The attitude of industrialized states toward immigration varies greatly but the primary reason for accepting immigrants is economic, even in those few states—such as Canada—that openly favour immigration.

Robots and artificial intelligence will impact immigration to industrialized states unless the primary purpose of immigration changes.

Canada

In Canada, nearly 20% of the population was born outside of Canada. Opinion polls consistently show that immigration has the support of at least two thirds of the electorate.

While Canada welcomes immigrants for a number of reasons, including family reunification, the two most important factors considered are demography and skills. Canada wants its internal market to grow and its economy to have necessary skills. Rapid growth in the Greater Toronto Area for the last 30 years is in large part due to immigration.

The yearly immigration objective of the Canadian federal government is nearly one percent of the Canadian population (circa 38 million in 2020). Because of bureaucratic constraints, however, the number of admitted persons is somewhat lower. The immigration objective for 2020 was approximately 340,000, but the actual number is substantially lower because of Covid-19. To compensate, Canada has increased its immigration objective for 2021 to 400,000.

What will happen to Canada’s favourable position on immigration when robots and artificial intelligence provide a greater share of the necessary skills for the economy, and as a result Canada faces structural, as opposed to cyclical, unemployment? Chances are that there will be strong political pressure to reduce immigration.

If that is the case in an immigration-friendly country such as Canada, how will similar dynamics play out in other less sympathetic jurisdictions?

In such countries, the political pressure—particularly from populists—to close borders, including in some cases internal borders, will be intense. In other words, technological progress may provide cover for some groups to ask for an end to immigration, thus preserving their country’s demographic status quo.

Nation States

One small group of industrialized nation states is indifferent to the impact of robots and artificial intelligence on immigration, for the simple reason that they have never encouraged mass immigration to their countries, even when faced with decade-long labour shortages and demographic challenges.

The prime example of this is Japan. According to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, its population is expected to go from a little over 126 million today to about 100 million by 2049. The same institute estimates that, in 2036, one in three residents of Japan will be over 65 years of age. Successive Japanese governments have been relatively sanguine about this state of affairs and their prime response has been to hope that robots and artificial intelligence will solve Japan’s demographic challenges .

Japan has been preparing for this for a long time and may soon be able fully to test its strategy. As early as the mid-1980s, Japan had officially identified robotics and artificial intelligence as two research and development pillars worthy of ample government funding.

This is the third of a series on robots for this blog. Throughout 2021, I will continue to examine risks posed by the introduction of robots into the economy, and attempt to propose solutions to mitigate negative consequences.