Immigration and diversity

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research - "Rethinking the Effect of Immigration on Wages"

• In the abstract, the research states that it finds "a positive and significant effect of the 1990-2004 immigration on the average wage of U.S.-born workers overall, both in the short run and in the long run. This positive effect results from averaging a positive effect on wages of U.S.-born workers with at least a high school degree and a small negative effect on wages of U.S.-born workers with no high school degree." Essentially, immigration in the time period studied increased the wages of US born workers with a high school degree or higher in the short term and long term.

• In their data analysis and review of literature, the authors were able to identify that "average wages of natives benefit from immigration, even in the short run. These average gains are, in the short and long run, distributed as a small wage loss to the group of high school dropouts and wage gains for all the other groups of U.S. natives." By "natives" they mean US born citizens/workers.

  • The short term effects are illustrated in Figure 1 below. It shows immigration causes the wages of US born high school graduates to raise by an average of 2.4%, college dropouts by an average of 3.4%, and college graduates by an average of 0.7%. The average wage of a US born high school dropout decreases by an average of 1.1%. Overall, the average US born worker sees their wages increase by 1.8% thanks to immigration.

  • The long term effects are illustrated in Figure 2 below. It shows immigration causes the wages of US born high school graduates to raise by an average of 1.8%, college dropouts by an average of 2.8%, and college graduates by an average of 0.7%. The average wage of a US born high school dropout decreases by an average of 0.1%. Overall, the average US born worker sees their wages increase by 1.2% thanks to immigration.

  • Thus, a large majority of US born workers see their wages increase due to immigration, considering around 90% of Americans have completed high school or more and the US Census Bureau reports that high school completion rate is at its highest in US history.

• Interestingly, the group suffering the biggest loss from immigration are previous immigrants: "The group suffering the biggest loss in wages is the contingent of previous immigrants, who compete with new immigrants for similar jobs and occupations."

Research from the National Institute of Economic Research - "The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity"

• This research finds a "very robust correlation" between an increase in foreign born citizens in a metropolitan area and an increase in wages and rental prices. The authors note that this findings is "economically significant."

  • "We document in this paper a very robust correlation: US-born citizens living in metropolitan areas where the share of foreign-born increased between 1970 and 1990, experienced a significant increase in their wage and in the rental price of their housing."

• The authors constructed a model which handles all possible cases of diversity: "We have considered a simple model that handles all possible cases (i.e. positive or negative effect on productivity and utility), and we have designed a simple identification procedure to figure out which case receives empirical support based on cross-city wage and rent variations." Through this model they were able to find empirical evidence that an increase in diversity is highly correlated with an increase in wages: "We showed that higher wages and higher rents for US natives are significantly correlated with higher diversity. This result has survived several robustness checks against possible alternative explanations based on omitted variables and instrumental variables estimation."

  • The increase in rent is to be expected with new people coming to an area, regardless of the new peoples' country of origin, culture, skin color, et cetera. More people looking for housing = housing prices increase. One could argue that the increase in rent voids the increase in wages, which could be true to an extent, depending on the rate which each - housing prices and wages - increase and this would mean an increase in diversity has little to no effect on actual wealth. So based on these findings diversity either leads to nothing (you're paid more but your rent also increases) or higher wages that result in citizens having more wealth.

• The authors note that their findings show a dominant positive effect of diversity: "Given our identification procedure, these findings are consistent only with a dominant positive effect of diversity on productivity: a more multicultural urban environment makes US-born citizens more productive."

Research from the University of Pennsylvania - "The Effects of Immigration on the United States Economy"

• Overall, this research finds that immigration does not lead to a slowing of US wage growth, as "most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages." The research finds immigration to be quite beneficial: "immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic productivity." It should be noted that in some situations immigration can cause a strain on US born taxpayers, but this is only in areas with large populations of less educated, low-income immigrants and the benefits listed above more than make up for this one negative.

• The research identifies that large surges in immigration since the 1970s are hardly to blame for any presumptive slower wage growth: "Has the surge in immigration since 1970 led to slower wage growth for native-born workers? Academic research does not provide much support for this claim."

  • "The evidence suggests that when immigration increases the supply of labor, firms increase investment to offset any reduction in capital per worker, thereby keeping average wages from falling over the long term. Moreover, immigrants are often imperfect substitutes for native-born workers in U.S. labor markets. That means they do not compete for the same jobs and put minimal downward pressure on natives’ wages."

• The research also comes to similar conclusions as the National Bureau of Economic Research's paper cited above: immigration has raised the wages of native born American workers and the group suffering the biggest loss in wages are previous immigrants.

  • "Moreover, immigrants are often imperfect substitutes for native-born workers in U.S. labor markets. That means they do not compete for the same jobs and put minimal downward pressure on natives’ wages. This might explain why competition from new immigrants has mostly affected earlier immigrants, who experienced significant reductions in wages from the surge in immigration. In contrast, studies find that immigration has actually raised average wages of native-born workers during the last few decades."

  • "Most empirical studies indicate long-term benefits for natives’ employment and wages from immigration, although some studies suggest that these gains come at the cost of short-term losses from lower wages and higher unemployment."

• The research finds that immigrants aren't necessarily taking away "American" jobs, but create more opportunities for jobs since they contribute to the economy: "A popular view is that immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens. However, although immigrants increase the supply of labor, they also spend their wages on homes, food, TVs and other goods and services and expand domestic economic demand. This increased demand, in turn, generates more jobs to build those homes, make and sell food, and transport TVs."

• Although immigration increases labor supply, immigrants complement American born workers rather than replace them. For example, because less educated immigrants often don't speak English they take manual labor, low skill positions, which can cause the American born workers in these manual labor, low skilled positions to then take advantage of their ability to speak English and shift into occupations where these skills are more valuable, such as personal services and sales. In doing so, these less skilled native born workers raise the incomes and productivity of natives and immigrants: "This greater specialization leads to a more efficient allocation of labor, raising the incomes and productivity of both natives and immigrants." This is expanded in the excerpt below.

  • "Despite these increases in labor supply, in many cases immigrants appear to complement American-born workers rather than replacing them. Because less-educated immigrants often lack the linguistic skills required for many jobs, they tend to take jobs in manual labor-intensive occupations such as agriculture and construction. Even for low-skilled native-born workers in these industries, the effects of increased competition from immigrants are ambiguous, as many take advantage of their superior communication abilities and shift into occupations where these skills are more valuable, such as personal services and sales. Similarly, highly educated immigrants face a disadvantage in communication-intensive jobs, and therefore tend to work in scientific and technical occupations. Highly skilled natives in management, media, and other culture- and language-dependent jobs face little competition from high skilled immigrants. The inflow of foreign labor is, therefore, concentrated in a subset of occupations that tend to employ many immigrants already. Consequently, it is earlier immigrants who face the greatest increase in competitive pressure."

• As shown in Figure 3 below, the research compares the results of two other works which contrast the wages of native born workers and immigrant workers in the US. Overall, it is evident that the wages of native born workers slightly increase due to immigration: "They find a small but positive effect, equal to about half a percentage point, on the average wages of native workers. One of the studies indicates a minor decline in the wages of those without a high school degree or with a college degree, while the other study finds only positive gains."

