Category: Demographics

Global low birthrates: the ultimate victory of liberal democracy?

Mexico’s and Tunisia’s birth rates are below those of the United States, which has been below replacement rate for decades. What is going on? Is the evidence suggesting that liberal democratic ideals of how one lives one’s life have spread throughout the world?

The Financial Times has looked at the sharp decline in birth rates in most countries. It finds a common thread in how people especially women anticipate how their adult lives will evolve. Parenthood has lost much of its old social force. Today, adulthood is more often defined by education, career, autonomy, consumption, and self-development. Young people, especially women, may want children in theory but delay them while trying to secure “personhood” — identity, status, financial independence, and control over life choices.

Childlessness is no longer stigmatizing. Traditional ordinary family life feels less attainable or less attractive. Community structures that once made pairing, marriage, and childrearing socially expected have weakened. The result: not just postponed parenthood, but a growing acceptance of childlessness.

The article also points to the influence of social media. “ In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns. Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, says it is “quite plausible that the modern digital media environment has had profound effects on society that have led to a decline in romantic coupling”.

The FT touches on but does not pursue in the factor of declining roles of traditional social associated life, such as religion, and the rise of new associated life that is linked to self-advancement – higher education and urban work. These lines of analysis are found in a research article which the FT draws on. The article says that “the decline in fertility likely reflects a complex mix of changing norms around work, parenting, gender roles, and leisure consistent with our cohort-based conceptual framework.”

Here is what liberal democracy means to the individual, framed in an American context: People strive to enlarge their minds, express their own convictions, and resist passive conformity. Society becomes more inclusive and tolerant, as consumer society opens up visions of equality of conditions, it creates more room for more persons to express themselves more fully.

Impact of deportations on American workers

Has deportation of unauthorized persons made a positive impact on legal worker hiring and wages? Two studies conclude that the impact on native American workers is mixed, and sometimes adverse.  There is no evidence that native workers are getting a lot more jobs and a lot higher pay.

A February paper used a model which assumed that half of unauthorized workers would leave the workforce. It concluded overall that mass deportation gives native workers a small short-run wage bump, but lowers average native real wages in the long run.

In the short run, the capital stock is fixed. With fewer workers using the same capital, the model estimates very small short-term gains.  But it also predicts that more labor-saving capital will be invested.  That would reduce wages in a small way. Again,, this is the results of a model, not actual experience.

But native wages rise where (1) unauthorized workers are heavily concentrated and (2) where natives can substitute into those jobs. In some states, native farming/forestry wages rise much more: California 7.17%, South Carolina 6.69%, and Oregon 6.55%.  the model used an estimate that 35% of farm workers are unauthorized.

The paper: Cravino, Javier, Andrei A. Levchenko, Francesc Ortega, and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar. “The Economic Impact of Mass Deportations.” NBER Working Paper No. 34790, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2026.

A May paper looked at actual labor market behavior. In areas with large increases in ICE arrests, unauthorized employment fell, but U.S.-born workers did not step into those jobs.  The researchers looked at the complementarity of work in construction – that is, the effect of total employment say in residential construction when one labor component (common laborers, roofers, etc.) that are heaving – foreign-born fall short.  The researcher estimated that native construction workers with high school or less experienced a 3% decline in affected areas. The Washington Post summarized this paper as for every six unauthorized male workers displaced, one native worker with a high school degree or less also lost a job. They estimated job losses for native workers in farming, construction, and manufacturing.

The paper: Elizabeth Cox and Chloe N. East, “Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0,” NBER Working Paper No. 35129, May 2026.

 

Pro-deportation sentiment and “sovereignty”

Why does mass deportation remain popular? Here are some polling results and a speculation of what the Trump administration may be politically astute to push the myth of non-citizens voting.  Psychologically, many older Americans likely think that foreign-born persons are effectively “voting”, at least figuratively in how we live.

Recent polls (April and May) show continued support for Trump’s deportation campaign, which the White House says is targeted at all unauthorized persons. An April Pew poll showed that those who say that deportation has gone too far edged about 50% — yet that confirms that even after Minneapolis the deportation effort gets support. In fact, the Pew poll shows that the share of Republicans who say that Trump has do too little rose from 16% in October 2026 to 28% in April 2026.

The majority of white respondents are supportive of Trump’s policy.  Black (69%), Hispanic (65%) and Asian (58%) adults are more likely than White adults (45%) to say that deportation has gone to far.

The voting fraud issue

52% of Republicans say they are concerned that some ineligible people will be allowed to vote in November (link unavailable).

