Unaccompanied Minor Children From El Salvador Are Fleeing Violence There--UPDATED

I have mentioned before that one of my PhD students, Elizabeth Kennedy, is in El Salvador researching the reasons why unaccompanied minor children head north for the very dangerous journey to the US. She was quoted extensively yesterday in an article on Politico, helping to rebut the belief held by many in the U.S. that there is some kind of "gravitational attraction" to the US that brings the children here:

Elizabeth Kennedy, a doctoral candidate at San Diego State University, paints a different pictureShe has studied the crisis from both sides of the U.S. border, including a stint now as a Fulbright fellow in El Salvador. All the Salvadoran children must cross Mexico at some point to get to the U.S. — and many are intercepted and turned back by Mexican authorities. Kennedy has collected over 400 interviews by going to the migrant return center and talking with waiting family members and their children once they arrive.

“Most of the children I meet at the bus return center will try again, and some will reach the United States,” she said. “I’m in contact with 20 who have done so since I got here in October. I’m sure others have arrived and have elected not to stay in contact with me.”

“Over 90 percent of child migrants here have a family member in the U.S,” Kennedy said. “Despite these numbers, less than a third mention family reunification as a reason for emigrating. More often than not, their neighborhood has become so dangerous or they have been so seriously threatened, that to stay is to wait for their own death or great harm to their family. Their neighborhoods are full of gangs. Their schools are full of gangs. They do not want to join for moral and political reasons and thus see no future.”

“In only one of 400-plus interviews did a child migrant ask about the DREAM Act and immigration reform. … Fifteen had heard that the U.S. system treated children differently than adults and wanted to know how. In all 15 cases, the child had received a threat to join the gang or be killed, and some had then been beat or raped when they refused to join.”

“Thus, there is only limited knowledge of the way the U.S. system works for children. U.S. legislation is not driving this emigration. A humanitarian crisis is. We need to accept that when large amounts of people leave a country, this is indicative of untenable problems in that country. … Until the root causes are addressed, it’s going to continue.”

‘The reality is that violence — homicide, rape, kidnapping, extortion, disappearance — is at near an all-time high,” Kennedy said of her time in El Salvador. “And it has a disproportionate impact on young people.”

You can follow the progress of her research on her website: http://elizabethgkennedy.com

She was also quoted in today's New York Times in a story about the new flood of unaccompanied minors heading north.

Do Environmental Toxins Speed Up Aging?

It is not clear why some of us live longer than others. After all, studies of twins suggest that only about 25 percent of the difference in longevity is due to genes. Of course, some die of various diseases at younger or older ages, but seemingly similarly situated people die at different ages. One answer may be the existence of "gerontogens"—factors, including substances in the environment, that can accelerate the aging process. This is the gist of a recent paper published in Trends in Molecular Medicine by researchers at the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine and reported by the National Geographic.

Possible gerontogens include arsenic in groundwater, benzene in industrial emissions, ultraviolet radiation in sunlight, and the cocktail of 4,000 toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke. Activities may also be included, like ingesting excessive calories, or suffering psychological stress.

"The idea that environmental factors can accelerate aging has been around for a while, [but] I agree that the study of gerontogens has lagged behind other areas of aging research," says Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

She adds that scientists have become more interested in these substances in recent years after learning that many types of chemotherapy, and some anti-HIV drugs, can speed the onset of age-related traits like frailty and mental decline.

The discovery of gerontogens does not explain everything about aging, but it offers the promise of increasing our knowledge, which then offers the potential for doing something about it. Of course, the immediate lesson is one that the world should know by now--don't smoke.

Will South Korea be the Next Melting Pot Nation?

A rapid decline in fertility was the trigger for economic growth in East Asia--including Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. But the demographic dividend that came with the age structure effects of rapid fertility decline does not arrive without a cost. All four of these countries are facing depopulation because of birth rates that are well below replacement level. There are two reasons for this, as I have detailed before (most recently for Japan): (1) male chauvinism that forces women to choose between a career and a family because men are unwilling to take on domestic responsibilities; and (2) the fear of strangers that keeps these countries from allowing immigrants to fill in the blank spots in the economy. This week's Economist highlights an interesting story in South Korea, where the migration of women to cities to work (and often not to marry) has left farmers without a pool of prospective mates--so they have sought foreign brides. This hasn't always gone well, but things seem to be improving.

