Policy brief "High-Migration Events and Future Labor Force in Europe"

© Population Europe

Migration is complex, highly uncertain, and marked by unexpected changes. Political crises, economic downturns, and human-made or natural disasters can set large numbers of people on the move, yet migration events are impossible to predict in terms of their onset, scale, duration and in terms of how many people will return or settle in what destinations.

In this Policy brief, Michaela Potancokova  and Guillaume Marois from Multidimensional Demographic Modeling Research Group (MDM) presented the results from a set of simulations on the impact of high-migration events on the future labor force size in Europe, assuming a continuation of past demographic, educational, labor force participation trends, and differentials between the native-born and different groups of immigrants in terms of their origin (region of birth).

Key messages

• Although high-migration events cannot be predicted, we can simulate such situations in scenarios and outline their potential impacts to inform greater policy preparedness.
   
• Even high-migration events with persisting migration cannot substantially boost future labor force size in European countries.

The work was carried out as part of the QuantMig project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 scheme.