Are Concerns over Immigration to Do with Culture of Economic Reasons Essay Example for Free

Are Concerns over Immigration to Do with Culture of Economic Reasons EssayAlmost totally economists atomic number 18 in agreement that immigration has positive economic returns. Indeed in the United States it provides natives with a net benefit of at least $80,000 per immigrant, or as much as $10 billion annually (Bolin, 2006). However despite this there are huge way outs of advocacy groups pushing the pros and cons immigration to the populations of the host countries, with natives having negative views towards immigration (McLaren Johnson, 2007).Through the course of this essay I will examine whether the root cause of these often xenophobic views towards immigration watch root causes in economic reasons (immigrants taking jobs from natives, and flowing to lower fee) or symbolic reasons, where the natives are fearful that the immigrants will bring their culture to the host re unrestricted and cause change. Enoch Powell, the Conservative British politician, gave a warn ing that immigrants were causing such strife that like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much bloodline (Powell, 1969).This turned out to be nonsense, and his advice that immigrants should be encouraged to leave, would consent left Britain, and many other countries that rely on cheap foreign advertize in a horrific state of affairs. Immigrants are now taking far longer to integrate into their host farming and this is upsetting many natives. In the preceding(a) a third-generation migrant, for example in America, would fetch been expected to have shed much of his grandparents identity operator (The Economist, 2008), not speaking his mother tongue and having little truth to the country his family originated from.This is changing as migrants feel loyalty to to a greater extent than one country (The Economist, 2008). For example, Moroc bungholes in Europe, even fourth generation, are encouraged by the political science to identify with the African country, an d are granted Moroccan citizenship under the constitution. As many source countries such as India and China grow intent on gaining remittances from their emigres, migrants even several generations on may come under great pressure to retain some of their old identity (The Economist, 2008).This can all lead to immigrants never becoming fully integrated into the host country, causing social problems such as immigrants bunching together in the same place. due to globalisation and time-space compression, it has bring far easier for migrants to emigrate further away from their own country, this causes problems as they subsequently have little in common with their host country and adventure it harder to integrate into the community.Traveling long distances to emigrate is no longer a problem and in the future there will be the problem of people piteous greater distances and settling among different ethnic, religious and cultural groups (The Economist, 2008), meaning they will have probl ems integrate. Danes in Sweden or Albanians in Greece have little trouble integrating into the relatively familiar societies next door. Even Poles in Ireland prosper, perhaps thanks to the incomers good standard of education and skill and the shared Catholic faith.But Iraqis in Sweden, Somalis in Canada or Pakistanis in Norway typically find integration harder (The Economist, 2008). Samuel Huntington blames this on the great divisions among humankind (Huntington, 1993) that are the differences between civilisations. He believes that immigration will intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations (Huntington, 1993). This leads to a them versus us attitude, with the natives having the xenophobic view that the immigrants are qualitatively different from themselves.As the natives of the host country would have spent time constructing discursive practices that attempt to fix meanings which enable the differ entiation between the inside and the outside to be made (Doty, 1996), they will begrudge immigrants not properly integrating themselves into the community. Research on social identity appears to conclude that identity is highly important to individuals, with individuals protecting these identities even if they have no realistic meaning (Monroe, et al. , 2000). People use these identities to provide a sense of self (Sniderman, et al. 2004), partly in order that they may distinguish between those equal to themselves and those different.The identities tend to have their basis in perceptions of differences (McLaren Johnson, 2007)with those viewed as outsiders thought to have radically different values and approaches to life. The threat posed by minorities and immigrants may be symbolic in nature and may stem from concerns about the loss of certain values or shipway of life (McLaren Johnson, 2007), due to immigrants having a operative presence in the host country.Immigrants also oft en congregate in areas of the host country, London for example has a huge immigrant and minority presence with totally 44. 9% classing themselves as White British (Gye, 2012), in the 2011 census. This all means that natives are fearful that immigrants will cause them to adapt or change their ways of life. Migrants who preserve a strong religious sense that cuts across any national loyalty may be the hardest of all to assimilate into broadly temporal Western societies. In the post-9/11 world Muslims are often seen as world the greatest cultural threat to Western societies.In a modern survey McLaren and Johnson measured anti-Muslim feeling in the United Kingdom. They found that 62% of people agreed with the statement that British Muslims are more loyal to Muslims nigh the world, than to other Britons, only 12% disagreed. Only 30% of Britons felt that Muslims living in Britain were committed to Britain, with 47% feeling that they could never be committed to Britain. 