There is this myth that if borders are opened, suddenly a deluge of people will come and somehow flood the local community.
Iceland is tiny, 350k people. It's in the EEA. Everyone in the EU can just move here and start a new life, no work visa required — including from countries that rightwingers used to love scaring people in the North and West with: Poland, Bulgaria, Romania.
Guess what? No deluge. No flood of economic migrants. People don't want to uproot their lives willy-nilly!
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And then there's this other myth, of a "Schrödinger's migrant": a person who moves in to a country, and at the same time "steals jobs" and "abuses the welfare system."
Which one is it? Are the refugees coming in and hanging on on state welfare? Or are they "stealing jobs"?
It's neither. Because it's not a zero-sum game. More people means more economic activity, means more jobs. Yes, on some basic level it's that simple.
So what's the deal with the "Schrödinger's migrant", then?
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