DEMIFER - Demographic and migratory flows affecting European regions and cities Project supported by the ESPON 2013 (European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion) programme Marek Kupiszewski, Dorota Kupiszewska The main demographic development in Europe in the next decades will be the ageing of the population and, in some countries, depopulation. Labour resources will shrink and age, what will have an impact on economic development and competitiveness. This will also enforce modification of health service and social security systems and, most likely, re-shape regional economies in many regions. These changes and challenges will differ between countries and, even more, between regions. The key objective of DEMIFER was to assess the impact of demographic trends and migration flows on the size and structure of population and labour force of the European regions and cities and to examine the implications for economic and social cohesion and competitiveness. The project examined the diversity across European regions by means of developing a typology of regions based on demographic and socio-economic characteristics and by preparing alternative scenarios based on assumptions about demographic and labour force related variables related to possible future economic developments and policy options. The DEMIFER project was implemented by a team of researchers from seven research institutions:
CEFMR was responsible for the development of the population and labour force dynamics model and the reference scenarios, and contributed to the work on the policy scenarios. The three reference scenarios were: Status Quo, No Extra-Europe migration and No Migration. They allowed to quantify the impact of natural increase, migration within Europe (regional migration within each country and international migration within Europe) and migration from outside Europe on the regional population and labour force. The four policy scenarios proposed by the University of Leeds varied along collectivism-individualism degree in societies and constraints on growth due to environmental concerns versus growth fuelled by innovations, and included: Growing Social Europe (high growth - collectivism), Expanding Market Europe (high growth - individualism), Limited Social Europe (low growth - collectivism) and Challenged Market Europe (low growth - individualism) scenarios. Further information about the DEMIFER project and the links to all draft projects reports are available at the ESPON website: www.espon.eu Links to selected reports: Draft final report 4.7 MB Project duration: 2008-2011 |