Developing economies will add 1.5 billion workers to the global economy over the next four decades, while, in the absence of immigration, developed economies would lose 250 million workers, according to UN Population Projections.

As a result, there is a large emerging imbalance in the world between where the economic opportunities are located and where the workers to help exploit those opportunities are. Many argue the answer is greater labour mobility or (less euphemistically) migration, particularly of the temporary (guest worker) kind, which may be more palatable politically.

Issues around the great demographic shifts in the world and the potential for migration to exploit them were explored in a G20 workshop which was held in Sydney in August 2005:

Demographic challenges and migration

In our current national debate on population and migration issues, it would be useful to recognise these global trends.  The pressures on Australia to accept larger numbers of immigrants will become much stronger in coming decades, especially from the large developing and emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India and Turkey.  It would be wise to plan for the Intergenerational Report’s projection of 36 million Australians by 2050 (and to develop contingency plans for significantly higher numbers, just in case).

Technical note

If you’re familiar with the UN Population Projections, you may ask why developing economy populations are continuing to grow while their fertility rates are declining?

Even though fertility rates are declining in developing economies, their populations will continue to grow over the next few decades, because the generations born in the post-war period were very much larger in number than the generations born prior to the war.  This means that, even though fertility rates have declined since the 1960s, new generations that are born are still numerically larger than the older generations who are dying off. Technically, this is known as demographic momentum.