60 Hein de Haas
have generated a greater demand for low- and high-skilled migrant labour
in specif ic sectors. This not only pertains to high-skilled jobs, but also to
a whole range of un- and semi-skilled (often irregular) jobs in agriculture,
construction, catering, cleaning, domestic and other formal and informal
services. In fact, the correlation between family migration (e.g., of Turks
and Moroccans to North-Western Europe after 1973) and economic growth
suggests the limited usefulness of migration categories, which primarily
ref lect legal categories rather than the real, complex and generally mixed
motivations of migrants.
Assuming future economic growth and political stability, EU member
states will in all likelihood continue to attract migrants in the coming
decades. Although the idea that migration can ‘solve’ population ageing
is fundamentally f lawed, it is likely that population ageing will increase
labour demand in specif ic sectors, in particular in care and other high- and
low-skilled services. The demand for migrant labour is likely to increase
even in scenarios of a somewhat drastic increase in labour participation (de
Jong, Nicolaas & Sprangers 2001; Entzinger 2000; Fargues 2004).
Therefore, the real question for the future is not whether immigration will
continue, but where these migrants will come from. Why has the number
of Turks migrating to EU countries been constantly decreasing over recent
years, while Moroccan migration to Southern Europe has recently seen a
resurgence? Why has Egyptian migration to Europe remained so limited,
and is the recently increasing Egyptian migration to Italy possibly heralding
a future major increase in Egyptian migration to Europe? Assuming future
demand for migrant labour in the EU, we therefore now turn to studying
trends of demographic, economic and political development in our case-
study countries, and analyse how these might be connected to the different
migration trends described above. On that basis, we develop some ideas
about the future migration potential of the countries in the Southern and
Eastern Mediterranean and beyond.
1.5.2 Demographic trends: A world running out of children
It is often thought that fertility decline and ageing are phenomena that uniquely
affect Western societies. It is less known that, globally, almost all countries
have entered their fertility transition phase, as testif ied by rapidly falling
fertility levels around the world. In our case-study countries, this process
started in the 1950s and 1960s. While Turkish fertility rates declined earlier and
have now achieved replacement levels (around 2.1), Morocco and Egypt have
also achieved spectacular reductions in fertility (see Figure 1.13). The decline