The demography of globalisation

Abstract

Demographic globalisation, as the counterpart of economic globalisation, is interpreted as the movement towards a state depicted as the "global village" where there are no official impediments to the cross-border movement of people. Such movement is posited as the outcome of inter-country disequilibria which determine the levels of the propensity to migrate. Relevant problems are addressed such as whether the international trade in goods and services can serve as substitute for migration of labour (accompanied or unacompanied by dependents); demographic complementarity between more and less developed countries; the type of labour demanded by countries of immigration; demographically perverse migratory flows; the socio-economic problems ensuing from the formation of numerically strong ethnic minorities in host countries; and what the outlook is for the realisation, in demographic terms, of a global village mode.