52% of people thought that Britain would begin to lose its identity if more Muslims came to live there.Clearly there is considerable anti-Muslim feeling in Britain and concern that British-Muslims pose a threat to the identity and culture of Britain (McLaren Johnson, 2007). Most economists are in agreement that immigration has very little effect on natives return this should mean that natives wont oppose immigration found on the misbelief that immigrants lower wages. Although conventional economic wisdom states that an increase in supply of grate will lead to a fall down in price, this doesnt happen.Friedberg and Hunt conclude that a 10% increase in immigrant levels in the population, decreases wages by 1% (Friedberg Hunt, 1995). Economist Francisco Revera-Batiz came to the same conclusion, noting that although immigration has increased the supply of low clever workers into the United States, there has been very little impact on the wages of high school dropouts, the lowest skilled people in America (Rivera-Batiz, 1998). One of the most influential studies is Cards 1990 study on the Miami tug market after the sudden influx of 125,000 Cuban immigrants in 1980 due to a sharp downturn in the Cuban economy.Surprisingly the arrival of so many immigrants didnt affect native wages, although it did lower the overall wage level in Miami due to the immigrants being employed in low-wage jobs (Card, 1990). This tallies with the outcomes of other inherent experiments in recent history such as the homecoming of 600,000 Portuguese after the collapse of their empire in Africa in 1974-76, the return of 900,000 Frenchmen from Algeria in 1962 (The Economist, 2008) or the influx of 610,000 Russian Jews into Israel 1990-94, increasing the sweat force by 12% all had negligible effects on native wages.Immigrants dont decrease wages because as well as increasing the supply of labour, they become a domestic consumer for goods as well as services, they create jobs as consumers and direct jobs as producers (Bolin, 2006). A higher total population, ceteris parabus, will lead to the production of more goods and services, boosting the host countries gross domestic product (GDP). In some obsolete cases immigrants can even boost natives wages. Illegal Mexican immigrants, who are predominantly low skilled (Bolin, 2006), have a positive effect on other workers wages (Bean, et al. 1998).This is due to immigration increasing the productivity of native workers by taking low-skilled jobs, freeing higher-skilled workers to work in higher-skilled employment where they can be more productive (Bolin, 2006). Based on the results of a range of economists, using results based on a range of methodologies (Bolin, 2006), it can be seen that immigrants have a small negative impact on native wages, although mainly low-skilled workers. Based on this, natives shouldnt be concerned over immigration levels based on their own wages falling.The popular theory that immigrants come over here and take our jobs, has been shown to hold very little truth, as most studies find no or negligible effects (Bolin, 2006) on employment rates. The lump of labour fallacy is the mistaken idea that there are a set number of jobs in the economy, and when an immigrant takes one of those jobs, it is a job lost for a native. This is incorrect for three reasons. Firstly, by coming to a country immigrants increase the supply of labour and hence reduce wages.In turn, cheaper labour increases the potential return to employers to build new factories or expand their operations. In so doing, they create extra carry for workers (Grinda, 2006), and more jobs are created. Secondly, immigrants are consumers as well as producers. When there is a large influx of immigrants such as the 610,000 Russian-Jews into Israel in the early 1990s, they are in need of goods and services. People are employed to provide these goods and services, meaning more jobs added to the economy, and immigrants simply enlarge the economy.Thirdly, immigrants are 10 to 20 percent more likely to become entrepreneurs and start their own business than natives (Briggs Moore, 1994). In 1999, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese and Indian immigrants run nearly 25% of the high-companies started in Silicon Valley since 1980The 2,775 immigrant-run companies had total sales of $16. 8 billion and more than 58,000 employees (Thurm, 1999). Immigrants not only take jobs, they make jobs. They open new businesses that employ natives as well as other immigrants and themselves. And they do so in important numbers (Simon, 1999).Similarly, the findings by Friedberg and Hunt discovers no evidence of economically significant reductions in native employment. Card, as well as examining the impact of the Muriel boatlift on wages also examined the impact of it on employment. Even though Miamis work force was increased by 7%, virtually overnight, with an influx of relatively unskilled Cuban workers he finds no evidence of an increase in unemployment among less skilled blacks or other non-Cuban workers. Rather the data analysis suggests a remarkably rapid absorption of the Muriel immigrants into the Miami labour force (Card, 1990).Again with immigrants impact on wages, the evidence seems to suggest that a lack of evidence that immigration causes native unemployment. This should mean that concerns over immigration should not be linked to worries over employment. Due to immigrants being disproportionately low-skilled (Bolin, 2006) they tend to have lower wages than natives. It is often assumed therefore that they depend more upon the well-being system than natives. The level of benefits are often higher in the host country than the source country, and it is often suggested that it is this difference that brings in migrants.Borjas coined the term welfare magnet effect (Borjas, 1999), making the agitate that immigrants are drawn to the country with the highest benefits. This however has all been shown to b e completely false, and many economists believe that over the long term immigrants more than pay for the public services they use (Simon, 1999). In the United States most immigrants, including Mexicans, are usually less likely than comparable natives to receive welfare, with the per capita cost of social welfare for immigrants being 8% less than the per capita cost for natives (Bean, et al. 1998).It is plain to see that objections to immigration come from those who are worried about the identity and culture of their nation being eroded, rather than for economic reasons. Immigrants are solving many problems for the host countries, such as the problems of aging populations and those participating in the workforce being increasing choosey about the jobs they do. Immigrants have few economic disadvantages, although high immigration may bring about a small decrease in jobs for the natives, the tax tax income that they bring in more than displaces this negative effect.As the immigrants have little impact on jobs, and simply create more jobs in the economy, disproving the lump of labour fallacy, they dont have a negative impact on wages which is a positive for the economy as a whole. The argument that immigrants have a negative impact on the identity and culture of a nation holds some truth. Due to the fact that a nations identity is made up of what its inhabitants believe it to be, immigrants having different views, can water this identity down.