It is useful to see how the myth of non-citizens voting (and unauthorized persons in particular) has been concocted by the administration and MAGA on the foundation of a real, persistent and persuasive concern that immigration overall waters down the sovereignty of American citizens, if sovereignty is taken as a psychological state that can be seized by the visible presence of foreign-born.  A hallmark event of sovereignty is voting.  If you don’t have foreign-born peers your imagination can run wild about voting abuse.

In a 2022 survey, 43% of all Americans aged 18-29 report a friendship network with some racial or ethnic  diversity, but that percentage drops among older Americans to 37% of Americans aged 30-49, 32% of Americans aged 50-64, and 24% of Americans aged 65 or older. This means that relatively few mature white Americans have no way through social networks to discern how foreign-born persons behave. I expect mature white Americans outside traditional immigrant-rich cities grew up with essentially zero peer contact with foreign-born persons.

Thus, psychologically, many older Americans think that foreign-born persons are effectively “voting”, at least figuratively in how we live.

 

 

 

 

How have foreign-born entries fallen — and did they?

I have not posted on  reports that the number of foreign-born persons in the country has fallen, for several reasons: the reports I have seen are aggregate,  not confirmed by the Census Bureau, not tied down to categories, and it is not clear when downward trends began. Only by looking at flows by category can we really have faith in a total number. And any accounting of flows of foreign-born is at best an estimate due to extreme complexity of how the government counts, and the extreme difficulty of estimating all outflows.

It is safe to say that compared to the FYs 2024 and 2025, the inflow of foreign-born has declined by several million – but those years were abnormally high. I think that no one really knows if the total foreign-born population has declined, nor (more importantly) in what ways.

The estimable David Bier has examined some (though not all) categories. This provides important evidence giving credibility to a total decline. The Census Bureau reported in January some flows (here). Bier breaks down into finer categories.

Here are Bier’s estimates with some commentary by me.

Border Patrol arrests at the southwest border.  They have fallen drastically, by over 80%. But the decline happened in the last year of the Biden administration and declined further in the first months under Biden. This should likely be confirmed in declines in new applications for asylum. And indeed Bier says that asylum applicants by persons entering legally into the U.S, have declined by 99%. But the arrested persons had entered illegally

New applications for asylum in FY 2025, about 875,000, was close to that in FY 2024 – 900,000. However, the first quarter of FY 2026 shows only about 70,000 – which extrapolated is 240,000 for the entire FY 2026. This is consistent with far fewer illegal and legal crossings, which I assume account for the vast majority of asylum applications

Recorded evasions of Border Patrol—known “gotaways.” They also fell about 80% under President Trump. But by December 2024 evasions had fallen a lot.  The annual flow (using as always here fiscal years) had plummeted and presumably that has persisted into FY 2026: FY 2023: 670,000; FY 2024: 250,000; FY 2025: 75,000.

Refugees entering legally from abroad fell by about 90%. The number for the last 12 months of the Biden administration (though December 2025) was at an annualized rate of over 100,000; It fell sharply to an annualized rate of under 20,000 and now is capped at 7,500.

Bier does not address entries under humanitarian parole. That has pretty much stopped.

Green card entries. Immigrant visas for legal permanent residents fell by about half. Prior to COVID this in-flow was at about one million a year. Per Bier, this has even affected fiancés and married persons, as visas for them fell by 65%.

H‑1B visas have likely fallen by about 25%. The total number of the change in flow is complicated by the number of family members.

Bier says that international student visas fell by 40% from summer 2024 to summer 2025.  This would be useful data were we to relate it to the number of  international students registered in the  “SEVIS” database – about 1.5 million in 2024 – but current figures are not available. Surveys of higher education do not bear out such a decline in either total international student enrollment or in new students.

Deportations. Bier does not address.  The annualized rate of forced deportations may be in the 500,000 – 600,000 range. That may be several hundreds of thousands than in the typical Biden year. That does not address unreported voluntary deportations.

three key issues in Trump administration immigration policy

To capture in relatively few words Trump’s immigration policy, I focus here on three especially contentious fronts: birthright citizenship, refugee policy, and deportation law enforcement. Each involves not only legal rules, but competing ideas about what the United States is obligated to protect, tolerate, or exclude.

Birthright Citizenship

The birthright citizenship dispute centers on the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868, which states that all persons “born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction,” are citizens. The exception has traditionally been narrow: diplomats, hostile occupying armies, and historically certain members of Indian tribes. The January 2025 Trump executive order sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to unauthorized immigrants and to some temporary visa holders. According to the presentation, this could affect roughly 250,000 to 300,000 births annually to unauthorized persons and another 50,000 to 70,000 births to temporary visa holders, out of about 3.6 million births a year overall.

