Abstract
Because of limitations of space and materials more attention is given in this paper to the theoretical formulation of problems than to their empirical analysis and resolution.
‘From these heights of speculation, as from a lofty mountain, may be obtained general views as to the directions in which practice trends.’—F. Y. Edgeworth in ‘The Objects and Methods of Political Economy’, Papers relating to Political Economy, vol. i.
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Notes
See J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, Oxford, 1939, ch. 2. Of his concepts B. S. Keirstead writes (in The Theory of Economic Change, Toronto, 1948, pp. 109–10): ‘By the “aggregative mode” we mean the form or mode through which any change works its effects on the economy via its effect on aggregate income. By the “real mode” we mean the form or mode through which any change affects the economy via the alteration in the margin of substitution of one good, or group of goods, or one factor, for another good, group of goods or factor, the structure of the market, the level of real income and welfare, and the real rates of reward.’ The term ‘mode’ denotes ‘the formal channel through which a process operates’.
Cf. A. Plummer, ‘The Theory of Population: Some Questions of Quantity and Quality’, Journal of Political Economy, vol. xl, 1932, pp. 617–37. In South Brazil, whither went over half the nation’s immigrants, wages and per capita income are higher than elsewhere in the country; but it is not presently determinable to what extent the force of immigration has been responsible for producing the changes underlying progress in per capita income in the South (where, however, wages and income remain very low by American standards).
H. W. Spiegel, The Brazilian Economy, Philadelphia, 1949;
F. Bastos De Avila, S.J., Economic Aspects of Immigration, The Hague, 1954, Part II.
Mabel F. Timlin’s account of the probable impact of population growth in Canada, in Does Canada Need More People?, Toronto, 1951, especially chs. 7–8;
Alfred Marshall, Industry and Trade, London, 1927, pp. 146 ff.
See Brinley Thomas, Migration and Economic Growth, Cambridge, 1954.
Concerning this theory and its development see Corrado Gini, ‘Los efectos demográficos de las migraciones internacionales’, Revista international de sociologia, vol. iv, 1946, pp. 351–88; also my ‘Population Doctrines in the United States. II, Malthusianism’, Journal of Political Economy, vol. xli, 1933, especially pp. 654–63, and France Faces Depopulation, Durham, U.S.A., 1938, pp. 209–10.
S. Kuznets and E. Rubin, Immigrants and the Foreign Born, National Bureau of Economic Research Occasional Paper 46, New York, 1954, p. 45;
V. G. Valaoras, in The Social and Biological Challenge of Our Aging Population, ed. Iago Galdston, New York, 1950, especially pp. 69–80; papers on ageing in Population Bulletin, No. 1, 1951, pp. 42–57, No. 4, 1954, pp. 30–9.
See A. Landry, Traité de démographie, Paris, 1945, pp. 514–15.
See W. S. Thompson and P. K. Whelpton, Population Trends in the United States, New York, 1933, pp. 308–11. See also Income and Wealth of the United States, ed. Simon Kuznets, Cambridge, 1952, pp. 196–204.
See Nathan Keyfitz, ‘The Growth of Canadian Population’, Population Studies, vol. iv, 1950, pp. 47–63, especially p. 62. As of 1921, 91•5 per cent of the Canadian population (compared with 95 in 1901) were of British, French, or North-western European stock. See W. B. Hurd, Origin, Birthplace, Nationality, and Language of the Canadian People, Ottawa, 1929, pp. 43, 53.
Migration from either country to the other should vary directly with the number of opportunities available in the country of destination and inversely with the number available in the country of provenience, given that cost of movement, together with the rate at which opportunities in the country of destination are discounted, is the same in either direction, and that movement in one direction is no more barred by artificial impediments (e.g. laws) than movement in the other. If two countries are more removed in space, one from the other, than Canada from the United States, there will be less movement (ceteris paribus) because of the intervention of distance which here serves as a rough measure of costs of movement. Concerning some of the relevant literature see my ‘Population Theory’ in Survey of Contemporary Economics, ed. B. F. Haley, Homewood, 1952, pp. 117 ff., 122 ff. The ratio of Canadian-born persons residing in the United States to the total population living in Canada was nearly the same in 1930 as in 1870; and the ratio of American-born persons residing in Canada to the total population living in the United States was the same in 1931 as in 1851. The attractive force exerted by the Canadian upon the American population has increased in recent decades; for the ratio of Canadian-born residing in the United States to United-States-born residing in Canada has fallen. For data see L. K. Truesdell, The Canadian Born in the United States, New Haven, 1943, pp. 10–13.
