Europe at the Crossroads: Demographic Challenges and International Migration

Abstract

Two demographic challenges confront Europe today: population ageing and population decline. These challenges are two sides of the same demographic coin. While low fertility and increasing longevity cause populations to rapidly grow older, low fertility also leads to population decline. This paper describes recent and expected changes in the size and composition of the European population and the underlying demographic trends in fertility, mortality and migration. Although international migration is now the major cause of European population growth, it is questionable whether migration can prevent population decline. International migration spurs population diversity in different ways across Europe and is the most volatile demographic phenomenon as it depends on both push and pull factors that are difficult to manage. From a demographic perspective the challenges of international migration for citizenship, both from intra-European migration and more particularly from migration from outside Europe, are likely to increase in the near future.

Keywords:

• Population Ageing
• Population Decline
• Europe
• International Migration
• Demographic Trends
• Population Diversity

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the anonymous JEMS referees and the editors for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. Note that ‘currently’ refers to 2007, i.e. before the global recession impacted the rates in the past two years.

2. MIMOSA (MIgration MOdelling for Statistical Analyses) is a three-year project—funded by Eurostat—intended to support the development and application of statistical modelling techniques for the estimation of missing data on migration flows and foreign population stocks. The project is coordinated by the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and involves experts on migration statistics from the Central European Forum for Migration and Population Research (CEFMR), Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) and the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL).

3. In fact the freedom of movement of workers applies to the entire European Economic Area (EEA: EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) and Switzerland.