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:

  1. Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI, Netherlands; the lead partner): Joop de Beer, Nicole van der Gaag, Rob van der Erf;
  2. University of Vienna (UNIVIE, Austria): Heinz Fassmann, Ramon Bauer;
  3. International Organization for Migration/Central European Forum for Migration and Population Research (IOM/CEFMR, Poland): Marek Kupiszewski, Dorota Kupiszewska;
  4. School of Geography of the University of Leeds (Leeds, United Kingdom): Phil Rees, Peter Boden, Adam Dennett, John Stillwell;
  5. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA, Netherlands): Andries De Jong, Mark Ter Veer;
  6. Nordic Centre for Spatial Development (Nordregio, Sweden): Johanna Roto, Lisa Van Well, Jonathan Metzger, Daniel Rauhut;
  7. National Research Council (CNR, Italy): Frank Heins, Corrado Bonifazi, Giuseppe Gesano.

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
Multilevel population projection model (D. Kupiszewska and M. Kupiszewski) 345 KB
Reference scenarios (M. Kupiszewski and D.Kupiszewska) 3.67 MB
Regional population dynamics: a report assessing the effects of demographic developments on regional competitiveness and cohesion (P. Rees, P. Boden, A. Dennett, J. Stillwell, M. Jasińska, A. de Jong, M. ter Veer, M. Kupiszewski, D. Kupiszewska) 19.93 MB

Project duration: 2008-2011

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