IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v117y2020p7690-7695.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population aging, migration, and productivity in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume Marois

    (Asian Demographic Research Institute, Shanghai University, Baoshan, Shanghai 200444, China; Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (University of Vienna, IIASA, VID/ÖAW), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria)

  • Alain Bélanger

    (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (University of Vienna, IIASA, VID/ÖAW), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria; Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Montréal, H2X 1E3 Canada)

  • Wolfgang Lutz

    (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (University of Vienna, IIASA, VID/ÖAW), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria)

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic, multidimensional demographic analysis of the degree to which negative economic consequences of population aging can be mitigated by changes in migration and labor-force participation. Using a microsimulation population projection model accounting for 13 individual characteristics including education and immigration-related variables, we built scenarios of future changes in labor-force participation, migration volumes, and their educational composition and speed of integration for the 28 European Union (EU) member states. We study the consequences in terms of the conventional age-dependency ratio, the labor-force dependency ratio, and the productivity-weighted labor-force dependency ratio using education as a proxy of productivity, which accounts for the fact that not all individuals are equality productive in society. The results show that in terms of the more sophisticated ratios, population aging looks less daunting than when only considering age structure. In terms of policy options, lifting labor-force participation among the general population as in Sweden, and education-selective migration if accompanied by high integration, could even improve economic dependency. On the other hand, high immigration volumes combined with both low education and integration leads to increasing economic dependency. This shows the high stakes involved with integration outcomes under high migration volumes.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume Marois & Alain Bélanger & Wolfgang Lutz, 2020. "Population aging, migration, and productivity in Europe," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(14), pages 7690-7695, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:7690-7695
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/117/14/7690.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea M. Tilstra & Antonino Polizzi & Sander Wagner & Evelina T. Akimova, 2024. "Projecting the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. population structure," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Manfroni, Michele & Velasco-Fernández, Raúl & Pérez-Sánchez, Laura & Bukkens, Sandra G.F. & Giampietro, Mario, 2021. "The profile of time allocation in the metabolic pattern of society: An internal biophysical limit to economic growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:7690-7695. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.