A “solution” commonly offered for the so-called problem of population aging is increasing immigration, usually from the third world.
Stephen Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, has today published a piece on the Real Clear Policy website refuting that idea.
To demonstrate his point, Camarota considers two scenarios offered by the Census Bureau: a “low-immigration” scenario in which the U.S. population reaches 376 million in 2060 and a “high-immigration” scenario where the population reaches 447 million by that time, a difference of 71 million additional immigrants. He writes:
Under its low-immigration scenario, 56 percent of the population will be working-age (18-64) in 2060, compared to 57 percent under its high-immigration scenario. Thus, the addition of 71 million people raises the working-age share by just one percentage point.
The reasons he says for the only modest difference is, one, immigrants are not uniformly young when they arrive and they age over time like everyone else. Two, immigrant fertility only slightly exceeds native-born fertility. And, three, immigrant children merely add to the population of those too young or too old to work.
Moreover, despite claims made by immigration proponents, population growth does not increase per capita economic growth. In fact, among all developed countries between 2010 and 2019, the correlation between population growth and per capita economic growth was negative. During that period, the per capita GDP growth of Japan–which had very limited immigration–was higher than that of Canada and Australia, both of which had very high levels.
Camarota goes on to consider other factors such as environmental pressures and traffic congestion. He concludes this way:
Population boosters assume a larger population would be a boon to the economy, even though there is no clear evidence that this is the case. They also ignore the negative impact on the environment, congestion, traffic, and other quality of life issues. There are more effective, less radical, and more environmentally sustainable ways to deal with the challenges associated with population aging than using an ever-increasing level of immigration to dramatically increase the population.
For more see Real Clear Policy.