Last year over a fifth of South Korean farmers and fishermen who tied the knot did so with a foreigner...Not long ago placards in the provinces sang the praises of Vietnamese wives “who never run away”. Now, on the Seoul subway, banners encourage acceptance of multicultural families.

They are expected to exceed 1.5m by 2020, in a population of 50m. That is remarkable for a country that has long prided itself on its ethnic uniformity. But a preference for sons has led to a serious imbalance of the sexes. In 2010 half of all middle-aged men in South Korea were single, a fivefold increase since 1995. The birth rate has fallen to 1.3 children per woman of childbearing age, down from six in 1960. It is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Without immigration, the country’s labour force will shrink drastically.

The government likes the idea of foreign brides as a substitute for no brides at all, although there is also a concern that the brides need to acculturate:

The government is now tightening up the marriage rules. Last month two new requirements came into force: a foreign bride must speak Korean, and a Korean groom must support her financially. Koreans are now limited to a single marriage-visa request every five years.

The main concern, of course, is that the children of these unions will be discriminated against as they grow older. Still, the article seems to suggest that there is growing acceptance of multicultural families in Korea, and that has to be a good thing.

College is Worth It: Trust the Numbers

Every spring, as college graduation ceremonies come around, the accompanying question is: Was this worth it? Obviously, as a college professor, I am biased. Yes, a college education is worth it because it makes you a better person. But the numbers consistently show that it also makes you a better-off person, in terms of more lifetime dollars in your pocket. Today's NYTimes summarizes data from the Economy Policy Institute. 

The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else reached a record high last year, according to the new data, which is based on an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree. That’s up from 89 percent five years earlier, 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s.

These are obviously averages and not every college graduate makes more than every person without a college degree, but the odds are clearly in your favor if you get that degree, no matter how many people might try to talk you out of it.

When experts and journalists spend so much time talking about the limitations of education, they almost certainly are discouraging some teenagers from going to college and some adults from going back to earn degrees. (Those same experts and journalists are sending their own children to college and often obsessing over which one.) The decision not to attend college for fear that it’s a bad deal is among the most economically irrational decisions anybody could make in 2014.

The much-discussed cost of college doesn’t change this fact. According to a paper by Mr. Autor {from MIT] published Thursday in the journal Science, the true cost of a college degree is about negative $500,000. That’s right: Over the long run, college is cheaper than free. Not going to college will cost you about half a million dollars.

Whoa, doctor! You can't afford NOT to go to college. That's a pretty impressive conclusion. 

Immigration Stories: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The New York Times has a nice summary of recently released US Census Bureau estimates of the age structure in this country. In contrast to Japan, which is generally hostile to immigrants and is thus depopulating, as I recently discussed, the US is a nation of immigrants and it is not depopulating. 

From 1947 through 2010, the largest single age group in the United States was born sometime in the 18 years after the end of World War II. In 1947, that was zero years old — babies who had not yet celebrated their first birthday. In 2010, it was 50-year-olds.

But the Census Bureau now estimates that the biggest such group last year was 22-year-olds. The largest of the baby boom contingents, people who were 53 last year, had fallen to fourth place. The second- and third-ranked age levels were 23- and 21-year-olds.

Over all, there are now more people in their 20s than in any other 10-year group. In 2010, those in their 40s were the largest group.

The bad immigration news comes from Europe, where, as the NY Times reports:

Members of the European political elite expressed alarm on Monday over the strong showing in European Parliament elections by nationalist and anti-immigrant parties skeptical about European integration, a development described by the French prime minister as an “earthquake.”

It is not yet clear what this might mean in terms of future EU policies with respect to immigration, but it's more likely to be bad than good.

The ugly news comes also comes from the NY Times, but this time from day 9 of Damien Cave's trip up I-35 to explore the path of immigrants north from the US-Mexico border in Texas. The whole story is about tattoo shops. Enough said.