Statistics Relating to Immigration Issues
Statistics and studies that back up the good things immigration does - Originally shared on July 31st, 2020
Quick side note before I post this: I'm trying my best to be PC and I promise if I say something incorrect it isn't on purpose, let me know and I'll edit to fix it. Thank you.
This post is going to contain multiple topics pertaining to issues about immigration. I will have statistics and studies backing up each claim I bring up. I hope you all look further into the studies in your free time, I'm just barely scratching the surface and providing you with the main points of them. So, without further ado, let's get started.
Immigration Doesn't Really Hurt Wages
https://www.nber.org/papers/w12497.pdf
• National Bureau of Economic Research paper on the effects immigration has on wages in the United States
• Study contends previous analyses on the relationship between immigration and wages falsely assumed perfect labor substitutability between immigrants and native workers of similar education levels, distorting results
• Research shows average American wages rise due to immigration, both short-term and long-term
• Only native demographic whose wages drop are high school dropouts who suffer a decrease in wages of approximately ~2% short-term, alleviating to ~1.1% over time
• Study finds new immigration does severly impact wages of prior immigrants, suggesting lack of substantiability with natives
• Overall, vast majority of American workers' wages increase from immigration, high school dropouts (<10% of the population) experience a slight decrease which alleviates with time (and there is evidence that immigration may increase native high school graduation rates as well)
https://sci-hub.tw/.../article/abs/pii/S0927537114000566
• Similar research to the above paper, except conducted on the French labor market
• Findings are near-identical; immigration leads to across-the-board wage increases for all except a small minority of low-education native workers
• Reaffirms conclusion that there is low substitutability between native workers and immigrant workers
http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
• Famous research on the Mariel Boatlift and the impact of a wave of Cuban immigrants (mostly low-skilled) on the economy of Miami
• Research found essentially no impact on native wages, despite the Mariel Boatlift increasing Miami's labor force by seven percent
• Even former Cuban immigrants didn't seem to be affected
Immigration is Just Good in General
https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/.../the-effects-of...
• Extensive summary on the effects immigration has on the US economy, with sources
• “While some policymakers have blamed immigration for slowing U.S. wage growth since the 1970s, most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages”.
• “The available evidence suggests that immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic productivity”.
• “Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets”.
• “Economists generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive”.
Diversity Doesn't Hurt Social Cohesion
https://sci-hub.tw/.../10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309...
• Enormous meta-analysis of 90 cross-sectional studies analyzing relationship between diversity and social cohesion
• Vast majority of studies on the subject fail to prove the relationship between two variables
• In fact, study finds positive relationship between inter-ethnic contact and trust in ethnically heterogeneous communities
• Only contrary data shows small-scale (intra-neighborhood) trust suffers with ethnic heterogeneity in some circumstances, and even then only in America
• Plurality of data does not support - and largely contradicts - assertion that diversity hurts social cohesion
https://scholar.harvard.edu/.../files/measuring_trust.pdf
• Study which tested around 200 students in a trust based experiment and compared results from diverse groups and homogenous groups
• Finds no statistically significant negative relationship between diversity and social cohesion
https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2018-13651-001
• Study examining a range of experiments meant to gauge the relationship between diversity and social cohesion
• Study finds all of the experiments found a positive relationship between diversity and social cohesion
• Proposed mechanism is that diversity causes people to identify more broadly with humanity, increasing sociability
http://www.fisherwilliamson.com/dow.../MPSA040508.FINAL2.pdf
• Longitudinal study comparing the change in social cohesion over time in an area which experienced a large increase in diversity with a comparative control which didn't
• The two areas did not differ significantly in how their levels of social cohesion changed over time, suggesting the increased level of diversity had no statistically significant impact on social cohesion
https://sci-hub.tw/.../article-abstract/93/3/1211/2332107...
• Another longitudinal study analyzing changes in trust in 22 European countries between the years 2002 and 2010
• Study suggests immigration often leads to decrease in social trust, but results were heavily affected by ethnic polarization and economic stability
• With low polarization and a good economy, immigration was actually shown to increase social trust
• Results suggest it isn’t the diversity of immigrants which lessens trust, but rather the economic and political context in which they arrive