• Immigrants also help come up with and produce new products and ideas: "immigrants produce patents at double the rate as natives, and the presence of these immigrants generates positive spillovers on patenting by natives."

• In conclusion, the research states that "Immigrants, whether high- or low-skilled, legal or illegal, are unlikely to replace native-born workers or reduce their wages over the long-term, though they may cause some short-term dislocations in labor markets," and that "the experience of the last few decades suggests that immigration may actually have significant long-term benefits for the native-born, pushing them into higher-paying occupations and raising the overall pace of innovation and productivity growth."

  • "While natives bear some upfront costs for the provision of public services to immigrants and their families, the evidence suggests a net positive return on the investment over the long term."

Polls from The Initiative on Global Markets - "Low-Skilled Immigrants" and "High-Skilled Immigrants"

• As seen in below in Figure 4, the majority of economists surveyed agree that the average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year.

• As seen below in Figure 5, the majority of economists surveyed agree that the average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of highly educated foreign workers were legally allowed to immigrate to the US each year.

Research from the Journal of the European Economic Association - "Rethinking the Effect of Immigration on Wages"

• In the abstract, the authors state that "in the period from 1990 to 2006 immigration had a small effect on the wages of native workers with no high school degree (between 0.6% and +1.7%). It also had a small positive effect on average native wages (+0.6%) and a substantial negative effect (−6.7%) on wages of previous immigrants in the long run." So, same story as the previously mentioned works: immigration overall has a small positive effect on the wages of most US born workers and a negative effect on the wages of previous immigrants.

• This work differentiates itself from other literature, as it focuses on total wage effects of immigration rather than partial effects: "the previous literature has often focused on generally uninformative partial wage effects, we provide here an assessment of the total wage effects of immigration to the United States in the period 1990–2006." The research identifies the selected timeframe - 1990-2006 - as the "period of fastest immigration growth in recent US history."

• The authors ultimately concludes that their models imply "an overall average positive effect of immigration on native wages of about 0.6% and an overall average negative effect on the wages of previous immigrants of about −6%."

  • Immigration only had a negative effect on the wages of the least educated native US workers: "All in all, one finding seems robust: once imperfect substitutability between natives and immigrants is allowed for, over the period 1990–2006 immigration to the United States had at most a modest negative long-run effect on the real wages of the least educated natives." This is consistent with the findings of the other works from the National Bureau of Economic Research and University of Pennsylvania.

Research Article/ Meta Analysis from the Institute of Labor Economics - "Do immigrant workers depress the wages of native workers?"

• This article reviews existing literature on immigration, 27 studies published between 1982 and 2013 to be specific. About a third of these studies used US data.

  • "This paper summarizes that abundant literature, based on a review of 27 original studies published between 1982 and 2013."

  • "About a third of these studies used US data. The others used data mainly for Austria, Germany, Israel, and the UK, whilst a few used data for other European countries."

• Overall, this article asserts very familiar findings and suggests that immigration has a close to zero effect on wages in the short term but can boost wages, along with productivity, in the long term.

• As seen in Figure 6 below, the majority of empirical evidence suggests immigration has either an infantesible impact on wages or a slight positive impact on wages.

• Among the key positive findings, this article identifies that "In the long term, immigration, especially of high-skilled workers, increases innovation and the skill mix, with potentially positive productivity effects," and immigration has a very small effect on wages of native workers (that effect is usually a positive one, although very small).

• The author writes that the fear of immigrants taking away native jobs is "rooted in a simplified, static model of labor demand and supply in which immigration increases the supply of some workers while everything else in the economy remains fixed." The author asserts that to understand the true effect of immigration, one must take into account immigration and the response of firms and workers: "The recent empirical literature emphasizes that to understand the impact of immigrant workers on wages, immigration and the response of firms and workers must be analyzed together."

  • "Most studies find no empirical evidence that native workers move out in response to immigration."

  • Aside from rigid labor markets, "local economies, firms, and native workers do respond to immigration and eliminate potential adverse wage impacts, but not by moving out of the region or by becoming unemployed." The article identifies that southern European countries have more rigid labor markets and thus are less flexible in responding to immigration. The article does not note that America has a rigid labor market or economy.

  • Immigration has cross-skill effects and an increase in immigrant workers means existing firms can grow and new firms can start up. Immigrants in one skill group allow a firm to expand job opportunities to other skill groups and an increase in immigrants allows a local economy to expand and absorb without lowering wages.

    • "Having more immigrants in one skill group (for example, engineers) allows firms to expand job opportunities (complementarities) for workers in other skill groups (for example, sales representatives and janitors). Accounting for these cross-skill effects substantially reduces the negative wage impact of immigrants, while failing to account for them isolates a partial effect of immigration without considering the total effect."

    • "The second effect is related to the first. An increase in available workers means that existing firms can grow, investing in new plant and equipment, and that new firms may start up. Unless the immigrant influx is sudden and unexpected, this mechanism operates continuously and allows the local economy to expand and absorb additional immigrant labor without lowering wages."

• Firms and workers make adjustments to immigration, thus providing little evidence of wage-depressing effects of immigrants.

  • "A review of the literature finds little evidence of a wage-depressing effect of immigration because immigrants are absorbed into the receiving economy through a series of adjustments by firms and other workers. Once these adjustments are accounted for, the wages of native workers, even workers with skills similar to those of immigrants, do not change much in response to immigration."

• Most studies find a very small effect: "one clear finding emerges: the largest concentration of estimated effects is clustered around zero. Furthermore, the effects are often economically very small and at least half are not statistically significant."

  • Two thirds of the studies (19 out of the 27) show an effect between -0.1 and 0.1. This is shown below in Figure 7.

    • Interpreting the numbers: "The values report the effects of a 1 percentage point increase in the share of immigrants in a labor market (whether a city, state, country, or a skill group within one of these areas) on the average wage of native workers in the same market. For example, an estimated effect of 0.1 means that a 1 percentage point increase in immigrants in a labor market raises the average wage paid to native workers in that labor market by 0.1 percentage point." Basically, these studies find that a 1% increase in immigrants raises wages by 0.1%, basically a minimal effect.

    • Overall, "These are extremely small changes, especially over a 20-year period, and do not support the notion that immigrants lower the wages of native workers."

• While some other research finds a negative effect on the wages of less educated native born US workers, this article identifies that most research does not: "while some of the surveyed studies find a more significant negative effect on the wages of less educated native workers than native workers overall, most do not. The meta-analysis study does not identify any significant difference in estimated wage effects between less educated native workers and all native workers."

• Like some of the previous works cited here, this article identifies that it is previous immigrants, not native born US workers, who are negatively effected by new immigrants: "wage effects of recent immigrants are usually negative and slightly larger for earlier immigrants than for native workers. New immigrants may be stronger labor market competitors of earlier immigrants than of native workers."

• Long term, immigrants can increase productivity and and the efficiency of an economy by bringing new skills and encouraging firm creation and expansion. Thus, wages can grow because productivity drives wage growth.

  • "In the long run, immigrants can increase the overall efficiency of the economy by bringing new skills, stimulating efficient specialization, and encouraging firm creation. In the long run this can have an important effect on wages, because productivity drives all wage growth. There is evidence of this positive effect in recent analyses at the city, state, region, and national levels."

• Immigrants bring with them skill diversity, which in turn can spur innovation and productivity growth.

