How do immigrants affect the economy?
Immigration
People migrate inside their own countries and between countries for various reasons, the main one being to simply try to have a better life.
The Economy
But how does the movement of a huge number of people affect how we live and how rich we are as a planet, as a country, or as a city?
Benefits
First off, let's take a look at what's good about immigration:
Increased Population
In general, a city or a country gets richer and increases its influence by the mere fact that more people work and spend in that city or country, which in turn creates more business and investment opportunities.
This is even more clear if the immigrants are very qualified and well-off!
Better Quality of Life
The immigrants themselves will probably also see a huge boost to their quality of life because if it wasn't so, they probably wouldn't have moved!
Costs
While the boost to economic activity is very obvious, immigration can also have some impactful short-term consequences, such as:
Poverty
If immigrants are poor, they probably also lack qualifications and financial literacy, leading them to possibly pass on that lack of knowledge and poverty-creating habits to their children.
In this case, they might also benefit from a State's Social Security before starting to pay taxes.
Inequality
Immigrants can also increase inequality, either by being rich and going to a poor country or by being very poor in a rich country.
Increased inequality can, as we have explored in previous posts, create a lot of problems for society.
Conclusion
In the end, we can see that, while on average and on the long term, immigration is most definitely good, it can still be very hard to embrace, as it carries with it short-term pain.
Do you think your country would benefit from increased immigration as soon as COVID restrictions are lifted?
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