Sunday, April 08, 2007
Perceptions of India and why Americans should support Mexico...
If the United States had to choose between letting an Indian computer scientist or a nanny from Mexico, I bet most would choose the wrong answer from an economic perspective...
Harvard economists Michael Kremer and Stanley Watt found that unskilled immigrants, contrary to conventional wisdom, can actually reduce wage inequality and make a country richer.
The findings point out that domestic workers can increase a country's supply of highly skilled workers by allowing well-educated parents (generally mothers) to remain in the workforce. Household help is actually far more liberating to parents than day care because nannies let them work the long hours required by many hig-powered, high paying jobs.
Of course, I would love to do my own study and figure out the cause and effect of corporations who let folks work from thousands of miles away (aka outsourcing) but won't necessarily let folks work from home and their effect on the economy. More importantly what would it take to get CEOs to publicly acknowledge that the demands of childbearing nor the rigors of corporate America are not declining and therefore to take swift action to bring these two things into better alignment...
Disclaimer: The author of this article has family members of Indian origin but none of Mexican origin.
| | View blog reactionsHarvard economists Michael Kremer and Stanley Watt found that unskilled immigrants, contrary to conventional wisdom, can actually reduce wage inequality and make a country richer.
The findings point out that domestic workers can increase a country's supply of highly skilled workers by allowing well-educated parents (generally mothers) to remain in the workforce. Household help is actually far more liberating to parents than day care because nannies let them work the long hours required by many hig-powered, high paying jobs.
Of course, I would love to do my own study and figure out the cause and effect of corporations who let folks work from thousands of miles away (aka outsourcing) but won't necessarily let folks work from home and their effect on the economy. More importantly what would it take to get CEOs to publicly acknowledge that the demands of childbearing nor the rigors of corporate America are not declining and therefore to take swift action to bring these two things into better alignment...
Disclaimer: The author of this article has family members of Indian origin but none of Mexican origin.
