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Immigration And Demographics: Can High Immigrant Fertility Explain Voter Support For Immigration?

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  • Bohn, Henning
  • Lopez-Velasco, Armando R

Abstract

First generation immigrants to the United States have higher fertility rates than natives. This paper analyzes to what extent this factor provides political support for immigration, using an overlapping generation model with production and capital accumulation. In this setting, immigration represents a dynamic trade-off for native workers as more immigrants decrease current wages but increase the future return on their savings. We find that immigrant fertility has surprisingly strong effects on voter incentives, especially when there is persistence in the political process. If fertility rates are sufficiently high, native workers support immigration. Persistence, either due to inertia induced by frictions in the legal system or through expectational linkages, significantly magnifies the effects. Entry of immigrants with high fertility has redistributive impacts across generations similar to pay-as-you-go social security: initial generations are net winners, whereas later generations are net losers.

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  • Bohn, Henning & Lopez-Velasco, Armando R, 2019. "Immigration And Demographics: Can High Immigrant Fertility Explain Voter Support For Immigration?," University of California at Santa Barbara, Recent Works in Economics qt9dk2h7cv, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbrw:qt9dk2h7cv
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    Cited by:

    1. Valerio Dotti, 2022. "No Country for Young People? The Rise of Anti-Immigration Politics in Ageing Societies," Working Papers 2022:14, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    2. Debasree Das Gupta & David W. S. Wong, 2021. "How “Dependent” Are We? A Spatiotemporal Analysis of the Young and the Older Adult Populations in the US," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1221-1252, December.
    3. Russo, Giuseppe & Salsano, Francesco, 2019. "Electoral systems and immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Dotti, Valerio, 2020. "No Country for Young People? The Rise of Anti-immigration Populism in Ageing Societies," MPRA Paper 100226, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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