Why the Old World Needs a Shot of New Blood

European right-wingers and unionists who want to close the door on immigration might be shooting themselves in the foot — or at least condemning themselves to work until they die. A new report from the United Nations Population Division warns that low birth rates and greater longevity will dramatically reduce the working-age populations in Europe and Japan by 2050, a situation that can be remedied, according to the report, only by either substantially increasing their intake of immigrants or by raising the retirement age to 75.

"A number of European countries are going to be in desperate straits," says TIME U.N. correspondent William Dowell. "In Germany, for example, there are currently three working people for every retired person, but that ratio may be as low as one to one by mid-century, which would seriously impair the economy's ability to support the elderly. And a decline in European economies could be accelerated by a tremendous brain drain." The destination? The U.S.A., whose relatively relaxed immigration policies have made it a magnet for the smart and productive elements from all over the world, who in turn have helped keep the U.S. economy out in front. While governments from Berlin to Tokyo ponder the findings, Washington is spared any such handwringing — far from shrinking, its population will actually increase 70 million over the next 50 years. "There's a general consensus among demographers that the U.S. has greatly benefited from its relatively open immigration policy by attracting some of the best brains in the world," says Dowell. "Many of the most productive people in the U.S. today are not native born. Because if you can't live by your wits and your hard work in the U.S., you can easily disappear off the map."

Europe's problems are an intertwined result, in part, of the elaborate welfare systems that have been in place continent-wide since World War II. Tighter immigration policies are based to a large degree on a desire to prevent people from poor countries moving to Europe to live off the welfare state. Yet that very welfare system is now threatened by the fact that in time, a diminishing, aging population will no longer produce sufficient wealth to sustain it. Most of Europe's welfare states were created for relatively homogeneous populations, but the only way to sustain them may be to embrace heterogeneity.