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Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

english.elpais.com

31–40 of 94 posts

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#31

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

There are degrees of things; "too much immigration" does not mean "no immigration". And of course populations don't need to keep growing indefinitely for a "healthy economy"; that's just not mathematically possible. So we need to be able to deal with non-growing or even shrinking populations anyway.

And I do think "how much migration is too much migration?" is a serious question worth asking; there's a big difference if 1%, 10%, and 50% of the population are migrants. It's a shame this topic has been hijacked by right-wing firebrands.

One of the main problems is just housing; you can have long discussions on the cause(s) of that and I don't think migration is the root cause, but at the same time it's hard to deny that migration puts extra pressure on things, especially in the Netherlands with the whole tax discount for migrants. And abstract discussions are all fine, but if people ain't got no place to live in, then well... Long-term plans and discussions don't really resonate if the short term sucks so much.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#32
I just parsed the whole findings and damn that's depressing.

My key finding is that the average European sees the EU and their country go down but his personal situation either improved or at least was stable.

https://www.arte.tv/sites/corporate/de/umfrage-concerns-and-...

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#33

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

Following this logic, population has to keep growing forever. Thus won't happen and it is impossible for it to happen. So immigration is just kicking the can down the road (with heavy societal cost) instead of facing the challenge head-on. That challenge is to accept that population will stop growing and even decrease and to adapt. For instance, technology allows and will allow to automate many jobs.

> For instance, technology allows and will allow to automate many jobs.

Japan will be the first place where we will see this playing out. I think this will be one of the biggest social experiments of our lifetimes.

I do not know how it can be done, but I do not see another way without huge productivity gains via technology to have some sort of support for an aging/dying population.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#34
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem too representative, that equates to less than 1k per country. Also, the age range is quite small. Still worrisome. To be frank, given recent events and geopolitical tensions, people are divided on this matter.

Accuracy depends only on sample size, not the total population size. A 1k sample gives you a 95% confidence interval [1]. [1] https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/166/how-do-you-dec...

To add to this, check out the Central Limit Theorem [0].

[0] - https://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/central-limit-theorem/

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#35

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

I think "immigration" is a very broad term. There are some immigrants that try to work, adapt to the culture of the country that receives them. And others come from some parts of the world where you would behead someone as an acceptable way to settle things. They aren't able to adapt to a civilized culture even if they try. I think governments could do a bit more by making more fine-grained choices. Of course that's…

> governments could do a bit more by making more fine-grained choices

Governments can try but it comes down to whether immigrants want to immigrate to those countries.

I'm the child of immigrants, and my family decided to move to the US over Western Europe or Singapore specifically because the opportunities are greater and Americans are way more open-minded about immigrants mixing their home culture with their adopted culture.

At the end of the day, European countries will have to make the choice about whether they want to remain monoethnic entities (which itself was a result of ethnic cleansed during and after WW2) or whether they are open to a multicultural identity.

There's no point for skilled immigrants to go to Europe if they have the opportunity or pathway to PR or Citizenship in North America as salaries are higher, opportunities are greater, and the population is way less xenophobic (p.s. r/Canada is NOT representative of Canadians - and I lived in parts of BC where the Reform Party was extremely popular back in the day)

Why would a Mexican SWE want to move to Spain in order to earn peanuts and get called a "Sudaca" when they can earn a higher salary in El Paso or Dallas and still be a couple hours from home.

Ime, the personal ranking of countries for Asian immigrants (South, East, and Southeast) is as follows:

Tier 1 - US, Canada (backdoor to US via TN)

Tier 2 - UK, Australia, NZ, SG, Ireland, HK (before NSL)

Tier 3 - Rest of Western Europe

Tier 4 - East Asia, the Gulf, Malaysia

Most European countries are simply consolation prizes for immigrants. Plenty of people from my region of South Asia worked in the UK and Italy back in the day, but Canada and the US remains the primary goal.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#36

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

[flagged]

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#37

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

I'm not "anti immigration", but I would prefer if immigration had stricter rules in order to better integrate immigrants, reduce crime and lower costs.

We do have a very good safety net, so immigrants who don't contribute does not help the economy, they can be really expensive. In some extreme cases some get 100K+ USD in support yearly because they don't work, and that is when NOK is much weaker than it usually is.

Most of the money Norway spend on financial social assistance is on immigrants, even though they make up less than 20 % of the population. Depending on where immigration is from, the general economic benefit might be very negative or positive.

Generally I do think that someone who moves to another country should do what they can to become a part of society.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#38

I certainly understand the sentiment, but my question to someone on the "anti" immigration side would be this: what do you see as a possible alternative solution? Populations are shrinking and to keep the economy in a healthy place, money needs to come from somewhere. The easiest solution is to add bodies via immigration. Otherwise taxes need to go up or governments need to spend money incentivizing people to start f…

I'm not "anti immigration", but I would prefer if immigration had stricter rules in order to better integrate immigrants, reduce crime and lower costs. We do have a very good safety net, so immigrants who don't contribute does not help the economy, they can be really expensive. In some extreme cases some get 100K+ USD in support yearly because they don't work, and that is when NOK is much weaker than it usually is. M…

I'll be honest. Norway is not the top goal for most immigrants

I'm the child of immigrants and still have family in the old country, and my family decided to move to the US over Western Europe or Singapore specifically because the opportunities are greater and Americans are way more open-minded about immigrants mixing their home culture with their adopted culture.

At the end of the day, European countries will have to make the choice about whether they want to remain monoethnic entities (which itself was a result of ethnic cleansing during and after WW2) or whether they are open to a multicultural identity.

There's no point for skilled immigrants to go to Europe if they have the opportunity or pathway to PR or Citizenship in North America as salaries are higher, opportunities are greater, and the population is way less xenophobic (p.s. r/Canada is NOT representative of Canadians - and I lived in parts of BC where the Reform Party was extremely popular back in the day)

Most immigrants that you use for your archetype in Norway end up being refugees, and are themselves not representative of most immigrants even within Norway.

And I do have extended family in Scandanavia, and honestly, it sucks there from a xenophobia perspective, which pushed them to move to North America a couple years ago.

Also, those immigrants you are derisive about have kids who end up doing very well. Look at how overrepresented 2nd Gen Pakistani Norwegians are in Medicine and Law despite their parents working lower class jobs like janitorial work or taxi driving.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#39
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following this logic, population has to keep growing forever. Thus won't happen and it is impossible for it to happen. So immigration is just kicking the can down the road (with heavy societal cost) instead of facing the challenge head-on. That challenge is to accept that population will stop growing and even decrease and to adapt. For instance, technology allows and will allow to automate many jobs.

> For instance, technology allows and will allow to automate many jobs. Japan will be the first place where we will see this playing out. I think this will be one of the biggest social experiments of our lifetimes. I do not know how it can be done, but I do not see another way without huge productivity gains via technology to have some sort of support for an aging/dying population.

> Japan will be the first place where we will see this playing out

They are unofficially bringing in plenty of Vietnamese, Indonesian, Filipino, Nepali, Thai, and Pakistani immigrants via ill-disguised migrant worker programs that have Gulf level abusive conditions

Same with South Korea and Taiwan.

Re: Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants

#40

Funny, if you were to ask that in North America, you'd be called xenophobic.

??? This question gets polled all the time in North America ???

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/growing-number-of-canadians-be...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx

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