Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The issues surrounding international immigration has become one of the most
debated topics because it has both positive and negative impacts on the host
economy. One of the biggest costs that immigration may create might generate
would be through adverse effects on the local labor market by crowding out;
increased immigration could reduce wages and exhaust employment opportunities
for native workers, especially for those who are young and have low skills. Also,
higher income disparities could be generated due to the large decline in the income
of low-skilled workers. On the other side, however, immigration fundamentally
changes the age structure, and may very helpful in contributing to a solution to the
demographic imbalance caused by ageing population. Also, one of the most
common arguments in favor of immigration is that it will significantly alleviate
the solvency problem of the social security program because immigrants pay social
security tax, and usually have no parents who are currently drawing on the system.
Of course this assumes that the immigrants participate in the formal economy
(whether they are legal or not) and thus contribute through direct and indirect taxes.
Among U.S. states, Illinois has long been a major immigrant settlement place as
the fifth leading immigrant-receiving state. It has admitted the nearly 0.4 million
legal immigrants in the last decade, an average of 40,000 immigrants per year. The
cumulative total of legal immigrants in Illinois between 1965 and 2002 was
estimated to be 1.3 million. In addition, according to the Immigration and Naturali-
zation Service (INS), over 0.4 million illegal immigrants reside in Illinois, and most
of them are concentrated in Chicago region. Among these immigrants, more than
three-fifths (64.7 %) of all immigrants since 1993 came from Mexico, Poland,
India, Philippines, former Soviet Union, and China. Mexico alone accounted for
nearly one-quarter of all new immigrants (24.8 %). This continuing influx of new
immigrants will account for a much more significant share of the Chicago's
population; now, the Latino population of Chicago slightly exceeds that of the
African-American population and is growing more rapidly as a result of higher rates
of natural increase as well as through in-migration (including both interregional and
international contributions).
Simulations were conducted for the following three scenarios that are
differentiated by the size of immigrants for both regions; Chicago and rest of the
U.S. Scenario 1 assumes that each region admits new immigrants amounting to
0.6 % of the regional population every year, which is equivalent to the historical
average of immigrants admitted in the Chicago region between 1993 through 2002.
In contrast, scenario 2 assumes that only the Chicago region admits more
immigrants (1.2 % of the population, or about 0.1 million per year) while rest of
the US fixes the share of immigrants at 0.6 %. Scenario 3 assumes that the Chicago
local government is more successful and attracts 1.5 % of its population, or about
0.12 million per year. According to these scenarios, the dependency ratio [the
percentage of the dependent old age populations (those
65) to the population in
the working age groups (between 15 and 64)] in the Chicago region is expected to
be substantially reduced over the next several decades. For example, without
immigration, the model projects a significant increase in the dependency ratio
from 19 to 32 % over the next 30 years, whereas new immigrants admitted
