Vanishing Third World Emigrants? / Timothy J. Hatton, Jeffrey G. Williamson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hatton, Timothy J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Williamson, Jeffrey G.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14785.

NBER working paper series no. w14785

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

This paper documents a stylized fact not well appreciated in the literature. The Third World has been undergoing an emigration life cycle since the 1960s, and, except for Africa, emigration rates have been level or even declining since a peak in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The current economic crisis will serve only to accelerate those trends. The paper estimates the economic and demographic fundamentals driving these Third World emigration life cycles to the United States since 1970 -- the income gap between the US and the sending country, the education gap between the US and the sending country, the poverty trap, the size of the cohort at risk, and migrant stock dynamics. It then projects the life cycle up to 2024. The projections imply that pressure on Third World emigration over the next two decades will not increase. It also suggests that future US immigrants will be more African and less Hispanic than in the past.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2009.