In Squaring Off, Zócalo invites authors into the public square to answer five probing questions about the essence of their books. For this round, we pose questions to Ian Goldin, author of Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future.
The subject of migration arouses intense emotions, and questions about the costs and benefits of it have been debated for centuries. In Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future, Goldin and his coauthors argue that migration is of great benefit to most societies and a crucial spur to greater economic growth and global prosperity.
1) In Hong Kong in the early 1990s, even a street sweeper was many times wealthier than the average citizen of the People’s Republic just across the border. What happens to that street sweeper when there is a limitless influx of workers willing to do his job for much less money?
I imagine the income of Hong Kong over the last 20 years is about double, at least, of what it was. And now, with the growth of neighboring Shenzhen and Guangdong, there is competition for labor, so wage are not declining in Hong Kong anymore. Even if the restrictions on travel were eliminated, people don’t want to leave home unless they have a high probability of getting a job. Lots of other factors, like the availability of housing, health services, and schooling, will also curtail movement in to Hong Kong, as it does to other cities.
2) Most developed countries have expensive social welfare systems in place. How are these welfare systems compatible with large-scale immigration of low skilled workers, who lower per capita GDP?
Let me be clear: I am not advocating free movement of people. I do believe that some controls over migration are necessary. I nevertheless believe that societies will benefit from a broader and more open debate about this and that more migrants are generally a good thing. If the US had not accepted migrants historically it certainly would not exist as the country we know today. And that remains the case in California. When you look at the data, for example, on science and engineering in the US, you’ll see an astonishingly high proportion of migrants in forward-looking industries.
On the question of contributions to social welfare, we don’t want the migrants to enter the hospitals as patients, but we’re apparently happy for them to be our nurses and doctors and to be cleaning the floors and working in the kitchens. So I think we need to be consistent on this. I sympathize with those that feel their communities might have too many migrants and that this is undermining their communities, cultures or employment. This is why I think we need a more grown-up discussion, particularly about burden sharing. If the burden is falling too heavily on certain communities, then the state or federal government needs to play a role in distributing the burdens more evenly.
3) You mentioned that migrants are essential to forward-looking industries, and that’s certainly true with legal migrants who come via special-skills visas. But what forward-looking industries are tied to low-skill laborers who come illegally?
Well, it’s very difficult to know what’s happening with illegals, because we don’t have the data. But there’s lots of evidence that the children of illegals–the children of migrants in general–do well. They do better than their parents, and they compete effectively not only in school achievements but also in health outcomes. In any case, the idea that we should have skilled migrants and not have unskilled migrants is inconsistent with what really drives an economy. The US is competitive in part because it has a large pool of unskilled people who can grow or wash the salad, who can clean the streets, dig the ditches for new roads and do child care while skilled people go to work. We’re also going to need less skilled people to push us around in our wheelchairs and to help us in other way in our rapidly aging society. And, of course, the unskilled can become skilled. Unfortunately, migrants face a lot more hurdles in upward mobility than the rest of society, and that’s not good for the economy.
4) If you reduced barriers to migration, that might reduce inequality between, say, Mexicans and Americans, but what if your priority is to reduce economic inequality between Americans and Americans?
Whether migration increases or decreases domestic income or equality is the subject of intense debate, and I think the bottom line is that it’s very variable. There is no strong evidence that legal migration reduces wages. If you didn’t have any Silicon Valley, then California might have more equal income distribution, but everyone would be a lot poorer. I don’t find that a productive way to think about income. Wealth is created by innovation and dynamism which helps both rich and poor people. If the rich get richer and the poor are able to escape poverty, that’s a much better outcome than everyone getting poorer because the economy stagnates. And one argument for legalization is that you know where the people are, they pay taxes for your federal infrastructure, and that allows you to redistribute to the poor. So if you legalize people you would also in the process reduce your unemployment and inequality. It also means you reduce crime, as everyone comes into the criminal justice structure. When a large part of society is in a grey or illegal zone, it undermines wages, justice and the fabric of society.
5) You mentioned that every country has a right to place controls on its migration flow. What do you think are acceptable measures by which a nation may do this?
Well, I’m a firm believer in democracy. I think countries have the right to decide what they want. But I do think that we have certain ethical responsibilities. If people arrive on our shores and we could save their lives, for example, we should. I am a second generation of refugees, and I know I wouldn’t exist if my mother and her parents hadn’t been able to escape from Vienna. We need to apply the same standard to the modern-day persecution of individuals where lives are threatened. That’s the extreme side of it, and it’s a classic area where global agreement is needed so that no country bears this global responsibility alone.
But if we believe in poverty reduction in the world, migration is also one of the most effective ways to help people. It’s about bringing people in under a bargain, telling them we expect you to do the following things, be law abiding citizens, pay taxes, send your kids to school and accept other principles that are important to our society. If you do that then we will welcome you. By bringing people into the net you’ll also be insuring that they aren’t undercutting everyone else and undermining the social contract in your society. I think that it’s part of a wider perspective of seeing them as an enormous resource, as human beings – often the bravest of human beings. These were our founding fathers, they will continue to help our society grow, and we need to accept that and make sure that it works for our society as well.
Buy the book: Skylight Books, Powell’s, Amazon
*Photo courtesy of colddayforpontooning.