  • "Native workers also respond to immigration by specializing in more communication and cognitive-intensive production tasks, which complement the tasks performed by immigrants. This is important because skill diversity among workers facing a wide array of differentiated tasks increases specialization and efficiency. Skill diversity may also spur innovation and productivity growth. Firms may also expand in response to an increase in immigrant workers and create new complementary jobs filled largely by native workers."

    • "Most studies that explicitly consider these possibilities find positive, sometimes large, productivity effects of increased numbers of immigrant workers."

• "Occupational upgrading" is another mechanism to consider. An influx of low skill immigrants moves native born US workers into more cognitive and communication intensive jobs, which probably pay more, and an influx of high skill immigrants moves high skill native born US workers into managerial occupations.

  • "When immigrants fill lower-skill, manual-intensive positions, native workers move into more complex, cognitive- and communication-intensive jobs. Similarly, when highly educated immigrants enter the labor market and take analytically intensive positions in science and technology, highly educated native workers move into managerial occupations. Finally, a large share of immigrants with specific skills are absorbed by new firms that spring up to take advantage of the availability and skills of new immigrants"

  • This mechanism kinda implies that people who oppose immigration are just too dumb to work in a position that involves cognition and communication or too lazy to take a job that asks a little bit more of them. Low skilled native US born workers can benefit by taking a position more focused on cognition and communication but I guess they are too dumb to have those skills or too lazy to use them and prefer to keep their low skill jobs, opting not to challenge themselves just so there are less brown people in their country.

• Overall, the article concludes that "Decades of research have provided little support for the claim that immigrants depress wages by competing with native workers. Most studies for industrialized countries have found, on average, no effect on the wages of native workers."

  • Also: "while the wage effects are small, the productivity, complementarity, and dynamic-response effects may have positive impacts in the long term. This implies that more open immigration policies, focused on attracting immigrants with a balanced skill mix or slightly favoring the college educated, would probably not change wages in the short term, but would likely boost productivity (and wages) in the long term."

Paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research - "Are Immigrants a Shot in the Arm for the Local Economy?"

• This paper looks at the effect immigrants have on local labor demand due to the increase in consumer demand for local services created by immigrants and ultimately concludes that the presence of immigrants can "benefit non-immigrants by increasing the variety of local services available," and "immigrants can raise native workers' real wages, and each immigrant could create more than one job." The paper also finds that for every job an immigrant "takes," they create 1.2 new jobs.

  • "Using US Census data from 1980 to 2000, we find considerable evidence for these effects: Each immigrant creates 1.2 local jobs for local workers, most of them going to native workers, and 62% of these jobs are in non-traded services."

  • "Overall, it appears that local workers benefit from the arrival of more immigrants."

• The paper identifies that immigrants are also consumers, and thus contribute to local economies not only as an additional labor force: "immigrants do not serve only as additional workers, but also as additional consumers, and as a result can provide a boost for the local labor market by increasing demand for barbers, retail store workers, auto mechanics, school teachers, and the like."

  • Essentially, new labor supply creates its own demands.

• In a "simple equilibrium model," the authors assert that the increased consumer demand caused by immigrants "can provide two benefits to local native-born workers: It can soften the effect of the increase of labor supply on wages, by shifting the demand for labor to the right just as the supply is also shifting to the right; and it can lead to an increase in the diversity of local services, conferring an indirect benefit on native-born consumers. Taken together, these effects mean that local real wages can rise as a result of immigration, even in a model where native-born and immigrant labor are perfect substitutes."

• The paper also makes reference to several journalist accounts and stories in which a crackdown on immigration and/or more stringent immigration enforcement negatively effect the local economy. This is not to say that America should have 100% open borders with no distinction between legal/illegal entry, but shows how important immigrants can be to a local economy.

• In conclusion, the paper states that "immigration into a town will tend to attract other native workers from elsewhere in the country, who will then create an additional ‘shot in the arm’ of their own, resulting in a virtuous cycle in which employment in the town has increased by more than the direct rise in the local labor force due to the immigrants. In that case, we can say that each immigrant generates more than one job." This would be seen as a strong shot in the arm effect, whereas a weak shot in the arm effect would make wages decline and native workers leave the town. However, the evidence in the paper favors a strong shot in the arm effect, supporting the idea that "workers in a given metropolitan area benefit from the arrival of more immigrants to that metropolitan area."

  • The authors also state that "We find that 1, 000 new immigrants to a US Metropolitan Area generate approximately 1, 200 new local job," and "we find that new immigrants tend to raise local wages slightly even in terms of tradeables for jobs in the non-traded sector while they push wages down slightly in the traded sector, and that new immigrants seem to attract native workers into the metropolitan area."

Paper from the American Immigration Council - "High-Skilled Workers and Twentieth-First Century Innovation: The H-1B Program's Impact on Wages, Jobs, and the Economy"

• This paper focuses on the effect of the H-1B visa: "a temporary non-immigrant employment visa for highly educated foreign professionals in “specialty occupations” that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent." Essentially, the visa allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers for up to three years. Nearly two thirds of H-1B visa requests are in STEM fields, so many of the advances in science and technology in the US are made with the help of these H1-B immigrants. It ultimately finds that "H-1B workers do not harm native-born workers’ job opportunities," and "their presence often leads to higher wages and more job opportunities. Highly skilled immigrants complement their nativeborn peers; they do not substitute for them."

• Since 1990, the H-1B program has been associated with significant increases in wages for college educated, US Born workers in cities.

  • "Research shows that from 1990 (the start of the H-1B program) to 2010 H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers were associated with significant increases in wages for college educated, U.S.-born workers in 219 U.S. cities."

  • These wage increases were not just for colleges educated, US born workers in STEM fields: "H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers in a city were associated with significant increases in wages paid to both STEM and non-STEM college-educated natives, while non-college educated workers showed no significant wage or employment effects."

• The paper references a study done by the Brookings Institution which finds that in metropolitan areas with the greatest number of H-1B requests per worker wages across the STEM fields are growing.

  • "According to the Brookings Institution, in the metropolitan areas with the greatest number of H-1B requests per worker, the average wages for STEM occupations with the largest number of H-1B requests are high, the remaining vacancies are difficult to fill, and wages across those industries are growing."

  • The Brooking Institution also reports that in fields with the most H-1B requests wage growth has been much higher than the national average: "For occupations with the most H-1B requests, wage growth in recent years has been much higher than the national average, according to the Brookings Institution."

• The paper also identifies that employment rates for US born workers with degrees in STEM fields remains low, highlighting how H-1B immigrants complement native born workers rather than replace them.

Special Report from the American Immigration Council - "The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States"

• In the report's summary, the authors state that "For more than a century, innumerable studies have confirmed two simple yet powerful truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime. This holds true for both legal immigrants and the unauthorized, regardless of their country of origin or level of education. In other words, the overwhelming majority of immigrants are not 'criminals' by any commonly accepted definition of the term. For this reason, harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime."

• Higher immigration rates are associated with lower crime rates.

  • The report identifies that between 1990 and 2013 the foreign born share of the US population grew from 7.9% to 13.1% and the number of unauthorized immigrants almost tripled, yet during that same time period the FBI indicates that the violent crime rate declined by 48% and the property crime rate fell by 41%. This is shown below in Figure 8.

