Embrace free markets, or expect more mass immigration

Telegraph

22-04-2025

The Belarus Telegraph Agency has reported that the country is open to taking up to 150,000 Pakistani immigrant workers, equivalent to 1.5 per cent of the Belarussian population. They would work in agriculture and cotton manufacture, where Belarus needs more workers to make up for their low fertility rate. Although Belarus, which has been ruled by President Lukashenko since 1994, is seen as an authoritarian ally of Russia, it has proven unable to resist the lure of supposed easy economic growth through immigration.
We've witnessed a demographic slowdown across the world, driven by causes as varied as urbanisation and increasing choices for women outside of the home. Even countries which are popularly thought of as teeming with young people, like Brazil, now have below-replacement fertility rates.
The dependency ratio between those of working age and those of non-working age is narrowing. For countries with any kind of welfare state, this fact is enough to ring major alarm bells. How can it ask its young citizens to support a larger and larger proportion of the population who are out of work? Such a dire future makes the panicked drive towards mass migration somewhat understandable.
That includes countries like Japan, which some on the Right have praised for maintaining its homogeneity. They point to its incredibly low levels of crime, high levels of trust, and thriving culture as evidence that mass immigration isn't necessary. Between 2000 and 2023, the number of foreign nationals has more than doubled as the country aged, although levels are still relatively low and most immigrant workers come from elsewhere in East Asia.
In the last few years the UK, Canada, and Australia have all heavily increased immigration. Those coming were supposedly skilled workers and students, exactly the kind of immigrants who are said to drive economic growth. Yet in all three countries growth has been anemic, while the scale of immigration has led to major problems. In Canada this has included not only a housing crisis but a spate of deadly crashes involving poor driving by Indian truck drivers and even a diplomatic spat after Indian intelligence were accused of involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader.
At the root of this is what some have called the Economist's Fallacy, the idea that people are simple economic units which can be substituted for one another without affecting the rest of society. Therefore if your population is ageing and your birth rate is low, then all you need to do is add immigrant workers to return to a manageable dependency ratio between workers and non-workers.
This assumes, as the economist George Borjas pointed out in his book We Wanted Workers, that millions of immigrants from undeveloped countries can be imported without bringing the dysfunctional elements of their own economies and cultures with them. The evidence is clearly against that, as we can see by looking at the impact of Pakistani biraderi clan politics on our political system, the rape of thousands of largely white girl by predominantly Asian gangs, or the high levels of economic inactivity in many of our most diverse and immigrant-dominated areas.
It seems unlikely, if Belarus does go ahead with importing 150,000 Pakistani workers, that it will deliver the growth they want. Nor will it solve the issue of an ageing society: immigrants age too. Instead, countries in the developed world need to move away from their old social model, with the assumption that people of pension age should stop working entirely. As better healthcare has extended lifespans, it has also made it easier for the elderly to keep working.
At the same time, many of those of working age are in higher education for several years or out of or in limited work, with an explosion since the Covid pandemic in the numbers claiming disability benefits like PIP. A 2019 Office of National Statistics paper argued that an increase in the number in work would have more impact on the issue of dependency than an increase in immigration.
While immigrants can bring negative aspects of their home culture with them, reducing our economic productivity, it is also true that poor domestic policy can do the same. Britain suffers under various self-inflicted economic wounds. The near-closure of British Steel was less the fault of its Chinese owners than of support for net zero by British politicians. Countries seeking to offset the effects of ageing societies should therefore focus more on free market reforms than on mass immigration.