The pro–executive order argument tries to read “subject to the jurisdiction” as requiring something like allegiance or domicile, claiming that mere physical presence is not enough. This view has little support in American jurisprudence, and there is no substantial tradition of using voluntary allegiance as a legal test for citizenship at birth. The anti-order view is that jurisdiction means subjection to sovereign authority, not emotional or political loyalty. On that reading, the children in question are plainly within U.S. jurisdiction. The underlying conflict is therefore not just legal but philosophical: whether American citizenship at birth is rooted in territory, as in the older British jus soli tradition, or in parental-qualified membership and more restrictive ideas of belonging.

Refugee Policy

The modern refugee system emerged from the forced displacements of World War II and was codified in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Its core definition describes a refugee as someone with a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. A central principle is non-refoulement: refugees should not be sent back to places where they face persecution.

Against that background, Trump-era policy is a sharp narrowing of refugee admissions. Pre-Trump annual refugee targets had ranged from 45,000 to 125,000; by October 2025 the target had fallen to 7,500, with admissions effectively narrowed to Afrikaners in practice. There are several channels of what the public would regard as refugees: protection for people already inside the United States, such as asylum, Temporary Protected Status, and humanitarian parole. Trump imposed severe actions toward Venezuelans, including efforts to shut down TPS for roughly 600,000 people, close humanitarian parole for 120,000, and accelerate the processing of 300,000 pending asylum claims. Afghans and Ukrainians are separate policy cases. Refugee and humanitarian policy is not one coherent system so much as a series of politically shaped exceptions and restrictions.

Deportation and Law Enforcement

Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates in the interior, while Customs and Border Protection is responsible for the borders. ICE’s central role is removing unauthorized persons, but its practical reach is limited by court backlogs, detention space, state and local cooperation, and the distinction between civil and criminal violations.

The legal distinctions matter. First-time unlawful entry is a misdemeanor; repeated unlawful entry is a felony. Simply being present in the country without authorization, such as after a visa overstay, is generally a civil infraction, though one with major consequences. Smuggling and document fraud are felonies. These categories shape who can be detained, prosecuted, or removed and on what grounds. ICE has in the past removed roughly 300,000 to 400,000 people annually and held around 35,000 in detention. Reaching deportation goals on the order of one million annually would therefore require a major expansion in arrests, detention, court processing, and cooperation from states and localities.  Deportations since January 2025 may be in the 600,000 range, but many uncounted may have left on their own. The total number of vulnerable persons may be around 14 million, but the precise number is impossible to estimate and the legal battles are many. Were the administration to deport one million, that will require arresting many persons who have been year for some time and are employed often for years.

Contested court battlegrounds in enforcement include access to private property, the difference between administrative and judicial warrants, detention without habeas corpus, border turn-backs, and the role of state and local participation under programs such as section 287(g). The broader point is that deportation policy is constrained not only by law and civil liberties, but by the sheer limits of bureaucratic capacity.

 

Global migration since WW II in 400 words

Mass rebalancing of population via migration, an altered wealth-and-people equilibrium, a world where technology is making the movement of peoples easier than ever, wars and demographic trends have driven world migration since WW 2. Government policy has been largely deficit. Japan, for instance, is trying to increase immigration in the face of cultural resistance. U.S. policy is captured. by vested interests. Public dialog has been poor in transparency and vision.

Global Migration in the Modern World

Global migration has become one of the defining forces of modern life.  There are many forms of movement: voluntary migration for opportunity, forced migration through slavery or expulsion, domestic migration within countries, circular migration for work, and flight from war, persecution, state collapse, and natural disaster. Since 1945, major displacing events have included postwar upheaval in Europe, the partition of India, the Korean War, the Vietnam refugee crisis, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Rwandan genocide, and more recent conflicts in places such as Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Venezuela.

Why Migration Has Expanded

Migration has grown not simply because people are desperate, but because movement has become more feasible and more rewarding. The share of the world’s population living outside its country of birth has risen from about 2.5 percent in the 1960s to 3.7 percent in 2026. At the same time, remittances have surged, higher education has expanded dramatically, and international students now number about 7 million worldwide. Transportation, communications, global banking, and diaspora networks all make it easier for migrants to move, remain connected, and support families back home.

Channels of migration have evolved: Germany with Turks, France with North Africans, Spain: with Northwest Africa and Latin America, Britain with the Caribbean, United States with the Caribbean basin. Within these channels are narrower ones, such as the migration of educated, talented and politically adept Indians with roots in East Africa into both the U.K. and the U.S.

