immigration revision cards Flashcards
What are the two main influences on attitudes towards immigration?
Economics and Culture
Economics - Impact which migrants will have on the labour market and welfare system.
Immigrants do on average provide a net benefit to the economy.
Culture - The impact on the demographic and cultural makeup of a region is 2 - 5 times more important than economic impacts.
What is the “zombie theory” in the context of skilled/ non-skilled migration?
A labour market theory suggesting that people prefer immigration from workers of different skill levels, but it has been debunked over time. (Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2014).
Theory is untrue as it is now found all people want highly skilled migration.
According to Hanson et al. (2007), how does the generosity of the welfare system relate to immigration policy?
More generous welfare systems are associated with more restrictive immigration policies, driven by fears of wealthy voters.
Despite evidence of migrants being net contributors to the economy, what tends to drive public attitudes towards immigration?
Concerns about the effect of immigration on culture.
What is the “lump of labour fallacy,” and why is it relevant in the context of immigration?
It assumes a fixed number of jobs, leading to the misconception that immigrants and natives are substitutes in a zero-sum game, which is an overly static notion of the economy.
This is because migrants do not only provide labour, they also consume and as we know consumption can have an impact on economic growth.
using immigration to try and fill the gap between supply and demand will fail. As LSE economist Alan Manning (2021) notes increasing the number of migrants does increase the supply but those migrants will spend their earnings which increases demand which again increases the gap between supply and demand.
What long-term effect on jobs does the passage suggest from restricting migrant labour?
Jobs may disappear as a result of investment in labour-saving technology.
This is shown in (Clemens, Lewis and Postel, 2018). This case shows restriction of the labour provided by braceros did not increase natives wages, but instead incentivised companies to invest to reduce reliability on cheap labour.
what role does the minimum wage play in protecting the wage level of lower-skilled workers in the context of immigration?
and what case supports this? (L&P)
According to Lemos and Portes, The presence of a minimum wage may prevent any wage-lowering effects from taking place.
What impact does a misconception of the level of migration have on attitudes towards immigration?
Alberto Alesina et al. (2023). They found that their respondents greatly over-estimated how large the stock of immigration was in their country. Even though immigration in the UK stood at around 13% of the national population, people estimated that it was over 30%. Such a miscalculation will be driving negativity towards immigrants.
What is “the simple argument against immigration”?
The simple argument against immigration is that if more migrants enter the labour market then this will put downward pressure on wages.
To believe this model you fall for the lump of labour fallacy.
what is said about high skilled migration in banerjee and duflo (2019)
skilled migration poses a greater risk to native workers. migrants with a skill set will be attractive to employers. highly skilled migrant workers could push down wages for natives despite the minimum wage effect presented by Lemos and Portes
