OVER THE LAST three decades, the demographics of immigrants coming to the Boston area have changed. According to a new report, their countries of origin have shifted, many more end up residing outside the city, and well over half are landing in good-paying jobs.
In 1990, six European countries were among the top 10 countries of origin for immigrants in the Greater Boston area. By 2021, no European country made it into the top 10. Instead, China topped the list, followed primarily by countries from Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report, released by Boston Indicators, the research arm of the Boston Foundation, indicated immigrants make up 21 percent of the state’s total population and 25 percent of the total labor force in the region.
While some immigrants work in low-wage roles traditionally associated with migrant labor, the report found immigrants are disproportionately represented in high-paying roles like scientist and software developer. The report defined a low-wage worker as earning less than $49,000 a year; only 39 percent of the total immigrant population fell into that category.
According to the report, immigrants are disproportionately likely to be business owners and are particularly overrepresented as the owners of main street businesses.
“It’s not just these low-wage jobs that we think of when we think about immigrants in our labor force,,” said Anthony Capote, one of the authors of the report and a policy analyst at the Immigration Research Initiative. “Immigrants are present in virtually every workplace, every office, every building. Every business that you patronize, you are likely to find immigrants working right there [and] in many cases working right next to you as your colleagues.”
Immigration into Greater Boston has been essential to stabilizing the area’s population and offsetting the population loss as existing residents migrate to other parts of the US. A MassINC report highlighted this phenomenon in 2005 and showed a similar change in immigrant demographics in the state.
The more recent data in the Boston Indicators report indicate increasing numbers of immigrants are moving outside of the urban core and settling in places like Revere, Boxborough, Marlborough, and Brockton. The shift is likely occurring because of the escalating price of housing in Greater Boston. Different immigrant groups cluster together in different parts of the region. For example, Cape Verdeans are clustered in communities based in Brockton, East Bridgewater, and Scituate.
The Boston Indicators report flagged a recent decrease in immigration to the area in the past three years potentially due to travel bans enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic and the immigration restrictions implemented by the Trump administration. That’s a trend that worries researchers, who see immigration as a way to stabilize the area’s population and its economy.
The report does not contain data about the recent influx of immigrants which has overwhelmed the state’s shelter system. Kelly Harrington, a researcher at Boston Indicators and a co-author of the report, said the influx wasn’t covered because good data on it is not available. She emphasized that there might be an upfront cost to sheltering the recent arrivals but that there could be benefit to the region later.
“In the short term, we’re seeing heavier usage of public resources due to immigration but we can’t lose sight of the long term benefits of immigrants in our region,” said Harrington.
According to the Boston Indicators report, immigrants contribute about 21 percent of the regional GDP and they pay $17 billion in local, state, and federal taxes. Immigrants also tend to experience an increase in income the longer they remain in the state. Second-generation immigrants tend to do very well in the Greater Boston area, the report said.
The Boston Indicators report notes an immigrant’s background heavily influences how likely they are to succeed in the United States. Immigrants from such countries as India and China are more likely to receive visas for more highly specialized professions like software development or engineering whereas immigrants from other countries have a harder time receiving professional visas if they are not engaged in highly skilled professions. The report said the American immigration system prioritizes those with college degrees.
In a press conference for the Boston Indicators report, Jessica Chicco from the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition urged adoption of policies that would address some of the language and education barriers faced by immigrants. For example, the coalition is currently pushing a policy that would ensure that immigrants can access public information and services in their own primary languages.
Chicco emphasized how the insights from the Boston Indicators could be used to lay the groundwork for policy but had some qualms about reducing immigrants to their economic output.
“I would push back on this idea that we have to do just a cost-benefit analysis of allowing people to be in our communities…,” said Chicco. “We are talking about human beings with families, and children, and lives, and hopes and dreams and all the vibrancy that they bring with them.”
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