    • "As the number of immigrants in the United States has risen in recent years, crime rates have fallen."

    • "This decline in crime rates in the face of high levels of new immigration has been a steady national trend, and has occurred in cities across the country."

  • Why could an increase of immigration lower crime?

    • Immigrants could revitalize the run down parts of urban areas: "Declining rates of property crime have also been documented in metropolitan areas across the country. Some scholars suggest that new immigrants may revitalize urban areas, ultimately reducing violent crime rates."

    • Immigrants have little reason to commit crime in general, considering how much of their life they have uprooted to come to a new country: “First-generation economic immigrants are self-selected risk takers who leave their homes, families, and languages to move to a new country to improve their and their children’s lives. They have good reasons to work hard, defer gratifications, and stay out of trouble."

• Immigrant men are less likely than native born US men to be behind bars.

  • The report references a 2010 study done by the American Community Survey which found that ~1.6% of immigrant men aged 18-39 are incarcerated whereas 3.3% of native born men aged 18-39 have been incarcerated. This is shown in Figure 9.

    • Incarceration rates for native born US citizen has always been higher - two to five times higher - than that of immigrants even going back to the eighties: "This disparity in incarceration rates has existed for decades, as evidenced by data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses. In each of those years, the incarceration rates of the native-born were anywhere from two to five times higher than that of immigrants."

  • When comparing less educated immigrant men who make up the bulk of the unauthorized immigrant population, it's evident that less educated native born US men are more likely to be incarcerated. Less educated unauthorized Mexican men are incarcerated at a rate of 2.8% and Salvadoran and Guatemalan men are incarcerated at a rate of 1.7% whereas less educated native born US men are incarcerated at a rate of 10.7%. This is shown below in Figure 10.

  • Immigration enforcement systems are not to blame for this low incarceration rate, as the report references a study which found that "evidence suggests that deportation and deterrence of immigrants’ crime commission from the threat of deportation are not driving the results. Rather, immigrants appear to be self-selected to have low criminal propensities and this has increased over time."

  • The report also references a Government Accountability Office study which found that 48% of immigrants in its sample were arrested for a drug offense and 39% were arrested for a traffic violation, whereas only 8% were arrested for homicide and 9% for robbery. So it's evident that immigrants largely commit non violent acts when they do commit crime.

    • Additionally, the GAO analyzed data from the US Sentencing Commission and found that in 2009 the primary federal conviction for immigrants, 68% to be exact, was an immigration related violation. Again, a non violent act.

• Immigrants are less likely to engage in criminal behavior than the native born US population.

  • The report finds that immigrants are less likely to be involved in criminal behavior: "A variety of different studies using different methodologies have found that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to engage in either violent or nonviolent “antisocial” behaviors; that immigrants are less likely than the nativeborn to be repeat offenders among “high risk” adolescents; and that immigrant youth who were students in U.S. middle and high schools in the mid-1990s and are now young adults have among the lowest delinquency rates of all young people."

  • "The available evidence indicates that immigrants are not only less likely to end up behind bars than the native-born, but that immigrants are also less likely to commit criminal acts to begin with."

  • The report references a 2014 study which analyzed data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions and ultimately found that "immigrants to the US are less likely to engage in violent or nonviolent antisocial behaviors than native-born Americans. Notably, native-born Americans were approximately four times more likely to report violent behavior than Asian and African immigrants and three times more likely than immigrants from Latin America."

• In conclusion, the report states that "While lawmakers repeatedly justify their crackdown on immigrants as a means of fighting crime, the reality is that crime in the United States is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status."

Article from the University of Wisconsin-Madison - "Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens"

• This article is in reference to a study published by the university (the linked source directly below this one) which identified that, in Texas, native born US citizen are more likely to commit crime than undocumented immigrants. This is illustrated below in Figure 11.

• The article makes an argument similar to that of the the American Immigration Council report as to why immigrants don't commit crime: immigrants "have a tremendous incentive to avoid wrongdoing. The greatest fear among undocumented immigrants is getting in legal trouble that leads to deportation." That is to say, if an immigrant's goal is to move to American to achieve the American dream and create a better life for themselves or their family, why would they put that in jeopardy by committing a crime?

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor Michael Light argues, "There's a lot of opportunity to commit crimes in Mexico and Venezuela and other places people are emigrating from. The argument is that many people who want to immigrate are selected on attributes like ambition to achieve, to find economic opportunities, and those types of things aren't very highly correlated with having a criminal propensity."

Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison - "Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas"

• In the abstract, the authors state that between 2012-2018 in Texas "Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes." Additionally, the authors state that "We find that undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses."

• The research shows that native born US citizens have higher violent crime rates, property crime rates, drug violations, assault rates, robbery rates, burglary rates, theft rates, and arson rates than legal and undocumented immigrants. Legal immigrants have a higher rates of traffic violations, homicide (by a very slim margin), and sexual assault than native born US citizens. This is seen below in Figures 12 and 13.

  • Same analysis as mentioned in the abstract: "US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes."

• In terms of crime rate in general, the research finds that native born US citizens commit more than twice as much crime than undocumented immigrants and more crime than legal immigrants. This is shown in Figure 14.

  • "native-born citizens tend to have the highest rates, undocumented immigrants have the lowest, and legal immigrants are in between. In general terms, the felony arrest rates were ∼1,000 per 100,000 among US-born citizens, 800 per 100,000 among legal immigrants, and 400 per 100,000 among undocumented immigrants."

• When focusing solely on violent crime rates, the research finds that native born US citizens commit about twice as much violent crime as undocumented immigrants and more violent crime that legal immigrants. The pattern for violent crime is very similar to total crime. This is illustrated below in Figure 15.

  • "Compared to native-born citizens, legal immigrants and, especially, undocumented immigrants have lower rates of violent crime, and the relative gaps between immigrants and US-born citizens have increased modestly."

• Now focusing on property crime rates, which have been decreasing over the years, the research finds that native born US citizens commit about 4x as much property crime as undocumented immigrants and about 2x as much property crime as legal immigrants. This is shown below in Figure 16.

• Looking solely at drug crime rates, native born US citizens again have higher rates of crime than undocumented and legal immigrants. This is shown in Figure 17.

  • "Moreover, during this time period the felony drug rate for undocumented immigrants appears stable, whereas the rate for US-born citizens increases nearly 30%. Thus, not only do undocumented immigrants have substantially lower felony drug rates, but their relative contribution to drug crime rate appears to be decreasing. The same general trends are true of legal immigrants, who had a slightly lower rate of felony drug arrests in 2012 compared to US-born citizens. By 2018, however, this gap increased substantially due to the increase in drug crime among native-born citizens."

• Focusing on traffic crime rates legal immigrants have higher crime rates than native born US citizens, who have higher rates than undocumented immigrants. This is seen in Figure 18.

• Overall, this research offers a tremendous amount of data which shows immigrants have much lower crime rates than that of native born US citizens.

  • The authors state "Our analysis reveals two broad conclusions about the criminality of undocumented immigrants. First, undocumented immigrants have substantially lower rates of crime compared to both native US citizens and legal immigrants. Second, over the 7 y period from 2012 to 2018, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing."

