Immigrants and the Economy: Debates about Sustaining Economic Growth in Post-Industrial Societies.

Developed world economies are concerned with how to create and sustain economic growth in contexts where the population is aging and there are increasing needs for young workers. Can an immigrant workforce fulfill the needs for both skilled and unskilled labour and can an immigrant work force save pensions and social security? Will flows of immigrants provide the new labour force, or will large-scale flows, of especially low skilled immigrants, overwhelm the economy altogether? The debates about immigrant contribution to economic growth and the associated social and infrastructural costs are contentious and only slowly being resolved. At the moment the received wisdom is that in countries with skilled based immigrant policies, immigrants do provide contributions to economic growth, and even in countries which do not have a specific skill-based approach, there appears to be some added economic growth from the immigrant workforce. At the same time there is evidence in the United States and Europe of growing unregulated immigration, the emergence of an unregulated labour market, and growing social costs of unrestrained immigration. The evidence is not in but there are at least two stories to contend with in the ongoing discussion of immigrant impacts and the gains from immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]