International Events Next-

[Zorral]

You can’t even pay people to have more kids
These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.

https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children

Quote

 

.... So far, most countries have tried either asking people nicely to reproduce or sweetening the deal with money. If that doesn’t work, however, restricting people’s reproductive choices may be on the table, especially in more autocratic regimes. In Iran, where the government in the 1990s made birth control cheap or free in an effort to curb population growth, authorities are now cracking down on abortion and contraception as part of a drive to boost births. In the US, abortion bans have not generally been explicitly promoted as population-boosting measures, but some see them that way. New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has linked falling birth rates and demographic change with abortion, arguing that Roe v. Wade was responsible for a dearth of American workers. “We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest,” he said in a committee hearing. “If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this.”....

.... In the US, meanwhile, rhetoric aimed at getting people to have more children can ring hollow given a racist history in which white motherhood has been lauded while Black women’s fertility has been viewed as disordered and suspect, to the point that Black women have been forcibly sterilized. In a country where Black women die in childbirth at nearly three times the rate of white women, it’s impossible to hear calls to increase the birth rate without questioning who they’re really aimed at. Black women have always understood, “You’re not talking about me when you’re saying these things,” said Regina Davis Moss, president of the nonprofit In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. Indeed, college-educated Black women in the US have fewer children than their white counterparts, with researchers speculating that concerns about maternal mortality could be a reason why.

Fears for the future may also play a role in declining birth rates around the world. “Young adults are living in a world which is characterized by many crises,” from war to climate change to the erosion of democratic norms in the US and elsewhere, said Jessica Nisén, a family demographer at the University of Turku in Finland. ....

.... Most high-income countries, including the US, experienced dips in birth rate in early 2021, as people responded to the Covid-19 pandemic by delaying or forgoing pregnancy. But a few countries, including Norway and Finland, actually saw a jump in births.

These countries did not experience particularly high mortality or infection rates, and highly educated workers in particular may have been minimally impacted by the devastation of Covid — while enjoying more free time and flexibility thanks to working from home, Nisén said. There’s another potential factor as well: “Finland is a country where people trust in their government quite strongly,” Nisén said. That trust may have mitigated the uncertainty people felt around the pandemic, and helped them feel secure in growing their families. ....

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Countries with declining birthrates are now dependant on immigration to grow their economies, its Econ 101 really.

Yet the right wingers in each of these countries resist, kicking and screaming, that very beneficial, wealth and prosperity growing gift.

Think about what the increase in a demographic entails when its extrapolated out. More infrastructure and services are now needed, more buisness inevitably follows as the utilities, schools, roads, hospitals and subdivisions sprout up.

Pensions, middle class entitlements like Social Security, these are made stronger from immigration. Yet our pathetic MSM would rather couch the story and narrative as a "Us and Them" storyline, stoking the prejudices and fundamental misunderstanding of what immigration actually is and what it actually is, the way it should be represented to societies, should be "WINNING."

Eta: My paste clipboard seems to be struggling, but here is a fantastic article that supports my opinion point by point-

Immigrants Contribute Greatly to U.S. Economy, Despite Administration’s “Public Charge” Rule Rationale

https://www.cbpp.org/research/immigrants-contribute-greatly-to-us-economy-despite-administrations-public-charge-rule

Edited November 27, 2023 by DireWolfSpirit

[Padraig]

23 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Apparently while there might be a handful of people in the UK government who want to actually reduce immigration, and the overwhelming majority of government departments are trying to increase numbers. This is in direct contradiction to what most voters are asking for. 

Is it though?  This is the nub of Brexit and other similar issues.  What do people actually want?  You ask people do they want to reduce immigration, they say yes.  But you ask them do you want to improve public transport or health care, they will also say yes.  But issues like health care rely on immigration.  So the much more salient question is whether you want to reduce immigration even if it leads to a similar decline in health care (if not worse).

So when you say that the majority of government departments are trying to increase numbers, I would suggest that they are being very rational in most cases because they will point at a survey that says that people highly value the service they provide.  It just happens to depend on immigration.