Paper from the Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Journal - "The immigrant paradox: immigrants are less antisocial than native-born Americans"

• Please note that I cite the full text on SciHub, as the publisher does not offer a free version of he full text.

• The goal of this paper was to see if immigrants would report fewer violent and nonviolent antisocial behaviors than similarly situated native born US citizens, and ultimately found this to be the case. As shown below in Figure 19, native born US citizens report higher rates of violent and nonviolent antisocial behaviors than immigrants. Based on this data, the rate of native born US citizens engaging in illegal behavior is 3x that of immigrants.

  • "Across the board, the prevalence of antisocial behavior among native-born Americans was greater than that of immigrants. Particularly large differences were observed in terms of involvement in behaviors that could easily hurt oneself/others, truancy, staying out late without permission from one’s parents, quitting a job without having other options, shoplifting, and taking part in illegal behaviors that could get one arrested."

  • In three year follow ups, the patterns remained the same and the rate of native born US citizens engaging in illegal behavior was still 3x that of immigrants. The authors state "results largely mirrored the overall pattern found for wave I with immigrants reporting lower levels of violent and nonviolent acts even after controlling for the same confounds as in the main analyses." This is seen in Figure 20.

• When breaking down immigrants by their ethnicity - African, Latin American, European, and Asia, it's clear that violent and nonviolent antisocial activity is more prevalent is more prevalent in native born US citizens that any of these immigrant groups. This is illustrated below in Figure 21.

  • "Across the board, for both violent and nonviolent behaviors, native-born Americans reported the highest levels of antisociality."

• Ultimately, the paper concludes that "no matter the region of the world, immigrants to the US are less likely to engage in violent or nonviolent antisocial behaviors than native-born Americans. Notably, native-born Americans were approximately four times more likely to report violent behavior than Asian and African immigrants and three times more likely than immigrants from Latin America."

• The paper seems to coin the term "immigrant paradox," a term which references how "immigrants are more socially disadvantaged yet also less likely to commit crime and evince other forms of social pathology."

  • "The immigrant paradox finding has emerged from studies using various data sources, research designs, and geographic areas."

• Much like the work from the American Immigration Council, this paper tries to provide some answers to as to how and why immigrants commit so little crime (in comparison to native born US citizens). The paper offers these theories:

  • Immigrants have a lot to lose and wouldn't risk committing a crime when they've already risked so much by moving to a new country: "immigrants have a lot to lose, including deportation, and avoiding law enforcement is an especially good idea when you are in a new and strange land."

  • The cultural armamentarium hypothesis: "immigrants come to the US and bring with them their cultural practices (e.g., shared normative structures, similar ways of living, tendency to congregate around other immigrants) thus providing a social network and form of ‘herd immunity' from many of the challenges of moving to a new nation."

  • Ultimately though, we can only theorize as to why immigrants are less likely to commit crime (in comparison to native born US citizens).

• The paper also identifies that popular assumptions about immigrants like immigrants being criminals or increasing crime rates are far from the truth: "Despite popular assumptions about immigrants, there is relatively little empirical research in support of the notions that immigrants are disproportionately likely to contribute to crime, violence, and correlated social problems."

Review from the Annual Review of Law and Social Science - "Immigration, Crime, and Victimization: Rhetoric and Reality"

• Please note that I cite the full text on SciHub, as the publisher does not offer a free version of the full text.

• The first sentence of the review's abstract sums this all up rather nicely: "Contrary to popular perceptions that immigration increases crime, the research literature demonstrates that immigration generally serves a protective function, reducing crime."

• Like many of these other works, this review identifies that the perception of immigration leading to an increase of crime pushed by some politicians and media outlets is false: "Across the nation, popular perceptions, fueled by the media and politicians, continue to assert a relationship between immigration and crime. Yet social science research consistently finds null or negative effects of immigration on serious crime, and especially violent crime, at both the individual and aggregate levels."

  • Additionally: "Moreover, the null or negative effects of immigration on crime rates hold (a) in crosssectional research and studies conducted at multiple points in time, (b) at the national and neighborhood levels, and (c) whether the analysis focuses on crime rates or incarceration rates. Accordingly, the general sense among scholars is that 'the link drawn between immigration and crime is misleading, to the extent of constituting a mythology.'"

• The review references a study which found that "immigration significantly reduces total homicides, felony homicides, and homicides resulting from altercations." Gang related homicides is the only category which saw an increase associated with immigration, however this could be due to police just being more likely to repute gangs.

• Another work the review references which used longitudinal, multivariate analysis of immigration and violent crime from 1994 to 2004 found that "the protective effects of immigration on rates of robbery, especially, as well as on aggravated assault and the overall violent crime index, were greatest in areas with high concentrations of immigrants." Why does immigration have this positive effect? Potentially due to "the less violent character of recent immigrants, greater levels of community efficacy in immigrant communities, revitalization of communities through increased immigration, or some combination of these and other factors."

• The review concludes that, "as demonstrated in scores of studies," the reality is that "immigration serves a protective function, decreasing neighborhood crime rates."

Research article from the Criminology Journal - "Immigration and the recent violent crime drop in the united states: A pooled, cross-sectional time-series analysis of metropolitan areas"

• The article's abstract asserts that "The findings of multivariate analyses indicate that violent crime rates tended to decrease as metropolitan areas experienced gains in their concentration of immigrants. This inverse relationship is especially robust for the offense of robbery. Overall, our results support the hypothesis that the broad reductions in violent crime during recent years are partially attributable to increases in immigration."

• Like the work from the American Immigration Council, this article identifies that "At the same time that violent crime rates have been falling dramatically, immigration to the United States has been thriving." The article references 2002 as being the year in which violent victimization rates reached an all-time low and the mass of immigration to the US which began in the 1990s.

  • "Since 1990, the size of foreign-born population grew by 56 percent, which is an addition of nearly 11 million individuals. The fall in crime rates has thus been accompanied by the influx of large numbers of foreign-born individuals."

• Collecting data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), as provided by the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) this research article set out to explore the relationship between immigration and crime and expands on previous research. Ultimately, it finds that the models employed show little support for the claim that immigration is positively associated with levels of most forms of criminal violence.

  • "Our dynamic models add continued support for this conclusion, as increases in the relative size of the Latino/foreign-born population during a period of exceptionally high immigration are significantly associated with decreases in the violent crime index, robbery rates, and aggravated assault rates."

• In the metropolitan areas included in the research's sample, it is evident that the rates of violent crime dropped throughout the 1990s while the number of immigrants soared. Additionally, the models used by the article show that metropolitan areas "at the high end of the distribution for immigrant growth are estimated to have experienced a much greater drop in violent crime than those at the bottom end."

  • "For the metropolitan areas in the sample, the rates of violent crime exhibit a dramatic decline throughout the 1990s, with some leveling off thereafter. The trend for the immigrant concentration index, which is displayed in the bottom panel of figure 1 [included here as Figure 22 below], is virtually an inverted image of that for violent crime rates."

  • "These simple graphs thus lend credibility to the hypothesis that the growth in immigration played a role in the recent crime decline in the United States."

• The article makes reference to some previous studies and identifies some "Individual-level studies consistently report that immigrants are less likely to be involved in or to be institutionalized for criminal involvement than native-born individuals."

