Migration, fertility, and aging in stable populations
Open accessAbstract
Fertility is below replacement level in all European countries, and population growth is expected to decline in the coming decades. Increasing life expectancy will accentuate concomitant aging of the population. Migration has been seen as a possible means to decelerate aging. In this article, I introduce a stable, open-population model in which cohort net migration is proportional to births. In this case, the migration-fertility trade-off can be studied with particular ease. I show that although migration can increase the growth rate, which tends to make the age distribution younger, it also has an opposite effect because of its typical age pattern. I capture the effect of the age pattern of net migration in a migration-survivor function. The effect of net migration on growth is quantified with data from 17 European countries. I show that some countries already have a level of migration that will lead to stationarity. For other countries with asymptotically declining population, migration still provides opportunities for slowing down aging of the population as a whole.
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Using stable populations, migration can be shown to slow population aging.
“Also using “slow demography” approaches based on stable populations, migration can be shown to slow population aging (Alho 2008).”
From Demography: Fast and Slow (2022) · cites this paper as Alho 2008
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- Authors
- Alho, J. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Eastern Finland (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Alho, Juha M.
- ORCID
- Alho, Juha M.
- Venue
- Demography
- Publisher
- Duke University Press
- Published
- 2008-08-01
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 641-650
- ISSN
- 0070-3370 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-7790
- PMC
- PMC2831398
- OpenAlex
- W2042433869
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 5.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Demography (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Social and Demographic Issues in Germany
- Keywords
- migration, fertility, population aging, open population models, net migration, population growth, age structure, life expectancy, stationarity, European countries
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Algorithms, Birth Rate, Child, Child, Preschool, Emigration and Immigration, Europe, Female, Fertility, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Middle Aged, Population Dynamics, Young Adult
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