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Introduction
The issue of immigration becomes especially controversial in today’s world full of refugees that have to leave their countries for seeking a better life. The economic turmoil and social challenges affect the public perception of immigration and cause debates on the benefits and disadvantages of immigration. This paper aims to address the question of whether the flow of workers makes a positive impact on the host country in the context of society and business.
Benefits to Business of a Host Country
Labour shortage filling can be noted as one of the most critical benefits of the influx of immigrants into a host country. Considering that they are ready to take jobs for lower wages, their contribution to the economy cannot be underestimated. However, it also leads to the working class dissatisfaction, having more requirements that are related to workers’ rights. Brexit is a vivid example of a populist response that employed protectionist and anti-globalist strategies. In particular, the main goal of Brexit is to acquire control over its affairs independently from the EU. The UK is known as the world’s one of the most international cities, and the closure of borders would mean that it interrupts this tendency. It should also be stressed that 63% of the population living in London is multicultural, but it does not refer to other places in the UK (London population 2020, 2020). The question is whether immigration makes a positive impact on the country’s business or destroys it?
The evidence shows that immigration is advantageous for the sending countries since it alleviates unemployment and addresses competition. The costs of migration are largely incurred by migrants, not their countries, which improves the financial state of these states (Borjas, 2001). As for the host countries, immigrant workforce provided their businesses with a cheap source of hard-working employees. For business, paying lower wages is beneficial, while ideas and skills of immigrant workers is another positive issue. The productive abilities of immigrants allow for differentiating business, which is useful for the economy in general. In the US, for example, immigrant workforce contributed to the economic growth by 15% between 1990 and 2014 (Abramitzky and Boustan, 2017). However, the local workers have to compete with immigrants, which cause the redistribution of wealth in the country, which often makes the former to feel like losers. In turn, the natives receive benefits from immigrants, who increase the demand for services and products of local firms, increasing the productivity in such spheres as food, home services, et cetera.
To critically evaluate the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism, it is essential to pay attention to the negative implications. At least one-third of voters selected to initiate Brexit to control immigration in the UK, which reflects anti-globalist views of the population (AboElsoud, AlQudah and Elish, 2020). According to Marxist critique, migration encouragement is useful for capitalists yet negative for workers. The development of anti-immigrant discourse is one more issue that is applied by various politics to gain additional advantages. For example, Trump used an immigration issue as the main driving force of his campaign, focusing on building the border between Mexico and the US, which was with enthusiasm by many voters. On the contrary, pro-immigration attitudes of Merkel decreased her support by 8.6% in 2017 (Zapata-Barrero, 2017). These examples confirm that natives are generally resistant to immigrants and their impact on the host country.
Legal and language concerns compose two more disadvantages of immigration for the native businesses. In the 20th century, there were specific hubs of immigrants, such as New York or London; today, the situation is changed since immigrants can be found in any parts of the countries. It creates language barriers, which makes the process of communication between employees and managers. More to the point, legal issues are associated with the need to prepare various documents and pay for maintaining visas and related concerns. In other words, local firms need to consider these points while hiring immigrant workers since they can incur significant losses.
Social Advantages of Immigration and Multiculturalism
In the modern world, more and more societies are becoming multicultural, including various ethnocultural and religious groups of the population with different cultural attitudes. Moral and ethical values coexist and politically interact not only in societies of so-called resettlement states, such as the US, Canada or Australia, but also in states such as France or the UK. This means that they also faced a new problem of managing immigrants in the face of the contemporary challenges and conditions. Bloemraad (2015) defines multiculturalism as not only a struggle of individuals for recognition, but also a requirement to recognise the originality and equivalence of groups. The basis of the theory of multiculturalism and multicultural citizenship is the statement of the principles of liberalism, which are the key to the stability and prosperity of society.
The academic opinion is quite sceptical regarding the negative impact, and the literature suggests that multiculturalism is a way to overcome the social challenges of immigration (Bloemraad, 2015). It is argued that the ideology of multiculturalism preserves the cultural and national identity of migrants. Especially in conditions of the increased migration flow, the absence of a common culture leads to a transformation of the spheres of public life, provoking conflict situations on the interethnic basis, where the continuous dialogue between the authorities and society acquires the greatest importance (Zapata-Barrero, 2017). Multiculturalism presupposes cultural pluralism, which means that states must ensure that all ethnic groups and cultures are treated equally.