The restructuring idea is interesting but whatever about anything else, we will need more people in health care in future.

The question is then restated to say that we want to remove the "bad types" of immigration.  But what are those?  People hopefully don't support sending refugees back to their homeland when they are at genuine risk of death or serious harm?  Or I'm not sure of statistics for other countries but I know in Ireland, it is estimated by the Migrant Rights Centre that there were 17,000 – 20,000 undocumented persons in the State in 2020, which is pretty much nobody, even for a small country like Ireland.

So what do people really want?  For issues like immigration it is very difficult to parse exactly.

It gets more complicated when you throw climate change into the mix and governments talk about delaying climate initiatives or reduced foreign aid.  The more climate change hits, the more refugees.  If we don't support other countries (and this is complicated too), the more refugees.

If you want to stop immigration, its like crime, you need to fight the causes, which are massively complicated.  But long term, it is the only appropriate approach.

As for the far right.  Far right political parties are difficult to ignore but i wouldn't let far right mobs dictate anything .  It is fair to say that, iike any other criminal element, they reflect a societal failure (e.g., lack of housing), which should be worked on but that's it.  Suggesting we are doing something wrong because there are more right wing violence this year than last year?  That's almost pointless to speculate on.

Far right wing violence may be something that will never go away for the foreseeable future.  Such people are never going to be happy.  Social media has incited it, linked groups worldwide, and there will always be some issue that excites a few hundred people to violence.  A couple of years ago it was COVID, now its immigration.  If immigration really was "reduced", I certainly wouldn't expect a similar decline in far right violence.  That genie is uncorked.  We might be lucky though.

And solving the housing crisis will help the general environment.  A more equal society will also help.  A lot of things will help but I will agree with HoI in that its hard for governments to look at long term solutions and a lot of these things will take years.

The restructure your society idea, so you don't need immigration.  I'm curious about that.  Japan has taken some steps on that path, as its population is now declining moderately.  It goes hand in hand with no longer constructing your economy to grow eternally (which Japan stopped doing since the 1990s, not deliberately though), which probably is required to become more sustainable.  But i'm assuming this sort of restructure would still require going well beyond what Japan has done.  And i'm not sure what kind of research has been done here (there has definitely been research done on moving away from the economic growth model though).

Edited November 27, 2023 by Padraig

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

What do people actually want?  You ask people do they want to reduce immigration

Well yes, when asked in almost all polls the overwhelming answer is that people want less immigration.

There is a sort of talking past one another in these conversations though because when discussing immigration it turns into some sort of all or nothing debate. The UK population generally is very positive towards immigration, however the issue is around numbers, and the ability to control numbers. 
 

We do need a certain level of immigration to help support services in the UK, but I’d suggest that increasing the population of the UK by 7 million in 20 years ( 4/5ths of that through immigration)  might not be necessary just to supply the NHS with doctors etc. 

In 2022 there were 1.1 million Visas issued in the UK for people to come live here. That does not seem like a sustainable number. Immigration numbers to the UK have been breaking records for years, despite constant promises by governments to bring it down. 
 

It really is not clear that the UK needs, or can cope with those extreme numbers, or that it is proportionally making the country a better place. I’m sure Ireland is thinking the same thing. 
 

This is also generally a conversation couched in economics, and governments are too often measured in GDP metrics above all else. We saw with Brexit that voters are willing to give up some economic benefits for control and a democratic say. Unfortunately it just seems that governments are not really listening. The Tories might distract people with ‘boat week’ but it’s mainly to divert attention from enormous immigration numbers, which are there for economic benefit. 
 

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

Far right political parties are difficult to ignore but i wouldn't let far right mobs dictate anything

Im not suggesting this letting far right parties decide things, or about giving in to them. My point is that by ignoring the wishes of the population and making it seem like they have no democratic method of changing policy, they will see support from someone who is willing to do something. 
 

Thats the problem with the immigration debate, the slightly patronising tone of ‘take your medicine’ to the general public, as if they don’t actually know what they want, government knows best. If people are treated like that then they will react. 

