Aging and Migration: An Overview

Population aging is a growing global phenomenon, with some countries already seeing dramatic aging, and others just starting to see their populations’ age. With the old representing an increasingly large proportion of the world’s population, the implications of aging societies include economic development, welfare, public finance, consumption, and mobility patterns. This chapter covers the demography of aging before moving on to consider the linkages between migration, immigration and aging along with policy options associated with aging societies. As societies age, larger numbers of the old will be mobile, although it is unlikely that the mobility rate will increase. Although internal migration can redistribute older populations across space, with implications for sending and receiving regions, it will not change the overall population profile of a country. Instead, immigration is the most likely option to reduce or slow the aging of a population, but it too is limited in its effect.