My parents always collect a healthy dose of articles and newspaper clippings for me to read and I always spend quite a bit of time shortly after my arrival digesting interesting pieces of news and analysis that I never picked up online. Here’s an interesting one and it discusses the issue of immigration and integration, which continues to dominate Dutch and European headlines. While there are the obvious social and cultural obstacles that prevent many newcomers from being able to integrate it turns out that the key reason is economic. In the United States 10% of the total population consists of immigrants, but of the total working population in the US, 11.7% are immigrants. Immigrants in the US thus contribute disproportionately to production, which is good since it helps the integration process as well as the ability of newcomers to build up a secure economic position. Contrast this with Holland where an equal 10% of the population consists of immigrants, yet a paltry 3.4% of the working population are immigrants. It is not too much of a stretch to think that the same numbers can be found elsewhere in Europe and likewise the US numbers should be similar in Canada and Australia. The discrepancy between Europe and traditional Anglo-Saxon immigration countries results from the fact that the immigration countries apply very strict criteria as to who are let in and can join the workforce and are therefore loath to open their borders to those who will have to fall back on government support. In Europe, and Holland is a good example, immigration has not been subject to rigorous screening resulting in significant numbers of newcomers who have not been able to connect and integrate in their new home countries.