RT by @weimers: The Economist Misguided on Migration Politics

The Economist recently published an editorial titled “How to detoxify migration politics / Cooler heads and calmer words are needed, on both the left and the right”. (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/12/20/how-to-detoxify-the-politics-of-migration)

The editorial demonstrates a lack of understanding and is a biased plea for international migration. Its most notable aspect is what it omits or glosses over.
The text makes assertions such as: “For all the talk of record numbers and unprecedented crisis, the share of the world’s people who live outside their country of birth is just 3.6%; it has barely changed since 1960, when it was 3.1%.”

However, such statistics are nonsensical when considering the concrete realities in the countries involved. Take Sweden where the proportion of foreign-born individuals was 4 percent in 1960 and rose to just over 20 percent (20.4) by 2022. Additionally, nearly 27 percent (26.9) of the population had a foreign background, including those with two foreign-born parents. This dramatic demographic shift from 4 to 20.4 percentage points (a 410 percent increase in just over 60 years) fails to account for the ethnic and cultural composition of the population increase or age categories, such as the dominance of young men.

Managing Migration
Elsewhere, the article states: “Second, recipient countries can benefit from immigration, especially if they manage it well.” Implicitly and reversed, this also means: "Receiving countries can be disadvantaged by migration even if they manage it well.” This raises the question of how things can go wrong even with good management, which is not addressed at all.

Sweden is an example of a country that has not managed migration well, but The Economist fails to understand why. The article claims: "Lavishing benefits on asylum-seekers while making it har…

🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/GurThomas/status/1740742479987560719#m

[2023-12-29 14:32 UTC]