International Migration: Demographic and Socioeconomic Consequences in the United Kingdom and Europe

Abstract

People of non-European origin from Commonwealth countries have predominated in postwar immigration to the United Kingdom. That migration neutralized the previously dominant pattern of emigration and increased U.K. population by about 3 million people through immigration and higher fertility, with only slight effects upon the age distribution. Overall economic consequences have never been comprehensively evaluated but are probably minor. Social effects have been more important, arising from the geographical concentration of the immigrants in urban areas, their automatic entitlement to vote, and pervasive measures to enforce racial equality and accommodate new cultural diversity.