[Padraig]

44 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well yes, when asked in almost all polls the overwhelming answer is that people want less immigration.

Is that not what I said?

47 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

We saw with Brexit that voters are willing to give up some economic benefits for control and a democratic say.

You should know this far better than I but I don't believe that was the main argument.  Wasn't it that everything was better with Brexit?  Hindsight is different.

There probably are some differences between Ireland and the UK on this subject generally.  For years now, it has been hammered home that the source of our economic success is significant international inward investment (in money and people).  Up to now, we haven't had this obsession with immigration as in the UK (i.e., witness Brexit).

Quote

My point is that by ignoring the wishes of the population and making it seem like they have no democratic method of changing policy, they will see support from someone who is willing to do something. 

As I said, people have responded to the most overriding issue in Ireland by moving left.  But that issue is housing, not immigration.  When immigration comes up, it is often framed in relation to how it makes the housing crisis worse.

I can buy the idea that the Tories made a promise on immigration without any idea how to deliver it (if that is what you are saying).  But i'm not sure the promise is achievable.  We just keep coming back to "we want less" of it, without any real details or plan.  Unless Rwanda is the plan.  I don't really follow all that.

[Kalbear]

As usual people mistake an affirmation ("less immigration is better") with a priority ("therefore if you don't reduce immigration it is the worst thing"). I'm willing to bet people want less immigration. What I also am willing to bet is that it doesn't matter that much to most people.

It's a good indicator of how actual real immigrant pressure will swing people - when more refugees, more climate change, more war happens - but it doesn't mean very much right now.

[kissdbyfire]

Not to mention that a whole lot of people who answer surveys or whathaveyou and say they want less immigration are saying that based on lies they've been fed by their dear leaders. 

"Your life is terrible because those Others have your job and your doctor's appointment" and so on. 

[Heartofice]

8 hours ago, Padraig said:

Is that not what I said?

I was emphasising the point that the question isn't about immigration vs no immigration. It's about the numbers. Often I see the argument being made for immigration as if the actual numbers are unimportant, you either want immigration or you don't.

So the question is, how much immigration is necessary to maintain public services and standard of living. I would bet that the UK does not need to add half a million people to it's population every year just to keep the lights on. And yet that is what is happening. So there is a level of immigration above that needed by the country, how much above is a question to ask, but in reality that question does not get asked because immigration debates are framed as an all or nothing problem.

8 hours ago, Padraig said:

You should know this far better than I but I don't believe that was the main argument.  Wasn't it that everything was better with Brexit?  Hindsight is differe

Well no, actually control of immigration was the main driver of the Brexit vote, the second driver was democratic control of laws. 

8 hours ago, Padraig said:

I can buy the idea that the Tories made a promise on immigration without any idea how to deliver it (if that is what you are saying).  But i'm not sure the promise is achievable.  We just keep coming back to "we want less" of it, without any real details or plan.  Unless Rwanda is the plan.  I don't really follow all that.

How is it unachievable? Firstly I'm not sure why you bring Rwanda into it. I don't know if this is by accident or on purpose but often illegal and legal migration gets lumped together and it just confuses the argument. Illegal migration into the UK is still pretty high, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to legal migration. The UK government absolutely can control the numbers of people allowed to live in the country ( something they couldn't do pre-Brexit) and yet the British government has increased immigration instead of reducing it. 

Even with illegal immigration, it is also possible to reduce it and control it. Rwanda isn't a good plan, but as an australian example, deterrents absolutely do work. 
 

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

As usual people mistake an affirmation ("less immigration is better") with a priority ("therefore if you don't reduce immigration it is the worst thing"). I'm willing to bet people want less immigration. What I also am willing to bet is that it doesn't matter that much to most people.

 

7 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Not to mention that a whole lot of people who answer surveys or whathaveyou and say they want less immigration are saying that based on lies they've been fed by their dear leaders. 

"Your life is terrible because those Others have your job and your doctor's appointment" and so on. 