• Much like the work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the article finds no evidence that undocumented immigrants commit tons of crime: "Research also fails to find support for the increased criminality of undocumented immigrants; this group is portrayed as the most crimeprone segment of the foreign population."

• Under "Summary and Conclusions," the authors state that "The finding of primary interest in this study is that of an inverse relationship between changes in immigration and changes in the violent crime index, the robbery rate, and the aggravated assault rate, net of other demographic and social structural controls."

  • Additionally: "Although the contribution of immigration to the overall crime drop for these offenses is modest, metropolitan areas exhibiting high levels of immigration are estimated to have fared much better than those with comparatively low growth in the size of the immigrant population. Considered as a whole, our results support the hypothesis of Sampson and colleagues that the broad reductions in crime over recent years are partially attributable to increases in diversity and immigration."

Research article from the Social Problems Journal - "Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000"

• Please note that I cite the full text on SciHub, as the publisher does not offer free access to the full text.

• Much like every other work, this article identifies that "In contrast to common perception, a rapidly expanding literature reports that immigrants are less criminally involved than their native-born counterparts." This text also offers an excerpt from one of the more influential studies on this topic: "The major finding of a century of research on immigration and crime is that . . . immigrants nearly always exhibit lower crime rates than native groups."

• In analyzing data from large US cities during 1980-2020 the article asserts that change in immigration has a relationship with a change in crime rates.

  • In one of their models, the authors find that "one unit increase over time in the immigration index is associated with a decrease of 253 violent crimes (per 100,000 persons)."

  • In another model, the authors note that the results "are consistent with the hypothesis that increases in the immigrant population lead to less violent crime in large part by altering family structure. More specifically, immigration appears to have a dampening influence on family instability, which in turn, lowers violent crime rates."

• In summary, the article states that "Findings on this question of 'immigrant criminality' generally contradict the popular belief that immigrants are particularly crime prone. In fact, much work suggests that first-generation immigrants engage in less criminal activity than natives."

  • Additionally: "unlike the long-held popular view that immigration is a major factor contributing to higher crime rates, our results suggest the opposite. The baseline regression models indicate that within-city change in immigration has a significant negative association with within-city change in violent crime. In other words, on average, cities that experienced increases in immigration from 1980 to 2000 experienced a decrease in violent crime rates."

Paper from the University of California-Irvine - "Undocumented Immigration and Rates of Crime and Imprisonment: Popular Myths and Empirical Realities"

• This paper was part of an invited address to the “Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties: The Role of Local Police” National Conference, Police Foundation, Washington, DC, August 21-22, 2008.

• The paper asserts that idea that immigrants being responsible for higher crime rates "are refuted by the preponderance of scientific evidence."

  • "Both contemporary and historical studies, including official crime statistics and victimization surveys since the early 1990s, data from the last three decennial censuses, national and regional surveys in areas of immigrant concentration, and investigations carried out by major government commissions over the past century, have shown instead that immigration is associated with lower crime rates and lower incarceration rates."

• Much like many of the previous works have identified, this paper recognizes that the increase in immigration from around the 1990s coincided with a time when crime rates declined: "Since the early 1990s, over the same time period as legal and especially illegal immigration was reaching and surpassing historic highs, crime rates have declined, both nationally and most notably in cities and regions of high immigrant concentration (including cities with large numbers of undocumented immigrants, such as Los Angeles and border cities like San Diego and El Paso, as well as New York, Chicago, and Miami)."

  • The paper also identifies that from 1994-2006 the foreign born share of the US population increased by 71% and between 1993-2005 the violent crime rate decreased by 58% and property crime decreased by 52%. There were also significant declines in rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft. Crime rates of all kinds were decreasing as the number of immigrants in the US increased.

• The paper also shows how native born US citizens are vastly more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants. This is shown below in Figure 23.

  • Specifically:

    • 0.99% of Latino immigrants get incarcerated while 1.71% of white native born US citizens get incarcerated

    • 0.29% of Asian immigrants get incarcerated while 1.71% of white native born US citizens get incarcerated

• The paper also shows that immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than those who have been living in the US for an extended period of time. Interestingly, the longer one spends in America the more likely they are to get incarcerated, suggesting that American culture or society is more violent and criminal than the immigrants many fear to be.

EXTRA BONUS DATA - As shown below in Figure 25, there has been a drastic increase in the number of immigrants in the US and a drastic decrease in the violent crime rate in the US over the past 30 years.

• Immigrant data comes from the Migration Policy Institute.

• Violent crime rate data comes from Statista.

Review from the Annual Review of Sociology - "Ethnic Diversity and Its Effects on Social Cohesion"

• Please note that I cite the full text on SciHub, as the publisher does not offer a free version of the full text.

• The review looks at 90 recent studies (they go as far back as 1997) on the effect diversity has on social cohesion and tests to see if diversity, or heterogeneity, harms social cohesion. The review ultimately sorted the studies into three categories:

  • 1). Support; "studies provide support for the claim that heterogeneity hinders social cohesion when all indicators of ethnic heterogeneity in all investigated localities are significantly and negatively related to all scrutinized indicators of social cohesion."

  • 2). Reject; "when ethnic heterogeneity is consistently not significantly and negatively related to any of the investigated indicators of social cohesion, the study uniformly falsifies the central claim and is labeled as reject."

  • 3). Mixed; "We label studies as mixed when findings are inconclusive, that is, when the overall conclusions vary with different indicators of social cohesion and/or ethnic heterogeneity and/or at different localities. Studies are also labeled as mixed when conclusions vary for different subgroups within the population."

• Of the studies, 26 support the claim that diversity harms social cohesion, 25 reject the claim, and 39 are mixed. However, studies with more rigorous and methodological design were more likely to reject the claim.

  • "For almost every study that finds uniform support for the constrict claim (26 in total), there is one that consistently rejects it (25 studies in total). Moreover, a plurality of the studies (39) finds mixed effects."

  • "In light of these methodological considerations, we compare the most rigorous studies to those that failed to meet at least one of our criteria. The percentage of studies that find supportive evidence is indeed substantially and significantly lower among those studies with a more rigorous methodological design (44% versus 18%). Nevertheless, even among the methodologically most rigorous studies, there is little consistency in the evidence (18% support, 24% reject, 58% mixed)." So, studies which are more through with rigorous methodology find results that are mixed or reject the idea that diversity harms social cohesion.

• The review finds that America is special in the sense that, unlike other countries, heterogeneity can erode some aspects of social cohesion. This begs the question, if diversity is not harmful to social cohesion in so many other countries then what's wrong with America? And how can we fix it?

  • "Moreover, there are hardly any negative effects of ethnic heterogeneity in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or Europe on indicators of social cohesion other than intraneighborhood social cohesion. In the United States, however, we found some evidence that heterogeneity also erodes other aspects of social cohesion. This seems to be a case of American exceptionalism that is commonly suggested in the social capital literature."

  • "Although the United States is a traditional immigration country, no similar consistent link is observed in other traditional countries of immigration such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand."

  • Why is America more likely to let diversity harm social cohesion? Or a better question might be why do Americans let diversity harm social cohesion? The review offers this explanation: "American exceptionalism may be due to unique historical forces. The racial divide and racial mixing have a different connotation in the United States than ethnicity and ethnic diversity have in many other countries. The salience and nature of race in the United States are contingent on its legacy of slavery until the late nineteenth century, and the subsequent Jim Crow laws that effectively barred some racial groups from exercising their social and political rights until the 1960s."

