Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America

Immigrants and Boomers looks to California as a bellwether state--where whites are no longer a majority of the population and represent just a third of residents under age twenty--to afford us a glimpse into the future impact of immigration on the rest of the nation. Myers opens with an examination of the roots of voter resistance to providing social services for immigrants. Drawing on detailed census data, Myers demonstrates that long-established immigrants have been far more successful than the public believes. Among the Latinos who make up the bulk of California's immigrant population, those who have lived in California for over a decade show high levels of social mobility and use of English, and 50 percent of Latino immigrants become homeowners after 20 years. The impressive progress made by immigrant families suggests they have the potential to pick up the slack from aging boomers over the next two decades. The mass retirement of the boomers will leave critical shortages in the educated workforce, while shrinking ranks of middle-class tax payers and driving up entitlement expenditures. In addition, as retirees sell off their housing assets, the prospect of a generational collapse in housing prices looms. Myers suggests that it is in the boomers' best interest to invest in the education and integration of immigrants and their children today in order to bolster the ranks of workers, taxpayers, and homeowners America they will depend on 10 and 20 years from now.

In this compelling, optimistic book, Myers calls for a new social contract between the older and younger generations, based on their mutual interests and the moral responsibility of each generation to provide for children and the elderly. Combining a rich scholarly perspective with keen insight into contemporary political dilemmas, Immigrants and Boomers creates a new framework for understanding the demographic challenges facing America and forging a national consensus to address them.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

A New Perspective for the Immigrant Debate, 2008-02-22
Dowell Myers is a professor, urban planner, and numbers cruncher as well as a good thinker and clear writer. In this book, he has used his synthesizing ability to write a cogent argument about the mutual need that the aging baby boomers and many immigrants have for each other. He states at the outset: "This book is a river of discovery formed of many tributaries, each of which began in response to different contexts and motivations, and all later merging together far down course." (p. xi). What is this mutual need? In the United States, the baby boomers are getting older. Who will support them in their old age? Who will buy their homes? Who will replenish the U.S. coffers? Most likely, they will be found among the ever-increasing number of immigrants. It is out of mutual self-interest that the boomers and the immigrants really do need each other... The need is for a financially viable work force to replace the one retiring in the coming years. Therefore, Myers suggests, "success in meeting the educational challenge of preparing the new generation is the single most important task for the future." (p. 200).

He describes two possible futures: the scenario of despair, which flows from the sense that those among the formerly dominant demographic group (white, non-Hispanic) are losing their position as the dominant group. They are afraid, because they sense that foreign cultures are taking over... However, he points toward a better future: the scenario of hope, based on mutual self-interest. Though many do not see such a possibility, in this possible future, the older (voters) would invest in the younger, school-age generation, many of whom are ethnically different or of immigrant origin. These then become the taxpaying and investing class, the home-buying class, in the next generation...

In the conclusion of his book, he recommends seven steps for rebuilding the future of hope. These steps set the agenda for discussion and action.

Throughout the book, Myers points to the demographics and trends in California as harbinger for the rest of the country. Currently in California, the school-age children are overwhelmingly of a different ethnic make-up than were prior generations. Because of immigration patterns spreading to other states, this represents the future of the country as a whole.

Thoroughly researched, with mounds of verified demographic data, this book asks the right questions about the future of the Immigrants and the Boomers. If this raises questions that you are concerned with, I also recommend reading The Latino Wave: How Hispanics Are Transforming Politics in America by Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos as an additional source for understanding the coming demographic changes. What Mr. Myers has done is to demonstrate that the aging baby boomers really do need this immigrant wave to become financially successful in the decades to come.

"In short, when the baby boomers retire, who will replace them? Who will pay the taxes to support their much deserved retirement benefits? And who will pay them a good price for their homes? New knowledge of these coming events should command all our attention." (p. 3). These questions do indeed suggest issues that will be of increasingly greater importance in months and years to come.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Hope and Immigration, 2007-12-02
"Two highly regarded demographers have already proclaimed that the nations recent wave of immigration has crested."

I heard Professor Myers talk at the Huntington Library about a year ago and have been eagerly awaiting his book. Since he is a demographer at USC he looks at the immigration issue from a demographers point of view and he concludes that if the baby boomers want to have someone to buy their houses and care for them when they are 75 they had better keep letting in immigrants and spend more now to educate and acculturate them.
The book has great graphs and much new data about the wave of immigrants from Latin America. He shows how the fear of immigration is based on a flawed snapshot of the past and that there is much to be hopeful about.
"The nation needs immigrants to fill our needs, not simply in today's world, where most citizens and experts have looked for their answers, but especially in tomorrow's."
People who argue in favor of immigration and an amnesty will find that "Immigrants and Boomers" gives them some very good economic and cultural arguments to support their view. Those who oppose immigration and amnesty may be swayed by the arguments about the economic needs of the baby boomers. This is an important book because it presents new data that can reduce some of the jingoistic fear of immigrants. It would be worth the price and time just for its excellent rebuttal of Sam Huntington's argument against immigration in "Who We Are."



3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Eye Opening Analysis, 2007-06-19
Mr. Myers brings a new perspective to the immigration debate, but he doesn't involve himself in dealing with the current illegal immigrant issue per se. He writes clearly and supports his work with copious citations, charts and graphs.

I downgrade this book for its repetitiousness. He makes the same basic points chapter after chapter. And, for all of his teachings that we citizens embrace an outlook of hope for the future, in the end he despairs of working the issue through governmental processes. If you liked Obama's Audacity of Hope, you'll love Myers.

In the end, he changed my mind set about our need for infusions of immigrants and for the imperative need of a crash course to educate them.
Anyone who dislikes the pending immigration bill will likely change thier mind too if they dare to read this book.




4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

If Lou Dobbs could read, this should be the first book he reads, 2007-05-12
Dowell Myers is a researcher at USC. In this book he demonstrates compelling evidence of the benefits of immigration. He also dispells a lot of the myths that have grown up around the immigration debate - for example he shows that this generation of immigrants is indeed assimilating faster than previous ones.

What are the consequences of lowering our average age in the US by accepting immigrants? Myers shows some significant ones. But there are other unexpected trends that every serious discussant on the immigration debate should consider (I guess that leaves Dobbs out).

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