{"id":407,"date":"2014-06-28T20:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T20:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/06\/demographic-unintended-consequences.html"},"modified":"2014-06-28T20:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T20:42:00","slug":"demographic-unintended-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/06\/demographic-unintended-consequences.html","title":{"rendered":"Demographic unintended consequences?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What follows is thoroughly unsourced in its key points, but still, something I was thinking about:<\/p>\n

The United States is becoming heavily Hispanic, and we\u2019re 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. \u00a0See an old post<\/a> citing a book which split out the TFR between native-born and immigrant women, 2.0 vs. 2.6, \u00a0and a more recent post<\/a>, 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. \u00a0And, 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. <\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not enough to have an influx of young bodies \u2014 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? \u00a0And if we don\u2019t have a new generation that\u2019s as educated as their predecessors, then how can the American economy sustain itself at current levels? \u00a0GDP isn\u2019t merely about population numbers. \u00a0And it isn\u2019t about natural resources, or simply keeping existing infrastructure and businesses humming along \u2014 if the residents of the United States 25 or 50 or 100 years from now aren\u2019t as educated as today (and don\u2019t start on \u201cthese kids today\u201d being in need of remedial classes in college or the like \u2014 we Americans as a nation are far more educated than the bulk of would-be immigrants), then how can our country continue to thrive? \u00a0And certainly, then, the notion of these immigrants supporting our elderly becomes foolish.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Which is all true regardless of what ethnicity the newcomers and the native-born residents are.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But let\u2019s recognize a further reality. \u00a0If the number of newcomers reaches a critical mass, and if they are of a different ethnicity than the native-born, and they perceive themselves as such, as more different than alike, what will happen when difficult budget decisions need to be made? \u00a0When decisions need to be made about healthcare spending for the elderly and education spending for the young, who wins? \u00a0True, the elderly have historically won the day due to their higher voter turn-out, and the old-vs.-young battle has played itself out in terms of education funding as much by segregation, with the elderly congregating in seniors-only Sun Cities, as in tax battles. \u00a0But we will soon be facing serious battles over Medicare funding, and the nursing-home component of Medicaid, as well as Social Security. \u00a0And part of the calculus has always been that the elderly are our<\/i>\u00a0parents and grandparents \u2014 but that won\u2019t be true for immigrants. \u00a0And our immigrants are not coming from cultures with a strong emphasis on honoring the elderly, either, so far as I know.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019re 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDemographic unintended consequences?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What follows is thoroughly unsourced in its key points, but still, something I was thinking about:The United States is becoming heavily Hispanic, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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