Population Replacement and Immigrant Adaptation: New Issues Facing the West

Industrialized nations are entering a new stage in the demographic transition from high birthrates to low birthrates and as they do questions are being raised about the need to rethink immigration policies. Since 1965 fertility rates in many developed countries have fallen substantially below the level needed for population replacement. Immigration from 3rd World countries contributes to population growth in 2 ways: 1) through the addition of the migrants themselves and 2) through their subsequent fertility often higher than that of the nonmigrant population. If fertility in Western industrial nations remains low 3 broad conclusions follow: 1) in the short run the potential for change in ethnic racial linguistic and other compositional aspects of national populations is probably greater in Europe than it is in the US; 2) unless they wish their populations to decline countries with below-replacement fertility need immigrants--if not now then eventually; and 3) populations that have both immigration and low fertility for a prolonged period exhibit a kind of demographic transfusion. Because it is a national policy to admit large numbers of new migrants to the US each year the government should more closely examine what happens to migrants once they have entered the country how well migrants adjust to life in the US and what can be done by the host population to facilitate this adjustment.