Contribution de l’immigration à la demande des biens et services finaux en France

An argument often put forward when mentioning the positive effects of immigration for the host country is that the entry of immigrants would have positive effects on demand and therefore on growth. This paper aims to measure the contribution of immigrants to the demand for final goods and services in France (over a relatively long period 1979-2011). We conduct an accounting analysis using three main sources of data : family budget surveys from 1979 to 2011, population censuses data and national accounts data. We find that at any age, an immigrant consumes on average less than a native. However, the share of immigrants’ demand in total demand is between 7.3% and 8.3%, which is proportional to their size in the French population. We show that the age structure of the immigrant population (over-represented in the working age group where consumption is at its maximum level) allows for compensation. A disaggregation of total consumption by item shows that immigrants have some specific characteristics : they lead to an increasing in the demand in some expense items such as food, clothing, housing and communication. The analysis of the evolution of consumption shows that between 4.5% and 16% of this change is explained by the immigrant population. However, these changes are more often explained by an increase in the population than by an increase in individual consumption, and this for our two subpopulations.