Publications
- Vanishing Third World Emigrants?
- Download: PDF 109.2 KB
- by Hatton, Timothy J.; Williamson, Jeffery G.
- This paper documents a stylized fact not well appreciated in the literature. The Third
World has been undergoing an emigration life cycle since the 1960s, and, except for
Africa, emigration rates have been level or even declining since a peak in the late 1980s
the early 1990s. The current economic crisis will serve only to accelerate those trends.
The paper estimates the economic and demographic fundamentals driving these Third
World emigration life cycles to the United States since 1970—the income gap between
the US and the sending country, the education gap between the US and the sending
country, the poverty trap, the size of the cohort at risk, and migrant stock dynamics. It
then projects the life cycle up to 2024. The projections imply that pressure on Third
World emigration over the next two decades will not increase. It also suggests that future
US immigrants will be blacker and fewer will speak Spanish.
- Publication Type: WCFIA Working Paper
- Published Date: February 2009
- Field of Interest: International Relations
- Hatton, Timothy J., Jeffrey G. Williamson. "Vanishing Third World Emigrants?" Working Paper 2009-0014, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, February 2009.
