OnCollege

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Science and immigration

Many people, including members of Congress, think the population bomb has arrived on our doorstep disguised as immigrants. This is not the wave of out-of-control population growth we expected – even developing countries are seeing aging populations and declining birth rates. Scientists studying populations can inform the debate on US immigration policy. Will anybody listen?

Projections agree that human populations will continue to grow from the current 6.5 billion people to somewhere between 9-13 billion over the next 50-60 years barring a global pandemic or very significant changes in current human behavior. At the same time, the number of children under age 4 will actually decrease from current levels while the world adds 1.2 billion more senior citizens. So, the whole world will have the US social security problem: fewer and fewer young people to support a growing number of seniors.

The idea of a perpetually growing human population is starting to look, well, old. Worldwide, annual population growth rates peaked in the 1960s and have been falling. As people have moved and migrated to the world’s urban areas, fertility rates have fallen. In the urban environment, children are expensive and in developed and developing countries, the need for education related to job skills and pay makes children even more expensive. So, families have fewer children. This effect is dramatic in some societies (including our own): many countries in Europe, for example, have negative population growth (their shrinking populations further exacerbate their social security problem).

Scientists estimate that the rate of population growth will continue to decline because of urbanization and the increasing standard of living over the next fifty years. Getting from here to there may be a little tricky. Falling birth rates do mean fewer children but not fewer adults who need some support. And, the higher standard of living may produce more pollution per capita and a lower quality of life even if population growth abates. At the same time, some urban adult populations are seriously affected by HIV/AIDS – a problem of epic proportion in many African countries. Whether the adults will be there when the children grow up is uncertain, as is the kind of adults these children will become if they mature in a society ravaged by disease and possibly unable to care for and educate children.

Can scientists help us with immigration policy? Probably. Global changes in climate, availability of energy, and arable lands for food production are closely tied to immigration. Climate change means more variability in climate, more short-term famine (and starvation), and more problems in some societies. We already know that migration of deserts is affecting climate in Europe. If deserts expand, it is not difficult to predict even more migration pressure, possibly northward (or poleward in both hemispheres). People will simply leave inhospitable climes for better ones – just like the Oklahoma dust bowl of the 1930s.

Is immigration a threat? Maybe not, especially with regard to Mexico and other Latin American countries. That is, southern immigration is not a security threat, but it is an economic necessity. The millions to billions that might be spent securing the southern US border will clearly be spent for little purpose other than political breast beating. This does not mean that we should fling open the doors, but we should realize that building walls and fences has had an undesired effect: illegal immigration has increased. The harder we try to bar the door, the more valuable it is to find avenues around the barriers.

We should also look at the public realities. Increased immigration will likely more quickly reduce birth rates in the contributing countries. They are already headed down. Increased immigration will not take jobs away from US citizens. While politicians like to claim this is so, unemployment rates are already low and have been dropping. If there are US citizens who want to work, let them show up and offer their services – the agricultural industries and the meat packers are looking for them. In a nation of immigrants, why not control an open process rather than drive families into the southern deserts to die?

Dick Pratt is Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York.