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The wider wellbeing effects of immigration

Cover The wider wellbeing effects of immigration
Author

New Zealand Productivity Commission

Date published

8 November 2021

Many of the effects on immigration happen through the labour market – the jobs that migrants do, the skills and knowledge that they bring to the host country, the businesses they set up which provide greater product variety and competition, and their economic links to other countries. Yet other effects on productivity and wellbeing can be just as important.

This report will examine these wider impacts of immigration – wider because the channels of the influence occur outside the labour market. 

A key conclusion of this report is that most of the wider impacts of immigration that are negative for wellbeing arise when the rate of net migration exceeds the country’s ‘absorptive capacity’. This suggests that policies can maximise the benefits of migration by keeping the net flow of migrants within New Zealand’s absorptive capacity. This can include policies that increase absorptive capacity.


This report is a supplementary report to the Commission’s draft report for its immigration inquiry. It will be revised and updated to support the final report, which will be released in April 2022.

About the Commission's immigration inquiry.

 


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