What follows is thoroughly unsourced in its key points, but still, something I was thinking about:
The United States is becoming heavily Hispanic, and we’re told that the newcomers are key to staving off the demographic crisis of too many old people and a low TFR (total fertility rate) among native-born Americans, both simply by importing more people and by having higher-than-average birthrates. See an old post citing a book which split out the TFR between native-born and immigrant women, 2.0 vs. 2.6, and a more recent post, with more recent data from the World Bank, which cites the current TFR as 1.88. This compares, for instance, to 2.2 in Mexico, 3.1 in Honduras, and 3.8 in Guatemala. And, indeed, immigration has kept the U.S. population growing 1% a year or so despite below-replacement birthrates, according to the same World Bank data.
Of course, it’s not enough to have an influx of young bodies — if the immigrants are unskilled and uneducated (and if their children are less likely to be educated due to lack of family support), how will they be able to replace their skilled and educated predecessors? And if we don’t have a new generation that’s as educated as their predecessors, then how can the American economy sustain itself at current levels? GDP isn’t merely about population numbers. And it isn’t about natural resources, or simply keeping existing infrastructure and businesses humming along — if the residents of the United States 25 or 50 or 100 years from now aren’t as educated as today (and don’t start on “these kids today” being in need of remedial classes in college or the like — we Americans as a nation are far more educated than the bulk of would-be immigrants), then how can our country continue to thrive? And certainly, then, the notion of these immigrants supporting our elderly becomes foolish.
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