Towards a sane immigration policy
How many is too many? How many is enough?
In my previous immigration article we answered the question, “do we need immigration?” While the obvious answer was “yes,” we only tangentially addressed the numbers question by eliminating open borders as a rational approach. This still leaves us with two important, and arguably harder questions:
How much immigration is necessary?
Who should be welcomed?
How much is enough?
If we’re not going to have an open border policy (and we’re not), then we need to determine how many people the country needs. It’s important to frame this question this way as immigration should serve the country as much, if not more, than it serves the immigrants. In addition to how many we need there is also the question of how many we can support. Predictability is desired as it allows the country to ensure that sufficient infrastructure (housing, transportation, hospitals, schools, etc.) is in place to absorb the new arrivals. It also enables the government to manage the social services needed to help immigrants integrate into their new society. There’s a selfish reason as well, high profile examples of criminal and radical elements immigrating to Canada, the UK, and the US point to a need for better screening by federal authorities (Border security, CSIS, the RCMP, etc.).
While much of the debate around immigration focuses on “the replacement rate,” the level at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next (typically defined as 2.1 children per woman), additional information is required to determine the immigration levels necessary to maintain a stable population. The formula is as follows:
Running this formula for Canada, the UK, and the United States gives us the following required immigration levels:
Canada – 40,000
UK – 53,600
USA - 334,000
These numbers account for births and deaths but not outward migration so the number of people emigrating from each country must be added. Using the highest estimates available results in the following required immigration numbers:
Canada – 80,000
UK – 455,600
USA - 668,000
Comparing these numbers to actual immigration rates is surprising, to say the least:
Canada – 500,000 or 625% higher than required
UK – 1,200,000 or 263% higher than required
USA – 1,100,000 or 165% higher than required
These numbers seem to indicate that immigration is out of control but is it?
What is going on?
The large differences between “required” and actual immigration have less to do with policy flaws than they do with incorrectly defining the purpose of immigration. Yes, countries need to ensure that their populations don’t decline, but even with zero immigration all three countries would be fine (from a population standpoint) far into the future. Japan, for example, has one of the lowest replacement rates in the OECD and as this chart shows it is not in danger of running out of people.
The main purpose of immigration in the West is not to address shrinking populations but rather the economic issues caused by low birth rates and rapidly aging populations. As discussed in the previous article, the ratio of working people to retirees is declining. The ratio in Canada, for example, has dropped from 7.7:1 in 1950 to 3.4:1 today.
This means that while from a population standpoint we are concerned about births vs deaths, from an economic standpoint we are focused more on workers vs retirees. Ignoring migrations for the moment, all three countries are seeing growing numbers of retirees. On an annual basis each country sees its number of retirees grow by these numbers (new retirees minus retiree deaths):
Canada – 400,000 – 280,000 = 120,000
UK – 600,000 - 480,000 = 120,000
USA – 4,000,000 – 2,200,000 = 1,800,000
Simply replacing these numbers does not help as it would eventually lead to a worker to retiree ratio of 1:1 which is unsustainable. The exact ratio needed is debatable, however as governments never seem to run out of ways to spend money (“free” dental care, forgiving medical debt, etc.), the higher the ratio the better. For simplicity’s sake let’s say Canada’s current ratio of 3.4:1 is a little on the low side and assume that 4:1 is the desired number. This would require the addition of the following number of workers to each countries labor force on an annual basis:
Canada – 480,000
UK – 480,000
USA – 7.2 million
High school and college graduation rates add new workers to the labor pool each year resulting in a rough shortfall of:
Canada – 80,000 to 180,000
UK – 80,000 to 180,000
USA – 200,000 to 1.2 million
At a very high level this is the number of working immigrants that need to be absorbed by each country to slowly bring each to a worker to retiree ratio of 4:1. However, as current data shows that the average immigrant arrives as part of a family of 3 or 4 people, immigration levels must be 3 to 4 times higher in order to hit these targets providing each country with the following goals (actual numbers in brackets):
Canada – 240,000 to 720,000 (500,000)
UK – 240,000 to 720,000 (1,200,000)
USA – 600,000 to 4.8 million (1.1 million)
From a purely numerical standpoint this seems to indicate that Canada and the US are taking in about the right number of immigrants while the UK is probably on the high side. However, the UK loses over 400,000 people to emigration every year bringing the required replacement level closer to the actual number.
Conclusion
This is a complicated topic, and due to time and space restrictions I have had to make several simplifying assumptions. Providing accurate numbers would require a much more in-depth analysis and necessitate untangling such issues as:
Number of immigrants who are actually employed upon arrival (I have assumed 1/3rd to 1/4th)
What is the actual employment rate of people graduating from high school and college
When factoring in emigration from a country, what number are workers vs retirees?
What roles do non-immigrant visas (ex. H1B) play in the workforce of each country?
What factor does illegal immigration play?
For the purposes of understanding the role of immigration, and roughly what the numbers should be for each country this is a good start (however, I think my estimates are on the high side). However, this is just a start. Immigration policy must factor in more than just economic need, it must take into account how many immigrants a country can safely integrate. This means examining existing infrastructure capacity (ex. what is the housing situation), and what occupations a country needs.
Immigration is not just a numbers game though. Immigration policy must also answer more difficult questions such as how receptive the existing population is to immigration, and the thorniest issue of all, does it matter where the immigrants come from and what will be the cultural impact of the desired immigration level? This will be the focus of part III of this series.
Evaluating Immigrants
In the last two immigration articles I answered the questions “do we need immigration?” – yes – and “how much immigration is necessary?” – depends on the country, but hundreds of thousands or more is the likely answer. Today I will address the topic most likely to result in accusations of racism, “who should be welcomed?”
Excellent analysis - but especially at the end: who lives in our country shouldn’t be a mere numbers issue. Man does not live by bread alone- our heart, our culture, should be the primary factor in any policy.
Good analysis.
FWIW in 2016 Canada was offering citizenship to foreign STEM graduates, the ability to work on arrival, and even extending landed immigrant status to the families of said students.