Opinion: US Census Bureau shrinks population immigration

Editor’s Note: Justin Gest (@_Justin Gest) is a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, where he directs the Public Policy Program. He is the author of six books on the politics of immigration and demographic change, including his latest, “Majority minority.” Read more opinion at CNN.

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Last week, President Joe Biden made a diplomatic error when he blasted India and Japan, two critical US allies, for being “xenophobic.” The president attributed America’s success to its historic openness to immigration and suggested that Delhi and Tokyo’s antipathy toward foreigners was hampering their economic growth and population stability.

As tactless as it was, Biden wasn’t wrong. Japan in particular is expected to see its population drop by a third over the next half century.

But a few months ago, the US Census Bureau released new projections showing that America’s own population will shrink after 2080 – for the first time ever.

Only one thing is keeping the country from reaching this milestone next year: immigration.

The continued arrival of newcomers is expected to keep America from aging as quickly as Japan and other major economies. If anti-immigration opponents cut annual admissions in half, the U.S. would begin shrinking in 2044.

The population of all countries changes with trends in birth rates and life expectancy. And like many high-income countries, the US has witnessed a decline in fertility over the past half century. Combined with longer life expectancy, this has contributed to serious aging.

Aging is problematic for two reasons. It promises insolvency if too few working-age people contribute to pension and health care funds that have obligations to support a greater number of retirement-age seniors. Population decline also means the decline of economic power and market size – one of America’s greatest geopolitical assets.

The main demographic antidote to low fertility is immigration. As the working age is disproportionately high and higher fertility rates are achieved, immigrants inject youth, labor and innovation into society, and – if their numbers are high enough – offset aging trends. As Biden pointed out, this has been a core part of American economic growth in recent decades, but also of our demographic stability. Almost all of the population growth in the US is due to the arrival of immigrants, as opposed to births exceeding deaths.

What makes the Census Bureau’s new projections particularly bleak is that the contraction is expected to occur even if the U.S. government keeps the number of immigrants at current levels. And in case you haven’t downloaded Truth Social yet, the current levels are unacceptable for the current Republican Party.

In an interview with Time magazine published last week, former President Donald Trump said he wants to place new arrivals in detention camps and deport millions of immigrants who Census projections assume will otherwise remain in the U.S. — both of which will fuel demographic decline of our country will only accelerate. .

According to the Census report, by 2029, the number of Americans over the age of 64 will exceed the number of Americans under the age of 18. At that point, only 60% of the US population will be between the ages of 18 and 64 – compared to almost 70% in the US. 2010. By 2038, deaths in America are expected to exceed births for the first time. At that point, there will be 13,000 more deaths than births in the US, but the deficit increases to 1.2 million deaths per year by 2100 – double the annual deficit in Japan today.

The U.S. population is expected to peak at nearly 370 million in 2080 before the historic downward turn begins. But if immigration were cut roughly in half, Census Bureau demographers estimate that this milestone would occur in 2044. If the borders were to close completely, as many Republican administration officials are calling for, the decline would begin next year.

The immediacy of this impact should not be surprising. If American population growth can be attributed to the arrival of immigrants, which is now the case, America will stop growing if newcomers are not admitted.

Of course, Republicans’ self-defeating fears around immigration are to some extent inspired by an earlier Census report—the March 2015 report that anticipated a “majority minority” milestone by 2044. The white” population to a share of less than 50% of the population made headlines everywhere. The numbers — which are problematic for a host of reasons — emboldened liberals about their electoral prospects and sparked strong backlash against immigration among conservatives.

Once a bureaucratic issue so unimportant to conservatives that the Reagan administration passed an amnesty for all undocumented aliens, immigration has now become the central pillar of the post-2015 Republican Party. Immigration is the top priority for conservatives running in the general election of 2024, and a drag on Biden’s prospects among independents.

But if the 2015 census projections stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, the recent report could have the opposite effect.

That’s because my latest research suggests that information about the reality of aging convinces people — especially moderates and centrists — to open up their views on immigration.

My co-authors and I surveyed more than 20,000 adults in 19 European countries. A subset of these respondents were informed about real demographic trends, similar to those revealed by the recent US Census report. According to demographers, birth rates in their country are “significantly below the level necessary to maintain the native population.”

The same subset of respondents was also told that even though many immigrants have entered their country over the years, in order to maintain current population levels, the government will have to accept “significantly more immigrants from countries outside Europe with higher birth rates, such as Muslim-majority countries and African countries.”

Notably, despite the appeal of minority outgroups that confuse some voters, respondents in this subgroup were more likely to support higher immigration numbers than those who had not been exposed to news of demographic decline at all.

In Western European countries – where higher minority fertility rates temper the effects of aging – respondents were even resistant to far-right fear-mongering of the ‘replacement theory’ after immigration was portrayed as crucial to the country’s survival. This was especially true for respondents with centrist political ideologies, those over 35 years old, and those with average educational backgrounds.

Rather than seeing immigrants as a threat to “replace” the nation, these respondents were more likely to see them as a way to “complement” the nation.

The findings of this experiment and the Census Bureau report come at a time when American and European political leaders are pushing to fortify their borders. But just as people want a well-managed admissions system, there is also a desire to maintain the national population.

As much as the world polarizes over the arrival of foreigners, demographic aging is an unwavering, intensifying reality that remains unaddressed, and a good reason to invest in an orderly immigration system that will keep the nation afloat into the future.