It is possible, of course, that although immigrants generally tend to enter the lower portions of the occupational pyramid, they may also enter, in disproportionately large number, into some particular sector of the upper portion of this pyramid. In the early stages of a country’s settlement, in fact, immigrants may press into particular upper sectors. Thus, in New Zealand, Europeans gradually displaced the Maori from the business of supplying fresh food and wheat. (C. S. Belshaw, ‘The Cultural Milieu of the Entrepreneur: A Critical Essay’, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, VII, 1955, p. 152).
If the immigrant is of a different race than the native, and if barriers prejudicial to the occupational advancement of members of this race exist, he will be under a double handicap, but only that portion of the handicap which is connected with his being an immigrant is relevant in the context of the above discussion. On differences between the mobility of Negroes and that of sons of natives see Natalie Rogoff, Recent Trends in Occupational Mobility, Glencoe, 1953, chs. 5–6.
P. E. Davidson and H. D. Anderson, Occupational Mobility in An American Community, Stanford, 1937.
See, however, H. J. Davenport’s criticism of this concept and the use to which it was put; in ‘Non-Competing Groups’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xl, 1925–26, pp. 52 ff.
See A. M. Edwards, ‘A Socio-Economic Grouping of the Gainful Workers in the United States’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. xxviii, 1933, p. 385. This is based on the census of 1930. Only 3–1 per cent of foreign- born males gainfully employed were unskilled agricultural labourers; the corresponding percentage for the native white and negro male workers was, respectively, 9•7 and 18•9.
See Louis Block, ‘Occupations of Immigrants Before and After Coming to the United States’, Publications of the American Statistical Association, vol. xvii, 1920–21, pp. 750–64. P. E. Davidson and H. D. Anderson (Occupational Mobility, pp. 117–33, 188) found that in San Jose, California, whereas 80 per cent of the foreign-born initially had to accept unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, 26 per cent eventually improved their occupational status while only 5 per cent suffered a decline. It was largely the very young immigrants, however, who improved their occupational status, and not those who were adults already upon their arrival.
See A. R. Eckler and J. Zlotnick, ‘Immigration and the Labour Force’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. cclxi, 1949, pp. 92–101, especially p. 100. On the progress of the impact of immigration see, e.g., Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 1790–1865: A Study in Acculturation, Cambridge, 1941;
M. R. Davie, World Immigration, New York, 1936, pp. 238–47.
D. R. Taft, Human Migration, New York, 1936, pp. 185–95.
‘A marked peculiarity of the American labour situation during the generation preceding the Great War was the comparatively low rate of pay for the unskilled labourers. It was low, that is, in comparison with the pay of the upper stratum of the skilled labourers…. The differential in favour of the mechanic was greater in the United States (than in Europe); the unskilled were relatively cheap… for the American employer. The enormous influx of immigrants maintained a great supply of unskilled labour and kept down its rate of pay.’ So wrote F. W. Taussig, and he pointed to such industries as the iron industry and the textile industry (especially cotton); and he predicted that, with the diminution in the rate of immigration, the wage differential in favour of the skilled worker would become less pronounced. See his International Trade, New York, 1927, pp. 58–60; also Some Aspects of the Tariff Question, Cambridge, 1915, 1931, pp. 137–8, 286, 379. See also B. Ohlin, Interregional and International Trade, Cambridge, 1933, pp. 308–9, 347–9, 368–9. J. A. Kleene went further than Taussig, saying that wages in the United States were determined by the price of unskilled labour which, in turn, tended to approximate the standard of living of workers in the countries whence came most of the immigrants plus an allowance to cover the expenses of emigration and the cost of overcoming the migration-deterring influence of distance and unfamiliarity with lands of immigration. See Profits and Wages, New York, 1916, pp. 63 ff. and passim;
H. Bernardelli, ‘New Zealand and Asiatic Migration’, Population Studies, vol. vi, 1952, pp. 39–44, 47.
See Paul H. Douglas, Real Wages in the United States, 1890–1926, Boston, 1930, pp. 108, 135–9, 160, 177, 187, 254, 260, 267, 272, 280, 284, 288, 293, 296, 300, 304, 308, 326, 392 ff.
