Demography and migration: discussing the connection with an eye on the replacement migration concept

Abstract

Background: Contemporary demography is marked by two characteristics with enormous impact on global social and economic processes: ageing [1] and migration, being the latter a major element of fast demographic evolution, something marked by higher speed and unpredictability [2]. Although the different countries of the world experience these processes at a different pace and in distinct stages, (international) migration and ageing are global processes that can be identified almost everywhere. Objective: Departing from the global ageing process that is already associated to a slackening in the world population growth and will probably lead to a decline starting sometime between 2080 and 2100 [3], this presentation aims to explore: a) The progressive globalization of a second demographic transition where deaths regularly surpass births, considering its social and economic impacts; b) The relationship between migration, ageing and population evolution, exploring the role of migration in attenuating or stimulating population decline (and ageing); The hypothesis of Replacement Migration [4], that corresponds to the levels of international immigration that ageing societies would needed to offset declines in the demographic size and mitigate ageing. Methods: This analysis will be carried out with the support of academic and technical bibliography (reports) produced by international organizations, in addition to demographic statistics.