Just wanted to highlight these two answers because they are so telling. This is the standard response to the immigration question from those in a certain social class, and it's reflective of how the government think about it as well. 

'You only THINK you want less immigration.. you don't REALLY want less immigration, I'm telling you'
'You only THINK you want less immigration because you are so thick and easily led and the right wing press can just trick you into thinking whatever they want' 

The reality is people have their own minds, and maybe quite a lot of people can see with their own eyes the rapid change in their area, they can see that nobody where they live speaks English as a first language, where entire areas have become isolated foreign communities overnight, they can see half a million people being added to the country each year with no equal effort to build schools, houses and hospitals to cope with it all. Why do we need so many now when only 20 years ago we seemed to survive on much much less?

Of course we can just keep telling people that they are wrong, that they are just being manipulated by Murdoch or something, or maybe actually listening would be a good idea. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Heartofice

[Padraig]

18 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just wanted to highlight these two answers because they are so telling. This is the standard response to the immigration question from those in a certain social class, and it's reflective of how the government think about it as well. 

This probably highlights how we view things differently.  From my perspective, people are complicated and those responses you are criticising are just trying to add nuance to the discussion.  Instead, you are banking the "immigration must be reduced significantly" line, without seeing the purpose of exploring those views further.

I don't know how many immigrants the UK "needs".  That sounds like something that should be researched.  Especially since you are mainly focused on the "controllable" quantities.

26 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well no, actually control of immigration was the main driver of the Brexit vote, the second driver was democratic control of laws. 

However you choose the define it, I don't believe it was a question at that time of GDP growth v Brexit.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Padraig said:

This probably highlights how we view things differently.  From my perspective, people are complicated and those responses you are criticising are just trying to add nuance to the discussion. 

I disagree actually, the responses I'm criticising don't appear to have nuance. There is just a general assumption that all immigration is a positive and therefore necessary, my point is I don't think that is true and that is clearly a limit to how many people a country can take in a small amount of time to whether the negatives outweigh the benefits.
 

6 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Instead, you are banking the "immigration must be reduced significantly" line, without seeing the purpose of exploring those views further.

How am I not exploring those views further?

6 minutes ago, Padraig said:

However you choose the define it, I don't believe it was a question at that time of GDP growth v Brexit.

There is enough polling to suggest that people were willing to take an economic hit if it meant reducing immigration and taking back control from Brussels. Those were their main priorities.

 

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

 

 

 

Just wanted to highlight these two answers because they are so telling. This is the standard response to the immigration question from those in a certain social class, and it's reflective of how the government think about it as well. 

'You only THINK you want less immigration.. you don't REALLY want less immigration, I'm telling you'
'You only THINK you want less immigration because you are so thick and easily led and the right wing press can just trick you into thinking whatever they want' 

The reality is people have their own minds, and maybe quite a lot of people can see with their own eyes the rapid change in their area, they can see that nobody where they live speaks English as a first language, where entire areas have become isolated foreign communities overnight, they can see half a million people being added to the country each year with no equal effort to build schools, houses and hospitals to cope with it all. Why do we need so many now when only 20 years ago we seemed to survive on much much less?

 

And i just want to highlight that this isn't what I said, at all. Maybe argue with people.wjo said that? 

[Heartofice]

14 hours ago, Kalbear said:

What I also am willing to bet is that it doesn't matter that much to most people.

So when you said that you don't think immigration doesn't matter that much to people, despite them continuously saying that it is.. what do you actually think you are doing?

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So when you said that you don't think immigration doesn't matter that much to people, despite them continuously saying that it is.. what do you actually think you are doing?

Ii think I said what I meant - which is that a whole lot of people say they would like less immigration, and for a whole lot of people that is not their main priority issue.

What I said is that people - like you - often see someone saying that an issue is preferenced on their side and then assume (as you did) that it is their most important thing. Liberals in the US do this all the time - looking at some poll that indicates most people want tougher gun laws and ask why people vote against their interests. The answer is easy - they don't, it just turns out other things are more important to them.

