Immigration in Britain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Immigration in Britain - Essay Example The emergence of nation-states made immigration a political issue: by definition it is the homeland of a nation defined by shared ethnicity and/or culture." (Wikipedia: Immigration). According to the source data presented in the graphics above there is currently a total of 191 million immigrants worldwide. The statistics also unveil that the last 50 years has seen an almost doubling of immigration entailing the movements of 115 million immigrants into developed countries. Official statistics indicate that more than two million foreign nationals have moved to Britain in recent years and nine in 10 of them came from outside Europe. According to the sources, a net 2.3 million immigrants arrived between 1991 and 2006, the majority from Africa and Asia. The other important dimension presented on the facts is that hundreds of thousands of short-term immigrants are not included in official statistics whilst the sources indicate that the counting system is grossly unreliable that it is not feasibly possible to know the true immigrants population of Britain. Through the surge of globalization, various factors trigger the movement of people from their native countries to other countries. The factors can be categorized into social, economic and political. The nineteenth century has particularly experienced phenomenal proportions of immigrations triggered largely by civil and economic strife and unrest in various countries especially in the third world or developing countries categories. Researches that have conducted to assess the impact immigration on the economic aspects of matters have unveiled certain notables in the nature and patterns of immigration in UK for the past 50 years. The movement of foreign nationals into the UK has resulted in the significant increase of the labour supply. This has been so notably in low job realms which are naturally not preferred by British natives. Immigration in the UK has also impacted significantly on Aggregate Demand in cases where there have been more people spending and therefore increasing demand for labour. This has also brought significant dynamics in the wages systems. Immigration into The UK has led to the spiraling for unemployment especially for the foreign nationals owing to largely to various reasons chief of which include the lack of critical skills and proficiency in the English language. This has often led to a diminishing range of available job opportunities resultantly culminating in structural unemployment. This setback has also been aggravated by the realities of racial discrimination in some instances. On positive dimensions immigration in the UK economy which has been dogged by a shortage of certain key public sector workers, especially in London, has helped alleviate labour gaps. This has been in the shape of immigrants getting trained to be nurses, doctors or teachers they can help fill labour market shortages. Also owing to the fact that immigrant is largely of working age, immigrants in the UK have helped overcome the demographic problems inherent in ageing population. As such this has lowered income tax levels whilst the other