Vanishing Third World Emigrants?

This paper documents a stylized fact not well appreciated in the literature. The ThirdWorld has been undergoing an emigration life cycle since the 1960s, and, except forAfrica, emigration rates have been level or even declining since a peak in the late 1980sthe early 1990s. The current economic crisis will serve only to accelerate those trends.The paper estimates the economic and demographic fundamentals driving these ThirdWorld emigration life cycles to the United States since 1970—the income gap betweenthe US and the sending country, the education gap between the US and the sendingcountry, the poverty trap, the size of the cohort at risk, and migrant stock dynamics. Itthen projects the life cycle up to 2024. The projections imply that pressure on ThirdWorld emigration over the next two decades will not increase. It also suggests that futureUS immigrants will be blacker and fewer will speak Spanish.