IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cdh/commen/291.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Faster, Younger, Richer? The Fond Hope and Sobering Reality of Immigration's Impact on Canada's Demographic and Economic Future

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Banerjee

    (former C.D. Howe Institute Analyst)

  • William B.P. Robson

    (C.D. Howe Institute)

Abstract

More and younger immigrants cannot, on their own, offset the impact of low past fertility on Canadian workforce growth, old-age dependency, and incomes per person. Later retirement, higher fertility, and faster productivity growth are more powerful tools to ease the stress of demographic change on Canadian living standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Banerjee & William B.P. Robson, 2009. "Faster, Younger, Richer? The Fond Hope and Sobering Reality of Immigration's Impact on Canada's Demographic and Economic Future," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 291, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/public-policy-research/faster-younger-richer-fond-hope-and-sobering-reality-immigrations-impact-canadas-demographic-and
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tammy Schirle, 2008. "Greener Pastures: Understanding the Impact of Retirement Incentives in Defined-benefit Pension Plans," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 262, May.
    2. Aydemir, Abdurrahman & Robinson, Chris, 2006. "Return and Onward Migration Among Working Age Men," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2006273e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    3. Carl Schmertmann, 2012. "Stationary populations with below-replacement fertility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 26(14), pages 319-330.
    4. Charles M. Beach & Alan G. Green & Christopher Worswick, 2007. "Impacts of the Point System and Immigration Policy Levers on Skill Characteristics of Canadian Immigrants," Research in Labor Economics, in: Immigration, pages 349-401, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Carl Schmertmann, 1992. "Immigrants’ ages and the structure of stationary populations with below-replacement fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(4), pages 595-612, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Hicks, 2012. "Later Retirement: the Win-Win Solution," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 345, March.
    2. Thorsten V. Koeppl, 2009. "How Flexible Can Inflation Targeting Be? Suggestions for the Future of Canada's Targeting Regime," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 293, August.
    3. Georges, Patrick & Mérette, Marcel, 2011. "Trade Diversification Away from the U.S. or North American Customs Union? A Review of Canada’s Trade Policy Options," Conference papers 332084, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Pierre L. Siklos, 2009. "As Good As It Gets? The International Dimension to Canada's Monetary Policy Strategy Choices," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 292, July.
    5. William B.P. Robson & Parisa Mahboubi, 2018. "Inflated Expectations: More Immigrants Can’t Solve Canada’s Aging Problem on Their Own," e-briefs 274, C.D. Howe Institute.
    6. Gretchen Van Riesen, 2009. "The Pension Tangle: Achieving Greater Uniformity of Pension Legislation and Regulation in Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 294, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 2005. "Population Aging and the Macroeconomy: Explorations in the Use of Immigration as an Instrument of Control," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 135, McMaster University.
    2. Juha Alho, 2008. "Migration, fertility, and aging in stable populations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 641-650, August.
    3. Simon, C. & Belyakov, A.O. & Feichtinger, G., 2012. "Minimizing the dependency ratio in a population with below-replacement fertility through immigration," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 158-169.
    4. Nick Parr, 2021. "A New Measure of Fertility Replacement Level in the Presence of Positive Net Immigration," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 243-262, March.
    5. Pflaumer, Peter, 1993. "Stationäre Bevölkerungen: Anwendungsmöglichkeiten finanzmathematischer und demographischer Methoden zur Analyse des Einflusses von Wanderungen auf die langfristige Bevölkerungsentwicklung," Discussion Papers, Series II 207, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    6. Guo, Shibao & DeVoretz, Don J., 2006. "Chinese Immigrants in Vancouver: Quo Vadis?," IZA Discussion Papers 2340, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Joan C. Micó & David Soler & Maria T. Sanz & Antonio Caselles & Salvador Amigó, 2022. "Minimizing Dependency Ratio in Spain through Demographic Variables," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Nick Parr, 2023. "An Alternative Perspective on the Changing Relationships between Fertility and Replacement Level in European Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 49(2), pages 255-278, June.
    9. Geoffrey Young, 2012. "Winners and Losers: The Inequities within Government-Sector, Defined-Benefit Pension Plans," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 347, April.
    10. Philip Oreopoulos, 2009. "Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market? A Field Experiment with Six Thousand Resumes," NBER Working Papers 15036, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. James Pierlot & Faisal Siddiqi, 2011. "Legal for Life: Why Canadians Need a Lifetime Retirement Saving Limit," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 336, October.
    12. Bev Dahlby & Kevin Milligan, 2017. "From theory to practice: Canadian economists’ contributions to public finance," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1324-1347, December.
    13. John F. Helliwell & Aneta Bonikowska & Hugh Shiplett, 2016. "Migration as a Test of the Happiness Set Point Hypothesis: Evidence from Immigration to Canada," NBER Working Papers 22601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Susumu Imai & Derek Stacey & Casey Warman, 2019. "From engineer to taxi driver? Language proficiency and the occupational skills of immigrants," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 914-953, August.
    15. Sílvio Rendon & Alfredo Cuecuecha, 2010. "International job search: Mexicans in and out of the US," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 53-82, March.
    16. Ferrer, Ana M. & Picot, Garnett & Riddell, W. Craig, 2012. "New Directions in Immigration Policy: Canada’s Evolving Approach to Immigration Selection," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2012-34, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 30 Nov 2012.
    17. Deahoon Nahm & Massimiliano Tani, 2015. "Skilled immigrants' contribution to productive efficiency," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 594-612, October.
    18. Arthur Sweetman & Casey Warman, 2013. "Canada's Immigration Selection System and Labour Market Outcomes," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39(s1), pages 141-160, May.
    19. Sweetman, Arthur & Warman, Casey, 2009. "Temporary Foreign Workers and Former International Students as a Source of Permanent Immigration," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-34, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 22 Jun 2009.
    20. McHale, John & Rogers, Keith, 2009. "Selecting Economic Immigrants: An Actuarial Approach," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-64, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 28 Nov 2009.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic growth and innovation; immigration; demographics; aging;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:291. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.