Policy, Demography, and the Future

Migration is inseparable from aging societies and weak workforce growth in many advanced countries. Fertility rates are now below replacement in most of the world outside Sub-Saharan Africa, with Bulgaria and South Korea standing out as facing severe futures. Countries such as Japan, Germany, Canada, and the United States face labor shortages or demographic strain.  The U.S. – Indian transnational IT workforce grew since the 1980s.  Canada is the best model of an advanced country which as promoted immigration for economic growth as well as being a generous settler of refugees.

Yet immigration policy often remains confused, politically distorted, or poorly designed. The central challenge, then, is not whether migration will continue, but how states will manage it in a way that balances fairness, national cohesion, and human need.

A touch of evil

Documented reports that the Trump administration is thinking of banning the sending of remittances from the United States to Haiti. The article centers on Johane, a Haitian medical student whose life was transformed by money sent from relatives in New York after she fled gang violence in Port-au-Prince. Those remittances allowed her to continue her education safely and become a doctor serving patients in Haiti. She fears a proposed U.S. ban would cut off that lifeline, leaving her unable to provide medicine and pushing already vulnerable families toward starvation.

One third of Haitian families receive remittances.

On March 2, 2025, DHS wrote in social media: “American dollars should NOT be used to subsidize foreign economies.  Four years of open borders under the Biden Administration allowed 6% of ALL Haitians to enter our country ILLEGALLY. Many of these Haitians sent remittances back to their home country — making up 20% of Haiti’s ENTIRE ECONOMY and taking $6.1 BILLION from America.  We will keep fighting to end this. Under @POTUS Trump and @Sec_Noem, our top priority is to put the safety and prosperity of the American  people FIRST.”

(More reliable sources cited by Documented say that $2B flowed in 2021 from the U.S. to Haiti in remittances, accounting for 16% of GDP.)

Haiti is part of the American basin of cheap labor. I looked at how ten Latin American and Caribbean countries are economically dependent on their citizens who live outside their countries. (See the list at the end, below). For the most part, the great majority of their expatriate citizens are in the United States. Since 1960, they make up 20 million or 45% of all immigrants today. They include 4 of the top 10 countries of origin of American immigration since 1960. The American Basin has a blended average per capita income of $17,000. 21% of the citizens live outside their country. Remittances back to the Basin counties are equivalent to 8% of GDP.

Denmark vs U.S. — a valid comparison?

Some are looking towards Denmark as a model for re-setting immigration policy. That country has been in the forefront of center/left parties to approach immigration restriction. Both countries experienced immigration shocks: for Denmark, a wave of refugees in the 2010s; for the U.S. under Biden, a doubling of the annual number of new foreign-born. Here are what is different and what is similar in immigration.

In a speech to parliament, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen portraed Denmark as a high-trust society whose welfare, prosperity, and everyday functioning depend on mutual responsibility among citizens and institutions. She warns that this trust is eroding due to inequality, over-centralization, bureaucracy, and policy failures. Immigration is the most acute strain: failed integration, crime, and parallel communities weaken cohesion, while unfair generalization harms those who contribute positively. She advocates a stricter, more controlled immigration policy with clear expectations—work, law-abiding behavior, and cultural integration—alongside fairness toward successful immigrants. Her broader recommendations include rebuilding welfare, reducing bureaucratic micromanagement (“closeness reform”), strengthening local responsibility, investing in public services, and restoring honesty in politics to rebuild social trust and democratic confidence.

David Leonhardt in the NY Times drew upon Frederikson to express misgivings about Democratic acceptance of a high level of immigration:

“Immigration has often been chaotic, extralegal and more rapid than voters want. The citizens of Europe, the United States and other countries were never directly asked whether they wanted to admit millions more people, and they probably would have said no if the question had appeared on a ballot….Trump won in 2016 and 2024 partly by running on a platform of mass deportation. In Europe, the parties of the far right were long the only opponents of immigration, and they have been rewarded with large gains…..For progressives in the United States, Denmark may not be an especially comfortable exemplar. The cruel aspects of Trump’s immigration policy have understandably outraged many people. But in Germany and Sweden, politicians who once criticized Frederiksen’s approach have since begun to emulate it, and for center-left parties around the world, Denmark offers a glimpse at what a different version of the left can look like — more working-class, more community-focused and more restrictive on immigration.

Their experience with immigration in the past 40 years has been dramatically different:

Denmark’s foreign-born population in 1980 was 3% of the total; in2000: 6–7%; iin 2020; 10–11%. That is a 3 times-plus increase in 40 years.  30% of this population today are refugee households.

