Immigration and Poverty
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Abstract
Immigration impacts two distinct dimensions of poverty: poverty among immigrants and global poverty. Emigration generally involves moving to better opportunities, and the process lowers poverty among emigrants. Immigration also impacts global poverty through multiple channels including remittances, the proliferation of economic activities, and exchange of ideas between immigrant-sending countries that are generally low income and receiving countries that are often rich. Finally, immigrants improve productivity in the host country through innovation and new economic activities, in turn creating employment and lowering poverty. Immigrants generally have higher poverty when they first arrive in the host country on account of multiple disadvantages they experience, including lack of host-country-specific skills, discrimination on account of their immigration status, and limited access to safety net programs and services that reduce poverty. But their poverty levels decline with increases in the duration of residency in the host country and across generations.