evidence from all the studies... makes it clear that, with very few exceptions, there is no strong statistical support for the view held by many members of the public, namely that immigration has an adverse effect on native-born workers in the destination country.

Studies show small but more mixed results (negative, positive or no impact), for low-skilled natives.

Cultural diversity has a net positive effect on the productivity of natives. A literature review of the economic impacts of immigration finds that the net fiscal impact of migrants varies across studies but that the most credible analyses typically find small and positive fiscal effects on average.

The net social impact of an immigrant over his or her lifetime depends substantially and in predictable ways on the immigrant's age at arrival, education, reason for migration, and similar.

Increasing deportation rates and tightening border control weakens low-skilled labor markets, increasing unemployment of native low-skilled workers. Legalization, instead, decreases the unemployment rate of low-skilled natives and increases income per native.

Remittances increase living standards in the country of origin. Remittances are a large share of the GDP of many developing countries. A study on remittances to Mexico found that remittances lead to a substantial increase in the availability of public services in Mexico, surpassing government spending in some localities.

Research finds that emigration and low migration barriers has net positive effects on human capital formation in the sending countries.There was found to be a "brain gain", instead of a "brain drain", because of emigration.

One study finds that sending countries benefit indirectly in the long run on the emigration of skilled workers because those skilled workers are able to innovate more in developed countries, which the sending countries are able to benefit on as a positive externality. Greater emigration of skilled workers consequently leads to greater economic growth and welfare improvements in the long-run.The negative effects of high-skill emigration remain largely unfounded. According to economist Michael Clemens, it has not been shown that restrictions on high-skill emigration reduce shortages in the countries of origin.

Research also suggests that emigration, remittances and return migration can have a positive impact on political institutions and democratization in the country of origin. Research also shows that remittances can lower the risk of civil war in the country of origin. Return migration from countries with liberal gender norms has been associated with the transfer of liberal gender norms to the home country.

Some research shows that the remittance effect is not strong enough to make the remaining natives in countries with high emigration flows better off.

Thus increasing immigration is not really a bad news. It's both beneficial and critical to developing countries.

Percentage of increase in immigration to total increases in population =

2000-1000/25000-10000*100

=1000/15000*100

=6.67%

Comparing immigration over time, reporting immigrants by number of people who immigrate each year might make the country think that it's a lot in number and thus a bad news but as compared to increasing population in the country, the number of increasing immigrants is ok. Thus its always better to compare using percentage. In our situation itself its just 6.67% over 10 years. It's normal compared to increasing population.