The equality of opportunities is seen by the proponents of multiculturalism as the way to promote cultural diversity and increase people’s awareness. The need to protect the vulnerable populations from discrimination and abuse is mentioned as the main priority of the multicultural approach, which implies equal pay and conditions (Ward et al., 2018). In addition, this policy support racial and ethnic minorities that were in a disadvantaged position for years. The belief that differences should be promoted and protected seems to create the awareness of cultural diversity value. The benefit of multiculturalism to the locals lies in creating a more diverse society, where everyone can have great opportunities (Kwon and Curran, 2016). It is caused by the fact that the perception of the common good is put at the basis of the evolutionary form of political systems. Defined as the goal of social development, the common good politically unites citizens in the pursuit of its achievement.
Multiculturalism can promote the emergence of hostile communities, especially among those who have limited resources. According to the opinions of locals, immigration can lead to a loss of native culture since the so-called salad bowl mixes all the backgrounds. More to the point, many people believe that immigrants are more likely to engage in crime, use public services, and take other benefits that are intended for the natives. In fact, undocumented immigrants are likely to contribute to crime, but it is not correct with regards to all the immigrants (Kwon and Curran, 2016). Therefore, one may suggest that the negative perception of immigrants, even in a lack of the factual background, is a vivid disadvantage of immigration in social terms.
The problems of multiculturalism, in terms of the ideologies lie in European liberalism. It allowed migrants to demand and seek special rights, receiving all support from the apologists for liberalism. Studying the migration laws of France Germany, and the UK, Ambrosini and Boccagni (2015) confirm this statement and also believe that the European countries’ multicultural approach to managing immigrants creates controversies between the inclusion in the national context and their exclusion. Based on these observations, one may argue that the EU immigration politics is expressed in the introduction of a moderated version of the adaptation of immigrants to the local cultural environment, which is aimed to fill in the demographic gaps.
The sense of cultural loss in natives is the key disadvantage of multiculturalism. While the states devote significant efforts to support immigrants from a cultural point, they tend to overlook the local population and their interests. In some cases, the politics of multiculturalism is questioned from a conservative and liberal point of view (Ward et al., 2018). In particular, conservative criticism proceeds from the need to replace multiculturalism with monoculturalism. This idea is based on the principle of traditionalism of the majority, insisting on statutory privileges for dominant cultural groups. Neo-Nazis in Germany, ultra-right parties in France, and the UK’s the Independence Party can be noted among the examples. They received a significant number of seats in the European Parliament in the 2014 elections due to adhering to conservative criticism of the policy of multiculturalism.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is essential to note that the immigration debate is associated with different perspectives on its benefits. In general, the economy of a host country strengthens based on the influx of workforce and productive abilities, which increases the so-called economic pie. At the same time, immigration leads to the redistribution of wealth inside the country, and the successful firms may turn out to be bankrupted, while those organised by immigrants would thrive. In terms of the social impact, the literature shows that immigrants receive more opportunities compared to the locals, who have to accept their cultures. While it is expected that cultural diversity would benefit all the people, the native populations seem to feel a sense of losing their own cultural uniqueness. Thus, immigration and multiculturalism can be defined with a positive connotation in terms of overall economy and population of a host country; still, the locals are likely to face more disadvantages than benefits.
Reference List
- AboElsoud, M. E., AlQudah, A., and Elish, E. (2020) ‘Does a change in immigration affect the unemployment rate in host countries? Evidence from Australia’, Journal of Applied Economics, 23(1), pp. 21-43.
- Abramitzky, R., and Boustan, L. (2017) ‘Immigration in American economic history’, Journal of Economic Literature, 55(4), pp. 1311-45.
- Ambrosini, M., and Boccagni, P. (2015) ‘Urban multiculturalism beyond the ‘backlash’: new discourses and different practices in immigrant policies across European cities’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36(1), pp. 35-53.
- Bloemraad, I. (2015) ‘Theorizing and analyzing citizenship in multicultural societies’, The Sociological Quarterly, 56(4), pp. 591-606.
- Borjas, G. J. (2001) Heaven’s door: immigration policy and the American economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Kwon, R., and Curran, M. (2016) ‘Immigration and support for redistributive social policy: does multiculturalism matter?’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 57(6), pp. 375-400.
- London population 2020 (2020) Web.
- Ward, C. et al. (2018) ‘Immigration and multiculturalism in context: a framework for psychological research’, Journal of Social Issues, 74(4), pp. 833-855.
- Zapata-Barrero, R. (2017) ‘Interculturalism in the post-multicultural debate: a defence’, Comparative Migration Studies, 5(1), pp. 14.
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