Eastern European Immigrants Boost UK Economy

Voluntary migrants typically move to improve their own economic situation, and despite the fears about them in the receiving countries, the evidence generally supports the idea that they are a net economic gain to the host country. That was certainly the conclusion of a report released today in the United Kingdom by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.

Between 2004 and 2009, an estimated 1.5 million people from eastern Europe came to the UK. It is thought 700,000 of them stayed, with half a million from Poland alone.

During the same period Britain's GDP grew by £98bn, or 7.7%, and the NIESR study says that a 5% share of the £98bn can be put down to the migrants.

Only the UK, Ireland and Sweden allowed free access from the start to workers from the eight 2004 accession countries, which included Poland, Latvia and Hungary.

The last EU members to keep restrictions -- Germany and Austria -- lift them on Sunday.

The UK report suggests that Germany may suffer in the long-term for its unwillingness to accept those immigrants at an earlier date.

The NIESR says the UK probably benefited from the restrictions imposed by other member states. It says Germany will suffer a "permanent scar" on its level of output, with its GDP reduced by between 0.1 and 0.5%.

One of the report's authors, Dawn Holland, says that the final lifting of restrictions by all EU countries will make little difference to the situation.

"Lifting barriers in Germany may divert some Polish and other workers away from the UK", she says, "especially given the relative strength of the German economy".

"But as the existence of support networks for new migrants is one of the most important factors, much of the shift in migrants since 2004 is likely to prove permanent."

China's Census Counts 1.34 Billion

China released the results of its 2010 census yesterday, and the total population number was almost exactly what the United Nations demographers had been projecting--1.34 billion--despite the New York Times story that incorrectly suggested that the UN had been expecting 1.4 billion. 

Ma Jianting, the director of China’s National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news conference on Thursday that the slowed rate of population growth showed that the one-child policy had “eased the pressure on resources and the environment and laid a relatively good foundation for steady and rapid economic and social development.”

But he suggested that the population’s rapid aging was a matter of potential concern. “We also need to pay close attention to the new changes of our population structure, adhering to the family planning policy while cautiously and gradually improving the policy to promote more balanced population growth in the country,” the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

The major trends revealed by the census data are those we already know about--rapid aging and rapid urbanization, accompanied by massive inequalities, especially between rural and urban areas. These issues are discussed in more detail in a very informative BBC Radio report.

Immigration Issues in US Going Both Ways at the Same Time

President Obama today enlisted Latino entertainers to try to "elevate" the immigration debate in the US.

On Thursday, the president invited a dozen influential Spanish-language television anchors and radio personalities as well as comely Latino actresses who have been active in Hispanic causes. Among the high-profile Latinos was Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo, who in 2006 helped mobilize hundreds of thousands of protesters in Los Angeles and across the nation against enforcement-only immigration proposals. Others at the White House were actresses Eva Longoria and America Ferrera and television figures Don Francisco of Univision and Jose Diaz-Balart of Telemundo.

In a summary describing the meeting, the White House said Obama stressed his commitment to a comprehensive overhaul and pledged to intensify his efforts "to lead a civil debate on this issue in the coming weeks and months."

But, in the meantime, state legislatures continue to step in as the federal government has chosen to essentially keep its hands off any change in current immigration practices.

The Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would create criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants who work in Oklahoma and those who smuggle them into the state.

Oklahoma is one of several states -- including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah -- where Republicans are pushing immigration measures reminiscent of the one that became law in Arizona a year ago. The Arizona law required police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the country illegally.

It is still not clear whether these laws will be upheld in the courts. In all events, the two extremes in the debate (deport all undocumented immigrants on the one hand; or provide a path to legal status to current undocumented immigrants on the other hand) are irreconcilable and while the middle road seems easy enough to find, there does not seem to be a will to go there at the moment.

Parenting Taking a Back Seat in Richer Countries

The Paris-based think tank OECD has just released a new report on families in the more developed countries. The results are not necessarily surprising, but they are sobering. In particular, the data show that 26 percent of children in the United States are being raised by a single parent--considerably higher than the average of 15 percent among all the countries surveyed. The Associated Press looked for reaction in the US to the report and found the following:

Experts point to a variety of factors to explain the high U.S. figure, including a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of single-parent child rearing. The U.S. also lacks policies to help support families, including childcare at work and national paid maternity leave, which are commonplace in other countries.

"When our parents married, there was a sense that you were marrying for life," said Edward Zigler, founder and director of Yale's Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy. "That sense is not as prevalent."

Single parents in the U.S. were more likely to be employed — 35.8 percent compared to a 21.3 percent average — but they also had higher rates of poverty, the report found.

"The in-work poverty is higher in the U.S. than other OECD countries, because at the bottom end of the labor market, earnings are very low," said Willem Adema, a senior economist in the group's social policy division. "For parents, the risk is higher because they have to make expenditures on childcare costs."

The study pointed out that the U.S. is the only OECD country that does not have a national paid parental leave policy. Some states have started to adopt such policies, but most parents are offered 12 weeks of unpaid leave. This is particularly difficult for unwed mothers, who may not be able to afford to take time off, Zigler said.

"We have not built in the kind of national support systems for families and children that other countries have," he said.

Baby Boomers May Voluntarily Delay Retirement

The Associated Press has reported the results of a new survey that it recently commissioned among the US baby boomers. The data suggest that boomers are staying in the labor force longer than many had expected, and that they are experiencing relatively little age discrimination thus far.

Nearly half of those born between 1946 and 1964 now work for a younger boss, and most report that they are older than most colleagues. But 61 percent of the baby boomers surveyed said their age is not an issue at work, while 25 percent called it an asset. Only 14 percent classified getting older as a workplace liability.

The first post-World War II baby boomers reach 65 this year. But two-thirds say they'll work at least part-time past retirement age for financial reasons, either because they'll need to or because they'll want extra spending money. Another 29 percent said they'll keep working just to stay busy. About 1 in 4 boomers still working say they'll never retire, and about the same fraction say they have saved no money for retirement. [That's pretty scary!]

It's an important snapshot of the nature of the nation's economic rebound at a time when the jobless rate remains persistently high. Workers from the wave of 77 million people born during the post-World War II boom are sweeping toward retirement age and beyond. Even as the economy begins to grow, the swollen workforce at the older end of the spectrum could mean fewer jobs for younger workers and those who became unemployed during the recession.

A Congressional Budget Office report released March 22 found that while boomers are expected to begin leaving the workforce over the next decade, they may also be retiring later in life than previous generations. And that could "substantially dampen growth in the labor force" through 2021, the nonpartisan CBO reported.

This was the same issue that arose recently in the context of officially raising the full retirement age for receiving Social Security. That saves money in the long-term, but forces people to stay in the labor force longer and creates less turnover. Indeed, you will recall that one of the original motivations for passing Social Security back in the 1930s was precisely to get older workers out of the labor force to make room for younger workers. Nothing is ever easy.