The U.S. foreign-born share of total population in 1980 was 6%; in 2000, 11%; in 2020, 14%, thus a doubling. 10-15% are refugee households – a much higher percentage was voluntary immigration.

What further distinguishes the United States from Denmark:

Historic large cities have a century’s experience in integrating large immigrant populations.. The voluntary immigrant population is more confident that hard work gets you ahead. They are more sure (70% to 47%) that their children will prosper. Many recent arrivals hew closely to American role model lives. More speak English, in part because more have learned some English before arrival. They more closely match native-born persons in educational attainment than when immigration spiked intensely in the 1980s.

Where it is similar is in small towns and states wit very low initial foregn-born populations. Expansion of the foreign-born population in the U.S has mirrors Denmark’s – from very low levels in the past – 1-2% in many counties – to much more, and rapidly. For the first 80 years of the 20th Century, immigrants settled along the coasts and the Mexican border. Since then, the immigrant population has risen from under 15 million to over 42 million. The immigrant share of adults has more than quadrupled in 232 counties.

One way U.S. competes to attract foreign students

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows international students to work temporarily in jobs related to their field of study as part of their training.  If the  U.S. wants to continue to attract STEM students from abroad, OPT must be kept viable. It is part of America’s dominance over international STEM education — which is slipping away due to competition by Chinese and English language higher ed elsewhere.

Created by regulation, participation rose from 25,000 in 2007 to 300,000 by 2024–2025. These are the numbers of international students actively enrolled in OPT.

It often functions as a bridge into long-term immigration. During OPT, graduates can work for U.S. employers and seek sponsorship for visas such as the H-1B, which in turn may lead to a green card. Half of H-1B visa holders with U.S. degrees previously participated in OPT.

.The impact on American college enrollment is substantial. About 56% of graduates from 2006–2022 participated in OPT, with much higher participation among advanced degree holders and STEM graduates. 68% of STEM graduates and more than two-thirds of PhD and master’s graduates entered the program.

Here is a summary of the program as presented on the website of Babson College.

The rest of the world, notably by English speaking countries, has grown its international student population very fast. Canada had in 2015 about 350,000 international students. Today it has about one million international students.  Meanwhile, international student enrollment in the U.S. marginally increased from one million to about 1.2 million.  (Go here.)

The program should be viewed in the context of the high presence of international students on campus in STEM education.. Over half of graduate students in engineering and computer science in U.S. universities are international. 72% of full-time graduate students in computer and Information sciences are foreign-born. Until recently the U.S. dominated global higher education in some STEM subjects

 

 

Again, Drivers of global migration

The share of the world’s population living outside one’s native country has grown from  2.3% in 1970 to 3.7% today.   The number of persons born in India who live in the U.S. from from 51,000 in 1970 to about 3 million today. Both trends show the impact of access to and costs of transportation, communications, finance and higher education.  The impact of a global educated cohort on economies and societies is a core aspect of life today.

I addressed this topic in a 2022 posting on seven drivers of migration. Here is more meat on the bone, with India as a case study.

Transportation. Containerization reduced the cost of shipping goods by as much as 90% percent over several decades, linking labor markets more tightly to global demand and in the way creating a mobile skilled manufacturing work and entrepreneurial force.  A round-trip intercontinental airplane ticket that once represented a prohibitive share of income became affordable even for middle-income households in emerging economies. Migration no longer required a permanent break. It could be a real option, be repeated, and allow for circular / multi-country residence and work.

Financial infrastructure. The creation of SWIFT standardized cross-border bank transfers. What once required days and paper documentation moved to electronic confirmation. Digital payment platforms and mobile wallets are now reducing remittances from 6% and some hours or days to well under 1% and instant transfer.

Communication. In 1970, a brief international phone call was expensive and an effort. Today,  voice and video calls across continents are effectively free at the margin, carried over internet networks. Information about jobs, wages, and conditions now circulates instantly.

Meanwhile, higher education expanded rapidly across Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa. University enrollment multiplied several times over, producing large cohorts of engineers, nurses, technicians, and managers. With portable skills and lower mobility costs, many participate in migration patterns that are increasingly circular rather than permanent, linking origin and destination economies in sustained exchange.

Where this shows up most dramatically

Indians in the U.S. For the United States, decennial census tabulations show the India-born population rising from 51,000 (1970) to 206,087 (1980) to 450,406 (1990) to 1,022,552 (2000). It is about 3 million today. Mostly STEM + other high-skill knowledge work: computer/IT, engineering, and other science/technical roles, with a significant presence in health professions and management/business.  My recent posts have shown how entrepreneurial investment in India drew from American experience. The same can be said for Indians in Canada.