Internal migration scenarios and regional population Projections for the European Union

Abstract

Recently, a new set of regional population projections for the countries of the European Union has been completed. This paper concentrates on the internal migration component of these projections. After a brief description of the internal migration model employed, the paper develops two sets of model parameters in terms of which projection assumptions are formulated: the overall mobility level, and the level of convergence or divergence of regional push and pull factors. For convergence or divergence, future parameter values are specified relative to a hypothetical change from currently observed migration patterns to a counterfactual situation of full convergence, i.e. equalised regional push and pull factors and, as a consequence, zero net internal migration for all regions. This leads to three scenarios: a baseline scenario, with mobility levels and regional effects constant throughout; a low scenario, with future (from 2010 onward) mobility levels 20% lower and regional effects 50% further away from full convergence (i.e. regional differences increase); and a high scenario, with future mobility levels 20% higher and regional effects 50% closer to full convergence. Finally, the paper presents selected results from the resulting regional population projections, with special attention paid to the contribution from the internal migration component. Overall, there are only limited differences between the scenarios, since internal migration has in general a dampening effect on population growth differentials due to other components of growth. However, at the level of individual regions, the internal migration component can make a large difference. For instance, in regions where the difference in population growth between the high and low scenarios is large, around 30% of the difference is due to the internal migration component. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.