The future of us

Lant Pritchett (London School of Economics) has an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives on the need for global mobility between shrinking and growing labor forces.

In the coming decades, given fertility rates across different regions, territories with low or very low fertility will need to receive migrants from territories where fertility rates are higher. The region of the world with the highest fertility rates at the moment is Africa.

The figures are striking. Spain will have a “labor force gap” of 23.6 million people by 2050. This gap is calculated by keeping the ratio between the labor force and the population aged 65 or older at its 2020 level. If we were to fill this gap with permanent migrants, they would need to be allowed to come with their families. This would require an additional 49.6 million migrants (beyond current levels) by 2050—about 1.1 additional residents for every working migrant—most of them coming from Africa.

Fertility policies will not fill the gap because the people who would need to be 25 years old in 2050 have already been born—or rather, they have not been born, since we are simply not having enough children. There is heterogeneity in fertility rates, but the general trend is downward. At some point in the future, there may not even be territories producing enough migrants, but we are not there yet. Now, the economic gains of migration are high for migrants and for societies receiving migrants. While we figure out how to organize our societies under conditions of very low fertility everywhere (in the absence of strong even coercive pro-natalist policies), migration appears to be the only solution.

Pritchett argues that filling the gap with permanent migrants is politically impossible because, in his words, existing citizens would lose control of their “future of us.” He therefore proposes filling the gap not with permanent migrants, but with “rotational and temporary” labor mobility.

This makes sense, although the details matter, and it would not be easy to manage. I doubt that, given the income gap between Africa and Southern Europe—and their geographic proximity—movement could be controlled at a “desired” level.

In any case, we need in Spain (similarly in other relatively rich countries) at least approximately 25 million foreign migrants between now and 2050, and unless we are economically self-destructive, we will probably receive many more. Perhaps, then, the challenge is not so much how to stop permanent migration, but how to redefine “us” in the “future of us.” This redefinition will need to take place even if temporary mobility is successful.

It is true that the rise of the xenophobic far right does not inspire optimism. Yet the reality of large, diverse cities such as London and New York tells a different story. Both cities are attractive, diverse, and prosperous, and both have democratically elected mayors who come from immigrant families. Why can we not all be more like New York and London?