[Heartofice]

54 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ii think I said what I meant - which is that a whole lot of people say they would like less immigration, and for a whole lot of people that is not their main priority issue.

What I said is that people - like you - often see someone saying that an issue is preferenced on their side and then assume (as you did) that it is their most important thing. Liberals in the US do this all the time - looking at some poll that indicates most people want tougher gun laws and ask why people vote against their interests. The answer is easy - they don't, it just turns out other things are more important to them.

 How important an issue something is seen to be will depend on a number of things. If you look at UK polling on immigration it obviously fluctuates, after the opening of EU borders to Romania and Bulgaria and the large influx from those countries immigration became a much bigger issue for people, right up to the Brexit vote. From that point it became less of an issue because, not only because it was seen that the UK could once again control it's borders, but because other issues like Covid became more important.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/

But it is becoming much more of an important issue again, and recent numbers released will feed through to peoples consciousness and it will again become a major issue. 

My point is that immigration IS an issue for people, it will always be an issue whilst numbers are too high. Trying to tell people that they actually do not care about it is simply patronising. 

[Kalbear]

Sure, and since I didn't say that I don't get why you wanted to argue the point. I even said that this is a good indicator that as refugee crisis and wars and climate change get worse people will go in the way you prefer- xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry.

But I still didn't say anything about them being wrong in their stated preference. Fear of others is an unfortunate natural part of humanity. It is often quite harmful to the people fearing it and is usually much worse for the nation, but it absolutely exists as a driver for people.

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Sure, and since I didn't say that I don't get why you wanted to argue the point. I even said that this is a good indicator that as refugee crisis and wars and climate change get worse people will go in the way you prefer- xenophobia, nationalism and bigotry.

Ok well if you maintain that wasn't what you were saying then sure. 

Not sure why you think I'd prefer xenophobia nationalism and bigotry.. I'm arguing for the opposite. If you want less of those things, don't provoke people into supporting parties / factions because you refused to listen to what people wanted.

[Padraig]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

There is enough polling to suggest that people were willing to take an economic hit if it meant reducing immigration and taking back control from Brussels. Those were their main priorities.

But was this polling done before the referendum or after the economic hit?  It is still interesting if the polling was after the economic hit but it would be much more powerful if it was before.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

My point is that immigration IS an issue for people, it will always be an issue whilst numbers are too high. Trying to tell people that they actually do not care about it is simply patronising. 

I am surprised that there isn't more research on this.  We all agree that it isn't a binary issue (i.e. no immigration restrictions versus no immigration).  So the only question is about quantities required and economic consequences of choosing specific quantities.

Right now, people think the other side are patronising because they are making assumptions about the nuances around immigration.  But both sides don't seem to know enough (from my perspective anyhow). 

Except that I don't think it is much of an assumption to say that immigration will increase in future years given worldwide trends around climate change.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Ok well if you maintain that wasn't what you were saying then sure. 

Not sure why you think I'd prefer xenophobia nationalism and bigotry.. I'm arguing for the opposite. If you want less of those things, don't provoke people into supporting parties / factions because you refused to listen to what people wanted.

I figure you want less immigration and have so far not pointed out any reasons for supporting that other than 'many people say they want less immigration'. When it's pointed out that immigration in general has major benefits you...don't really counter on that, other than to say that people apparently fear other people moving into their neighborhoods. Which is a reason, but it's a reason based on xenophobia, bigotry and nationalism. 

And listening to people wanting less immigration without actual policy reasons why is supporting xenophobia, bigotry and nationalism. 

[Gorn]

9 hours ago, Heartofice said:

There is enough polling to suggest that people were willing to take an economic hit if it meant reducing immigration and taking back control from Brussels. Those were their main priorities.

Brexit was specifically sold as something that would both reduce immigration and improve economy (see the Big Bus of Lies).

UK would stop sending money to EU, there would be no negative economic consequences whatsoever (the economy would actually grow due to all these new free-trade agreements), and after Brexit there would be more money left for the needs of UK taxpayers.

