On the asymptotic equilibrium of a population system with migration

Abstract

In the analysis of economic and social issues of a country (or any larger or smaller socio-economic unit) the demographic dynamics of the considered population often play a crucial role. Very current emergencies in this respect are e.g. ageing, longevity risk, state-run healthcare etc. Over the last decade migration between EU countries also became an important issue, and in recent years the uncontrolled migration from non-EU countries is also a major concern. Therefore, the better theoretical understanding of the evolutionary mechanism of age-classified populations interacting via migration, is a timely modelling-methodological task. This paper is a preliminary demographic methodological contribution to a further research in support of socio-economic modelling and decision making concerning migration issues.It is known that in the framework of the classical age-specific Leslie model, under simple demographic conditions, a closed population in the long term tends to an equilibrium age distribution. As the main theoretical result of the paper, a similar convergence is proved for a system of several populations with migration between them, and this long-term behaviour (convergence theorem) is extended to systems of sex-structured populations. Based on the latter model, medium term projections are also analysed concerning the effect of migration among countries on the development of the old-age dependency ratio (the proportion of pensioner age classes to active ones), which is an aggregate scalar indicator of ageing, a major concern in most industrialized countries. Illustrative simulation analysis is carried out with data from three European countries.