Migration and aging: Models and prospects
Juha M. Alho
Joensuu University, Finland
Increases in longevity are widely seen as a primary cause of population aging. Yet, fertility is well below replacement level in all European countries, and it is anticipated that current population growth will turn into a decline in the coming decades. This, in itself will shift the age-distributions of the European populations towards older ages. Migration has been seen as a possible means to decelerate this relative form of aging. We introduce a stable open population model in which net-migration is proportional to births. In this formulation it is relatively easy to study the roles of migration and fertility in population aging. We find that while migration can increase the growth rate, which tends to make the age-distribution younger, it is less effective in slowing down aging than fertility, because of its typical age pattern. On the other hand, official forecasts have typically favoured migration assumptions that are closer to zero than empirical estimates. For the past decade or two, most EU countries have experienced sustained positive net-migration. Although forecasts of migration are particularly uncertain both because of problems of data quality and erratic trends, a recent summary of the evidence concludes that the probability of sustained negative net-migration is small. Therefore, it is expected that migration will slow down aging in Europe more than has been previously thought.
Global flows and national outcomes: How international migration is transforming local communities
William A.V. Clark
University of California, Los Angeles
Global migration increased significantly in the past decade and is very likely to increase further in the next two decades. It has also become a topic of concern for a wide range of policy makers, from those interested in global terrorism to those interested in community and neighbourhood diversity. Legal and undocumented migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers will continue to arrive in post-industrial America and Europe and, as a result, change the demography of these countries. At the global scale, the re-distributive effects of skilled migration flows have implications for both developing and OECD nations. At the national scale growing aging populations and expanding youthful migrants may bring tensions over access to resources. At the local scale, these tensions will likely be further exacerbated by cultural and social differences. Predicting outcomes is fraught with difficulty but lessons from past assimilation may be important in the transition to transformed societies.
International migration in interesting times
John Salt
University College London
The lecture will begin by examining recent trends in international migration in Europe, in the context of global trends in flows. It will demonstrate some of the main implications for receiving countries of different types of migrants and the dangers of reducing the complexities of migration to a homogeneous whole. The main focus will be on recent movements into the UK and particularly what precedents exist for estimating the likely implications. Of particular concern will be the lessons that may be derived from the guest-worker phase in post-war Western Europe.