    • Additionally: "Given relative group sizes, segregation and ethnic inequality undermine favorable contact opportunities. American exceptionalism may be linked to relatively high levels of heterogeneity combined with the pronounced segregation of cities in the United States in comparison with other Western countries and the persistence of ethnic inequalities. Heterogeneity alone is unlikely to erode (all elements of ) cohesion, either in the short or the long run."

• Ultimately, the review concludes that diversity only harms small scale level trust in America because America is special in its past inequalities. In studies not bound to a neighborhood the majority - 43% - reject the notion that diversity is harmful to social cohesion while just 19% support it.

  • "Heterogeneity merely undermines intraneighborhood social cohesion: People in ethnically heterogeneous environments are less likely to trust their neighbors or to have contact with them. However, this does not spill over to generalized trust, to informal help and voluntary work, or to other forms of prosocial behavior and attitudes, at least not in Europe. Rather, heterogeneity is positively related to interethnic contact and (consequently) to interethnic trust."

  • "studies on indicators of social cohesion that are not bound to the neighborhood, on which we find merely 19% support and 43% reject."

  • In America, 60% of studies reject the notion of diversity harming social cohesion on a larger scale while there is even a higher rate of rejection among studies in other old immigration countries.

    • "However, in the United States, consistent support for the constrict claim is also found in two of the five studies (40%) that focused on elements of cohesion not bound to the neighborhood. By contrast, there is less consistent support for the constrict claim on indicators of social cohesion that are not bound to the neighborhood in other old immigration countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (20%) and in Europe (14%)."

Research Article from the American Psychological Association - "People in more racially diverse neighborhoods are more prosocial."

• Please note that I cite the full text on some janky pdf download, as the publisher does not offer a free version of the full text.

• This research article looks at five studies, each of which testing the hypothesis that those living in diverse neighborhoods would "have more inclusive identities and be more prosocial," and ultimately finds that each study supports the hypothesis in its own way. Each study results in people being more likely to help others in need and what the article labels as Study 4 also finds that "people living in more racially diverse neighborhoods were more likely to identify with all of humanity."

  • The article defies prosocial as "more positive, helpful, or altruistic toward others."

• The article also references some other studies which found that "exposure to more diverse groups improves people’s cognitive performance because members of more diverse groups bring a greater variety of ideas and perspectives on a problem, and because the presence of diversity makes all group members think more analytically and critically," and "College students in more racially diverse groups exhibited greater integrative complexity in their thinking style and more thorough information processing." In short more diversity leads to more ideas, better information processing, and improved cognitive ability. Diversity can also lead to more creativity.

  • Also: "Extensive research on the benefits of racial diversity has identified a cognitive mechanism—people in more diverse groups think more critically and analytically, which has a host of positive consequences of individual and group decision making and performance."

• What the article labels as Study 2 looks at a data set from the Boston Globe newspaper following the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing in which a website was set up where individuals offered help to visitors and those affected by the bombing and ultimately finds that "in more racially diverse zip codes, a greater proportion of households offered to help victims of the disaster" in several different models.

  • "Study 2 found that people living in more racially diverse neighborhoods were more likely to offer to make their homes available to people displaced by a bombing. The finding is consistent with our hypothesis that people in more racially diverse neighborhoods would be more prosocial."

• In order to determine whether or not the results of the first two studies were not culturally generalizable and test the possibility that more prosocial people might have chosen to live in more diverse neighborhoods, thus making the neighborhood more prosocial by default, the article examines data from the World Giving Index, a report based on a subset of questions from the Gallup World Poll, the CIA World Factbook, the World Bank database, and the Association of Religious Data Archives. This is what the article refers to as Study 3, and the sample consisted of 128 countries. Through this analysis it finds that "in more ethnically diverse countries, a greater percentage of individuals indicated that they had helped a stranger in the past month," whereas gender and religious diversity seemed to have no effect on prosociality.

  • People in more ethnically diverse countries are more prosocial: "People in more ethnically diverse countries were more likely to have helped strangers in the past month. This study helps generalize the key relationship between diversity and prosciality beyond the US."

• What the article labels as Study 4 found that of participants of an Amazon Mechanical Turk survey those who lived in a more racially diverse zip code were more likely to report helping a stranger in the past month and more likely to identify with all humanity.

  • "Participants living in more diverse neighborhoods were more likely to identify with all of humanity, which explained why they were also more likely to report having helped a stranger in the past month."

• What the article labels as Study 5 investigated whether there is a causal effect of exposure to racial diversity in an experimental context on people’s prosocial behavioral intentions and whether this effect is mediated by a broader identification with all humanity and surveyed just European Americans, ultimately finding that "participants who imagined living in a racially diverse neighborhood reported greater willingness to help people compared to those who imagined living in a racially homogenous neighborhood."

  • Why have participants imagine living in a racially diverse neighborhood? - "recent research has found that observing or simulating intergroup contact has similar effects as actual intergroup contact."

• The article concludes that the "five studies found that people living in or exposed to more racially diverse neighborhoods are more prosocial." In other words, people who live in racially diverse areas or are exposed to racial diversity are more likely to be helpful and altruistic.

"Dieversity" is a word often used by bigoted idiots who think that diversity leads to violence and murder, specifically against white people. However, data does not support this view so it's really nothing more than a racist dog whistle to hate on black and brown people.

Data by State

According to World Population Review the US states with the most racial diversity are:

1. California 2. Texas 3. Hawaii 4. New Jersey 5. New York 6. New Mexico 7. Maryland 8. Florida 9. Nevada 10. Illinois

and the states with the highest murder rates are:

1. Louisiana 2. Alabama 3. Mississippi 4. Missouri 5. Alaska 6. Maryland 7. Arkansas 8. South Carolina 9. Illinois 10. Tennessee

If this theory that diversity leads to violence/death is correct, then the states with the highest amount of diversity should also be those with the highest murder rate, right? Yet as is evident above only two states - Maryland and Illinois - appear on both top 10s.

Low income/poverty is actually a better indicator of murder, as four of top 10 poorest states - Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama - are also in the top 10 of states with the highest murder rate. There is a stronger correlation between poverty/murder rate than diversity/murder rate. This is visualized below in Figure XXX.

Now let's look at where each state would rank on the other list.

• Among the 10 states with the most racial diversity, California ranks 28th, Texas ranks 26th, Hawaii ranks 44th, New Jersey ranks 32nd, New York ranks 39th, New Mexico ranks 12th, Maryland ranks, 6th, Florida ranks 24th, Nevada ranks 14th, and Illinois ranks 9th in murder rate, making the average rank 23.7, so 24. If this theory that diversity leads to murder is correct, then shouldn't these states with the most racial diversity all rank highly on the list of states with the highest murder rate, rather than all over the place?

• Among the 10 states with the highest murder rate, Louisiana ranks 23rd, Alabama ranks 27th, Mississippi ranks 29th, Missouri ranks 38th, Alaska ranks 15th, Maryland ranks 7th, Arkansas ranks 33rd, South Carolina ranks 24th, Illinois ranks 10th, and Tennessee ranks 32nd in racial diversity, making the average 23.4, so 23. If this theory that diversity leads to murder is correct, the shouldn't the states with the highest murder rates all rank highly on the list of states with the most racial diversity rather than in the middle on average?

