A cura di @Billy Pilgrim.

Partendo dall’osservazione che i tassi di fertilità sono in costante diminuzione e la generazione dei baby boomers si avvia ormai alla pensione, con un intervento su reason, il sociologo americano Jack Goldstone sostiene che gli Stati Uniti abbiano bisogno, ora come non mai, di più immigrati per “rimpolpare” una forza lavoro che andrà restringendosi sempre di più in futuro:

From 2010 to 2040, just two regions of the world are likely to enjoy increasing labor forces: India and Africa. After 2040, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to become the only region in the world with a growing workforce. This is where many of our workers will need to come from. Imposing extra barriers on people from regions that are seen as “undesirable” is therefore a catastrophically bad idea. But it’s also a mistake to create strong preferences for skilled as opposed to unskilled migrants.

Se, da un lato, è vero che molti lavori potrebbero scomparire nei prossimi anni per effetto dell’automazione, molti altri potrebbero essere necessari nei settori più disparati, in una società che inevitabilmente invecchia:

Anticipating a future driven by robots and artificial intelligence, some may think there is no point worrying about America’s future labor needs; the problem will be too many workers rather than too few. […] Yet skilled workers—whether with craft skills in carpentry, masonry, or plumbing; with advanced technical skills such as writing computer code or welding complex alloys; with human skills such as caring for the elderly, troubled youth, children, or those with disabilities; or with creative skills in the arts, literature, or basic science, not to mention the professions of law, medicine, teaching, and religious ministries—will remain essential to the growth and functioning of modern economies. Robots are not likely to replace workers in these fields within the next two or three decades, while the growth of America’s young labor force has ended right now.

But unskilled immigrants too will be vital—for elder care (much of which is labor intensive), for craft and construction work, for landscaping and maintenance work, and for service work in the hospitality and tourism sectors.

Even more important than all that, however, are the incredible contributions of the children of immigrants, which are often impossible to predict. Almost half of the companies in America’s Fortune 500 today were founded by immigrants or their children. Eight U.S presidents had at least one parent born in another country, including both Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump (whose mother was an unskilled domestic servant from Scotland).

Immagine da Wikimedia.