International Organization for Migration (IOM)

education (Autor, 2011). At the same time, white-collar occupations that require a
medium level of skills and blue-collar jobs in manufacturing and production have
suffered a decline.
The dispersion of foreign-born workers across occupations is indicative of this
polarization: they have filled jobs in the fastest growing sectors such that migrants
are now over-represented in occupations that employ very highly educated persons as
well as in occupations that employ persons with less than a high-school degree (Bean
et al., 2012; Kaushal and Fix, 2006).
The historic expansion of the US workforce of the past half century had been
driven by three key demographic forces: baby boomers’ entrance into the workforce,
expansion in women’s labour force participation, and immigration. Born in the post-
World War II population explosion that ended with the introduction of the birth pill
in 1964, the 78 million baby boomers entered the labour market between the early
1960s and mid-1980s, leading to an unprecedented growth in the US workforce. The
second source of expansion came from the continual increase in women’s labour force
participation – from 43 per cent in 1970 to 60 per cent by 1990 (Lee and Mather,
2008). In 2007, women represented 46 per cent of the US workforce, up from 19 per
cent a century ago.
The final source of workforce expansion, and certainly the most dominant since
the late 1980s, is immigration, adding annually about a million new foreign-born
workers, who are permanent residents, and about twice as many temporary shortterm
legal or undocumented workers. During the period 1995–2010, foreign-born
workers accounted for half the increase in labour force in the country, according to
estimates based on the US Current Population Surveys.
The Great Recession has brought the labour market expansion to a halt (Toossi,
2012). Between December 2007 and March 2010, the US economy lost 8.2 million
jobs as the unemployment rate doubled from 5 per cent to 9.7 per cent (Autor, 2010).
While most economists believe that US employment will eventually rise to the prerecession
level as demand picks up, future growth in workforce is likely to remain
tepid. Ironically, the same forces that led the workforce expansion are causing its
slowdown. Baby boomers have begun to retire and the X generation that followed
the boomers is simply not large enough to replace its predecessor. Women’s labour
force participation that started rising at the turn of the 20th century appears to have
reached a plateau.
As to the inflow of foreign workers, since the beginning of the Great Recession,
it is mostly stagnant. This might change as the US economy revives. However,
future migration flows would depend on global economic and demographic trends
as well as similar trends in major migrant sending countries. In the medium run,
the United States will find itself competing with Asia and Europe for highly skilled
international workers (Freeman, 2008, NAS, 2006). The advantage that the United
States has enjoyed as the epicenter of higher education is likely to be challenged by
Asian and European nations.
country studIes – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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