Edit: this should have been the response to another post of yours, fixed it.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Gorn

[Heartofice]

16 hours ago, Padraig said:

But was this polling done before the referendum or after the economic hit?  It is still interesting if the polling was after the economic hit but it would be much more powerful if it was before.

I think there has been quite a bit of polling since the referendum. Here is is one:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CSI-Brexit-4-People’s-Stated-Reasons-for-Voting-Leave.pdf

Quote

To begin with, we asked Leave voters5 to rank four reasons for voting Leave in order of how important they were when deciding which way to vote in the referendum.6 Figure 1 displays the distribution of Leave voters by rank for each of the four reasons. (Note that the wording of each reason is exactly as it appeared in the online survey.) The reason with the highest average rank is ‘to regain control over EU immigration’. The reason with the second highest average rank is ‘didn’t want the EU to have any role in UK law-making’. I

The other interesting part of that survey is the reason why remain voters voted to remain:

Quote

leaving the EU would damage the British economy’ has by far the highest average rank, being ranked first by a full 54% of Remain voters.

I think the difference here is the value attached to either the economy or to their country by leave and remain voters. Remain voters place far more value on the economy, and I'd suggest it's because the economy benefits them, and as we might get onto later, immigration also benefits them. Whereas Leave voters in red wall towns probably see little to no benefits from increasing in GDP, and only see the downsides of immigration.
 

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

figure you want less immigration and have so far not pointed out any reasons for supporting that other than 'many people say they want less immigration'. When it's pointed out that immigration in general has major benefits you...don't really counter on that, other than to say that people apparently fear other people moving into their neighborhoods. Which is a reason, but it's a reason based on xenophobia, bigotry and nationalism.

Well I wasn't asked about the negative side affects of too much immigration. The conversation started as a response to a rising tide of right wing support, and I'm suggesting that we fuel right wing support by not listening to people's genuine concerns about immigration. 

The 'major benefits' of immigration are general economic benefits, and usually around increasing GDP and increasing it so that countries can pay bills and service debts. The benefits towards GDP per capita, which is a much better way to measure the impact, are pretty negligible showing either a small positive or small negative effect depending on how you look at it. 
House of Lords report on immigration.

In the UK we increased the population by about 2 million from 2007 to 2017 and the GDP per capita barely moved, probably because a large number of those immigrants were lowly paid and low skilled.

There is also some evidence that it's low skilled native workers who lose out to low skilled immigrants and it pushes down wages slightly. Whereas for medium and higher skilled workers it has little impact ( another reason why remainers tend to be of a certain social class)

You could mention the impact on social services and healthcare. It's often said that because immigrants are younger that they don't use health care as much as natives, and there is some small truth in that, but people get old, and that stat was mainly regarding EEA immigration. They also use education and other services in greater amounts
When you start adding the sort of numbers we are adding you can see how it impacts services. If we continued at todays immigration numbers till about 2045 then thats about 15 cities the size of Birmingham we'd have added to the population. You'd need to add thousands of schools and GP services, hundreds of new hospitals to cope with all that. With a GPD per capita that barely moves it's not clear how the UK could possibly afford to do that.

There is the impact on housing. Housing is an issue that I think is key in the UK, given how expensive it is. There are a variety of reasons for that, but especially in the rental market adding millions of people without a subsequent expansive in housing supply will lead to huge increasing in rents and house prices. Obviously immigration is not the only reason for this but it is a contributing factor, especially as immigration in the UK is so heavily concentrated in a few areas.

Then there is simply the negative social consequences. Too much immigration over a short period of time will lead to less integration and more 'ghettoisation'. It has certainly been the case in the UK where entire areas are mostly foreign born communities and there is a real lack of integration. On top of that if you also bring in lots of people from countries with very different moral values to your own , how easy will it be to get them to take on our moral values, or will they maintain their own if they are never exposed to native society. Immigration should be a process of sharing values and integration into the wider society, not isolation from it. 

This all comes back to numbers, and what is deemed necessary to keep the country going. Often these negative effects are pretty much overlooked because governments are only concerned with GDP numbers above all else.