The secret to fighting poverty is New Zealand | Hacker News Reader

The secret to fighting poverty is New Zealand

aidwatchers.com

48 pointscwan12 comments

A direct link to the blog post: http://blogs.worldbank.org/allaboutfinance/the-most-effectiv.... It's a lot more balanced than the repost linked in the submission. For example: "Such gains do not come automatically. The latest Nobel prize in economics was for work on the process of job search and matching in labor markets. While these are difficult enough for workers in the same economy, matching the supply of willing workers to the demands of employers becomes even more difficult when the process takes place across borders."

In short: make life easy for skilled migrants and your economy will do good.

I'll say it's simpler than that: make sure immigrants get to sustain themselves through work rather than welfare. This creates a direct incentive for them to learn the language and actually integrate into the new society.

The great problem Europe has with migrants is not the inherent "poor imported stock", but the lean welfare rules and strict employment rules. This ensures a toxic proportion of new arrivals simply don't want to or can't integrate. It also means you get second-generation immigrants with no better prospects than their parents.

This particular piece isn't so much dealing with skilled migrants as it is with migrants who are willing and able to work and can do something as they're seasonal workers who normally come to work in orchards etc.

New Zealand has a significant advantage in that case where the people coming in on this program are islanders with a strong cultural imperative to work hard and send money home to their families.

Your points are good ones, they just don't really mirror what's actually happening in this case.

If anything I would expect a highly skilled worker (doctor, programmer etc) to be taking an income loss coming here.

The same goes for Europe, at least for immigrant doctors, who are considered under-skilled and must go back to University at first to get an equivalent diploma...

Also, the medical profession has lost a lot of its prestige here (In Belgium, at least).

From what I heard from colleagues coming from less developed nations, they were more respected in their country of origin than local, established doctors are here.

Due to latent (or sometimes overt) racism, foreign doctor are even less considered, and have thus a harder time earning money.

Even if their net income increases, on a relative scale they lose a lot and happiness is a function of how rich you are relative to your peers.

Your point is almost the total opposite of what this article is about. It may or may not be true, but this article doesn't support it.

This article is about temporary, unskilled immigration for doing things like fruit picking. It's not arguing about any impact on the New Zealand economy - instead it shows benefits in the economy the immigrants come from.

This post is difficult to understand. From my understand, correct me if I am wrong, New Zealand is providing aid by allowing Tongan workers come work for a season, then return home. This leads to a marked improvement in the lives of those who are allowed to migrate to work. Is that right?

Yes

It also leads to an improvement in the conditions of the home country.

People in Australia may be interested to know that many Pacific nations have repeatedly asked Australia to setup a similar program, and these request have been strongly supported by groups like the National Farmers Federation (who currently have to rely primarily on British pack-packers to pick a lot of produce)

The response to these requests has been negative so far.

The response to these requests has been negative so far.

i.e. "stop the boats"

A very misleading headline if you ask me. Of course taking someone out of a third world economy and putting them in a country with a stable government and employment possibilities is going to improve their lot.

It's not very scalable, though. You can't import a whole nation into another. And it only measures monetary benefits. Is there an increase in native New Zealanders unemployment? Is there an increase in rents? Is there an increase in family breakdown for the ones who are seasonally migrating?

Immigration issues are rarely one dimensional.

Q: Is there an increase in native New Zealanders unemployment? A: these gains came with minimal displacement of native workers

The original article deals with some more of your objections.

Immigration issues are rarely one dimensional. True - in this case it does seem pretty beneficial.

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