Some General Lessons for Europe’s Migration Problem

There are two dominant demographic factors that will determine the availability of human resources in Europe at the dawn of the 21st century: First, there is an overall picture of slowing population growth and persistent below-replacement fertility rates. At the turn ofthe century, this may create a vacuum on the European Community’s (EC) labor markets and hence population demandpull. Second, the intra-EC deregulation policies on the internal labor market and their effect on intra-EC labor migration will be dominated by substantial migration pressure caused by people from the East and the South of Europe, as well as from developing countries. There will be requests from many non-EC European countries either to be allowed to join the EC (probably with free labor mobility) or, at least, to allow their people to migrate to the center of Europe. Hence, there will be population supply-push.