• Considering that the most diverse states don't, on average, rank highly among the states with the highest murder rate and that the states with the highest murder rate don't, on average, rank highly among the most diverse states, there is little correlation between diversity and murder.

Now, let's look at the potential correlation between the most racially diverse states and the most "dangerous" states identified by USA Today.

These are the 10 most "dangerous" states in terms of violent crime and murder rate:

1. Alaska 2. New Mexico 3. Tennessee 4. Arkansas 5. Nevada 6. Louisiana 7. Alabama 8. Missouri 9. South Carolina 10. Arizona

If this theory that diversity leads to violence/death is correct, then the states with the highest amount of diversity should also be the most "dangerous," right? Yet as is evident above, only one of these states - New Mexico - is also on the list of the most racially diverse states. Three of the states - New Mexico, Louisiana, and Alabama - are on the top 10 of Business Insider's list of poorest states. South Carolina is 11th on that list, so almost four of these most "dangerous" states are also on the list of the poorest states. So, there is a stronger correlation between poverty/violent crime rate than diversity/violent crime rate.

Data by City

According to a US News report analysis the US cities with the most racial diversity are:

1. Stockton, CA 2. Oakland, CA 3. Sacramento, CA 4. New York, NY 5. Long Beach, CA 6. San Jose, CA 7. Houston, TX 8. Los Angeles, CA 9. Fresno, CA 10. Chicago, IL

According to a CBS News analysis of 2019 FBI data the most "dangerous" US cities are:

1. Detroit, MI 2. St. Louis, MO 3. Memphis, TN 4. Baltimore, MD 5. Springfield, MO 6. Little Rock, AR 7. Cleveland, OH 8. Stockton, CA 9. Albuquerque, NM 10. Milwaukee, WI

If this theory that diversity leads to violence/death is correct, then the cities with the highest amount of diversity should also be those that are the most "dangerous," right? Yet, as is evident above only one city - Stockton, CA - appear on both top 10s.

Let's look at another most "dangerous" list - one from Neighborhood Scout. The most "dangerous" US cities according to them are:

1. Detroit, MI 2. Memphis, TN 3. Birmingham, AL 4. Baltimore, MD 5. Flint, MI 6. St. Louis, MO 7. Danville, IL 8. Saginaw, MI 9. Wilmington, DE 10. Camden, NJ

None of the states that appear on this top 10 most "dangerous" cities list also appear on the top 10 most racially diverse cities list.

Let's look at one more "dangerous" list - one from World Population Review. The most "dangerous" US cities according to them are:

1. Detroit, MI 2. Memphis, TN 3. Birmingham, AL 4. Baltimore, MD 5. St. Louis, MO 6. Kansas City, MO 7. Cleveland 8. Little Rock, AR 9. Milwaukee, MI 10. Stockton, CA

Only one of the cities - Stockton, CA - appears on both top 10 lists.

As can be seen above there is basically no correlation between diversity and violent crime in US cities.

Other

It's important to remember that a majority of most violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims, as per a US Department of Justice report.

Research Article from the Perspectives on Psychological Science Journal - "Maximizing the Gains and Minimizing the Pains of Diversity: A Policy Perspective"

• This research acts as a meta analysis of previous research into diversity, drawing from previous studies and research from multiple disciplines to identify that "Empirical evidence reveals that diversity—heterogeneity in race, culture, gender, etc.—has material benefits for organizations, communities, and nations."

• The research identifies a study which finds that "Diversity—heterogeneity in race, ethnicity, gender, cultural background, sexual orientation, and other attributes—is a key ingredient of flourishing societies. Promoting diversity is not just a moral issue, but also a practical one; empirical evidence reveals that diversity has numerous benefits for organizations, communities, and nations," and another which finds that "Diversity increases creativity and innovation, promotes higher quality decisions, and enhances economic growth because it spurs deeper information processing and complex thinking. This complex thinking allows diverse groups to respond more effectively to dynamic contexts and unforeseen challenges." Another text identified finds that "countries produce more national achievements after opening their borders to foreign influences through travel and immigration."

  • Why the innovation and decision making benefits? - 2 reasons: diverse groups have access to to a large variety of perspectives and both majority and minority individuals in diverse groups consider more information and process that information more deeply and accurately, as research has shown.

• The research also identifies the economic benefits of diversity: "correlational evidence indicates that U.S. cities with a greater share of foreign-born inhabitants are more successful economically."

  • The research also touches on how immigration can increase wages of native born US workers: "since introducing the H1-B visa program, which allows U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers for specialty occupations, the number of H1-B workers in specific geographic areas predicts greater wage growth for U.S.-born workers in those areas," compared to the national average.

• The research also highlights the benefits an individual can experience from diversity, citing several studies that reach similar conclusions that "Diverse personal experiences, such as living or working abroad, are associated with greater creativity."

  • "deeper information processing," is also a benefit of experiencing diversity.

• The research concludes that "Empirical evidence demonstrates that diversity creates and sustains economic growth, improves decision making, and produces new innovations; however, other research has identified barriers that limit current diversity levels and produce psychological resistance to efforts to increase diversity. Policies are therefore needed to promote the diversity present in groups, communities, and nations."

Study from the Psychological Science Journal - "Effects of Racial Diversity on Complex Thinking in College Students"

• Please note that I cite the full text on SciHub, as the publisher does not offer a free version of the full text.

• This study is rather small scale, comprised of over 500 college students who were tasked with writing an essay on an issue before and after discussing the issue with peers and a research collaborator. The essays were rated on a scale of integrative complexity by three independent judges blind to the purposes of the experiment. The study uses IC as an abbreviation for integrative complexity and identifies that it "refers to the degree to which cognitive style involves the differentiation and integration of multiple perspectives and dimensions."

  • High IC essentially means more cognitive function and more complex information processing: "Simple reasoning (low IC) occurs when a single dimension (e.g., good-bad) is used to consider an issue, that is, when there is no differentiation. Low-IC individuals tend to utilize simple, rigid, and often evaluative reasoning when interpreting events and making decisions. At an intermediate level of IC, individuals recognize the existence of alternative perspectives, but see them as independent and unrelated; that is, at this level there is differentiation but not integration of perspectives. At the highest level of IC, there is recognition of the trade-offs among perspectives and solutions. IC has been used in a wide body of literature in social and personality psychology."

• Ultimately the study found that the more diverse groups - a black research collaborator and three white students - had essays which scored high IC: "We found that the presence of a Black collaborator in a group of White participants generally led to greater perceived novelty of the collaborator and a greater level of IC." Additionally, the study found that higher IC is associated with contact with racial diversity: "We also found that self-reported racially diverse contacts were significantly and positively related to IC." The study notes that the results are "highly consistent" with previous nonexperimental research and findings based on self-reported data. So essentially these results show that those who are around diversity and engage in a racially diverse setting have better cognitive function.

  • Also: "Moreover, the finding that the racial diversity of a student’s close friends and classmates was more strongly associated with IC than the racial diversity of the discussion group implies that prolonged contact with racially diverse others may have stronger effects on students’ complex thinking than the more limited contact with racially diverse others that might occur in a single discussion group."