W. Coombs, The Wages of Unskilled Labour in the Manufacturing Industries in the United States, 1890–1924, New York, 1926, ch. 5, especially pp. 119–22;
W. S. Thompson, Population: A Study in Malthusianism, New York, 1915, pp. 39 ff.;
M. D. Anderson, Dynamic Theory of Wealth Distribution, Gainesville, 1938, pp. 129–32.
Real Wages, pp. 178–9. See also W. I. King, Wealth and Income of the People of the United States, New York, 1917, ch. 7;
Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, 2nd ed., London, 1951, 57–8, 458–74.
See E. H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins, ‘The Course of Wage-Rates in Five Countries, 1860–1913’, Oxford Economic Papers, II, 1950, p. 236. Roland Wilson believes that his comparison of British and American cotton textile wages does not support Taussig’s belief that the gap between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers was greater in the United States than in other countries (Cotton Textile Wages in the United States and Great Britain, New York, 1948, ch. 5).
See E. Rothbarth, ‘Causes of the Superior Efficiency of USA Industry as Compared with British Industry’, Economic Journal, vol. lvi, 1946, p. 383.
Cf. K. E. Hansson, ‘A Theory of the System of Multilateral Trade’, American Economic Review, vol. xlii, 1952, pp. 59–68.
See Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, 2nd ed., London, 1951, pp. 206–7, 245, who remarks that ‘only the shock of migration to a completely new country and circumstances will suffice to shake the agriculturalist out of his less efficient traditional methods and enable him to realize the full economic potentialities of his own labour’.
J. B. Condliffe, New Zealand in the Making, London, 1930, pp. 438–40;
A. J. Toynbee, The Study of History, London, 1939, vol. ii, pp. 84–100, 212–13, 291, 310–11, 315, 346 ff.
To the fact that immigrants into America, being largely of working-class origin and ways of thought, continued their ways in America, but with modifications produced by the new and favourable environment of that country, have been attributed several attributes of American workers: their low propensity to save; their disposition to look upon work as a not wholly unpleasant necessity instead of as a sacrifice; and their rejection of extreme class-warfare. See Agostino de Vita, ‘Der kapitalisierte Wert der 1820–1930 in die Vereinigten Staaten von America Eingewanderten’, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Bd. lii, 1940 (II), pp. 31–7;
Corrado Gini, ‘Apparent and Real Causes of American Prosperity’, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, No. 6, 1948, and ‘Evoluzione della psico- logia del lavoro e dell’ accumulazione’, extract from Moneta e credito, No. 2, 1948, also a quarterly review of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. See also G. D. Snell, ‘Hybrids and History, the Role of Race and Ethnic Crossing in Individual and National Achievements’, Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. xxvi, 1951, pp. 331–47.
Cf. A. P. Lerner, Economics of Employment, New York, 1951, pp. 358 ff.
Talcott Parsons’s analysis suggests that the Latin-American type of social structure, with its emphasis upon particularism and ascription (as distinguished from universalism and achievement), is not favourable to industrial development. If this be true, it needs to be modified, probably through the influx of immigrants with appropriate values. See The Social System, Glencoe, 1951, pp. 198–200. Cf. L. E. Williams, ‘Chinese Entrepreneurs in Indonesia’, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, V, 1952–53, pp. 34–60.
See S. N. Eisenstadt, ‘Analysis of Patterns of Immigration and Absorption of Immigrants’, Population Studies, vol. vii, 1953, pp. 167–80, and ‘The Place of Elites and Primary Groups in the Absorption of New Immigrants in Israel’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. lvii, 1951, pp. 222–31. See also D. V. Glass, ed., Cultural Assimilation of Immigrants, supplement to Population Studies, March 1950.
See S. Laursen, ‘Production Functions and the Theory of International Trade’, American Economic Review, vol. xlii, 1952, pp. 540–57, and the works of Samuelson (who has greatly refined analysis of the problem) and others cited by Laursen;
P. A. Samuelson, ‘Prices of Factors and Goods in General Equilibrium’, Review of Economic Studies, vol. xxi, 1953–54, pp. 1–20.
See W. C. Mitchell, Business Cycles, New York, 1928, p. 410.
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Spengler, J.J. (1958). Effects Produced in Receiving Countries by Pre-1939 Immigration. In: Thomas, B. (eds) Economics of International Migration. International Economic Association Conference Volumes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08443-2_2
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