Question

Measuring the fiscal impact of migration is challenging. The net fiscal impact presented here shows the estimated net fiscal contributions - that is, the amount of taxes and contributions that migrants pay compared to the benefits and public services they recieve. Expressed in percent of GDP, the resulting net impact is generally small, with a few exceptions where countries have larger immigrant populations, such as Switzerland and Luxebourg, where the net fiscal impact is large and positive.
Immigrants tend to be concentrated in certain sectors of activity, in which they account for much larger shares of employment. For example, immigrants accoount fr over half of employees in accommodation and food services in OECD European countries and in the Unites States. This type of sectoral concertration declines the longer immigrants stay.

Differences in the composition of immigrant populations across OECD counties explain a larger part of the cross-country differences in the fiscal position of immigrants relative too the native-born. Differences in the age distrubtions of immigrants, relative fiscal position of immigrants. Futhermore, immigrants have a more postive fiscal postion in countries where the immigrant population consists mainly of recent labour migrants, than in countries who host mainly humanitarian immigrants.






Using the sources provided synthesize two ways migration is beneficial for the economy. Support your claim with details from the text.

Answer 1

1) Immigrants can make a positive net fiscal contribution.
- The passage reports the “net fiscal contributions — the amount of taxes and contributions that migrants pay compared to the benefits and public services they receive.” While the net impact is “generally small, expressed in percent of GDP,” there are notable exceptions (e.g., Switzerland and Luxembourg) where the net fiscal impact is “large and positive.”
- The text also notes that immigrants tend to have a more positive fiscal position in countries where the immigrant population is mainly recent labour migrants, showing that migration can increase public revenues relative to public spending when migrants are working and contributing taxes.

2) Immigrants supply labour in key sectors and relieve labour shortages.
- Immigrants are “concentrated in certain sectors of activity,” and in some sectors they “account for much larger shares of employment.” The passage gives a striking example: immigrants “account for over half of employees in accommodation and food services in OECD European countries and in the United States.”
- By filling large shares of employment in such sectors, migrants sustain those industries, support production and services that native workers alone might not fully staff, and thus help economic activity in affected sectors (a pattern that changes as immigrants stay longer and integrate).