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Ageing populations and migration

Most of the debate about immigration in recent years has been around how to control and limit it. Irregular immigration across the Channel upsets people – “stop the boats” –  but of course, it is much smaller than managed immigration. (In 2023, “irregular immigration” was about 30,000 people, while overall net migration was 685k).


But if we take a step back and look at long-term trends, the scene looks different. Throughout the developed world, fertility rates have fallen below the replacement level. In South Korea it is as low as 0.72 births per person. And now, in the UK, for the first time, the number of deaths has exceeded the number of births since the 1970s, and so the resident population is falling. Women in England and Wales had an average of 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023, the lowest rate on record.


For many years we had been concerned about perpetual population growth, with its threat to global resources and increasing carbon emissions. Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” (1968) articulated that fear vividly. Now, we must worry about an ageing population with an imbalance between those needing care and pensions and the working population. Social welfare systems could collapse. Economic growth disappears.  In BRICS countries the population will age before it gets rich.


Immigration is a way of making up the numbers. In the UK, net migration continues to drive a small population increase. But we are entering an era where we may have to start competing for immigrants. We can see some examples already.


In Scotland, more people believed immigration was good for the British economy than believed it is bad, by 47% to 17%; 43% of respondents to the Social Attitudes Survey thought immigration enriches British culture, and 20% thought the opposite. But achieving an immigration policy different from the rest of the UK faces many problems.  The SNP argues that “Scotland needs people to want to work here, in our businesses, our universities and in our public services” – another plank in its argument for independence.


Recently, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described immigrants as representing “wealth, development and prosperity” for his country.  Spain’s central bank published a report that the country will need around 25 million immigrants over the next 30 years. Spain suffers particularly from de-population of its rural areas – “empty Spain” – and is providing incentives to encourage people to return to those areas.


Similarly, Italy’s “ghost towns” are also a problem. Tuscan officials created a $3 million fund to incentivise people to move to the rural countryside. The fund will pay people grants of up to $32,000 to move to Tuscany and fix up a home there.


Even in the US, there is evidence that immigrants fuel the economy. Remittances from migrants back to their home countries amounts to $82bn. If remittances are at 17.5% of income as research suggests, that amounts to take-home wages of $466bn and a likely contribution to the economy of $2.2 trillion.


There are, of course, ethical issues associated with creaming off the young and able from poorer countries, which are themselves experiencing population decline. The NHS, for example, has a Code of Practice about recruitment from other countries. For some low and lower-middle-income countries, increasing the scale of health and social care worker migration threatens the achievement of national health and social care goals. The WHO has identified a “red list” of countries that should not be actively targeted.


Alternative approaches to averting declining populations generally involve a degree of social engineering – banning abortion, offering bonuses for four or more children and just general exhortation. Hungary, for example, offers tax breaks, housing subsidies and loans for larger cars. Women in China say they are receiving phone calls from government workers to ask if they are currently expecting a child and to urge them to get pregnant.


Whether domestic concerns about pressures caused by immigration can be alleviated remains unclear. The rise of far-right parties, who use fear of immigration as a large part of their offer to their predominantly white electorate, is a feature across the European political landscape. Sooner or later, though, all of these countries will be forced to confront the issue or simply vanish. Given that in the UK net migration is just 1% of the total population, in reality the cultural impact is in fact minimal, and that given a growing economy – and indeed in order to support a growing economy, as well as to care for an ageing population – the argument could be made. Fairly soon, it must be. Better to make it now.


Written by Huw Williams, SAMI Principal


The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of SAMI Consulting.


Achieve more by understanding what the future may bring. We bring skills developed over thirty years of international and national projects to create actionable, transformative strategy. Futures, foresight and scenario planning to make robust decisions in uncertain times. Find out more at www.samiconsulting.co.uk


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