Economic inequality (in the distribution of income and wealth) has been growing in virtually every developed society. It is clear that there is no single cause, but one important driver is changes in the occupational structure. In some countries, but especially in the UK and the USA, occupational growth has polarised: there are more well-paid high-skilled jobs, there are more low-paid jobs, but there are fewer moderately well-paid secure jobs in the middle. [...]
Until the 1980s domestic servants were declining in numbers. Today professionals and managers expect to employ domestic labour to clean their houses, mind their children, etc. These jobs are overwhelmingly taken by immigrants who are often illegals. Intriguingly, the particular beneficiaries are women earners at the upper end of the income distribution – purchasing labour in the home enables them to devote more time to their remunerative career. Thus, one US study shows that, in areas with a high immigrant population, high income women spend more time at work than in areas where there are fewer immigrants. Such privatised domestic employment ensures that there is less pressure on men to contribute to domestic labour – and certainly reduces the demand for effective publicly funded childcare. [...]
This relationship between mass immigration and occupational change cannot be generalised to all periods and places. The mass European migration in the second half of the 19th century to the USA and other areas of new settlement did not have this result, nor in fact did the mass immigration to Western Europe in the post-world war period. It is, however, clear that today those who call for ‘open borders’ – the unrestricted entry of unskilled workers into the EU – are facilitating a more polarised occupational structure, more low paid workers and greater social and economic inequality.
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