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MEDIA CENTER Immigration Likely to Transform the Cultures and National Identities of Western Countries, says British Demographer NEW YORK, NY and OXFORD, UK (25 September 2006) — About a million immigrants legally enter the United States every year, many more illegally. About one and a half million enter Western Europe. Foreign-born proportions are rising fast—in the United States, foreign-born are now above 12 percent, a level not seen since the 1920s; in some European countries—societies with no tradition of immigration—the proportions are comparable. Because migrant fertility is typically higher than for the native-born, the demographic influence of migration is further strengthened. If these trends continue, the prospect is for the eventual displacement of the original majority populations by the newcomers and their descendants—a radical and permanent change in national ancestry. Many of the immigrants are from non-Western countries—in the United States from Latin America, in Europe mostly from the Muslim world. The pace and scale of these forecast shifts in ethnic and racial composition, and their implications, especially for Europe, are examined by David Coleman, professor of demography at Oxford University, in an article in the September issue of the Population Council’s Population and Development Review. Demographers refer to the advent of very low birth and death rates in a population as the first demographic transition, and the subsequent decline of marriage and rise of new family forms as the second transition. Coleman terms the coming ethnic and social transformation in Western countries the "third demographic transition." Coleman's study brings together population projections, mostly from official sources, for seven European countries (covering half the population of Western Europe), plus the United States, to give scenarios of changing ethnic and racial composition. The projections are based upon fairly conservative assumptions—that migration will increase no further and that populations of foreign origin will be fully assimilated after the second generation (the projections for the United States and the United Kingdom, however, employ potentially enduring “ethnic” categories). In reality, many experts expect immigration to continue to increase, and some populations of non-European origin in European countries have been slow to integrate—and even slower in the second generation. The scenarios portray widespread ethnic shifts. For example, for the Netherlands and Germany, by mid-century 30 percent and 24 percent of the respective populations are expected to be of foreign origin, and, assuming the stability of ethnic categories, the corresponding figure for England and Wales would be 36 percent. In the Netherlands and Germany, 17 percent and 18 percent of the population, respectively, are projected to be of non-Western origin. Other European countries projected to accumulate sizable non-Western minorities include Norway (14 percent), Denmark (11 percent), and Sweden (11 percent, by 2020 only). For major cities, the proportions are much higher. The change would be especially striking among younger cohorts. The forecasted ethnic transformation is by no means inevitable, Coleman notes. Intermarriage will moderate the growth of some minorities, multiplying mixed-origin populations that eventually defy categorization. And the demography may change: European birthrates could rise back to replacement level again, although that is unlikely in the view of most demographers. More important, migration, despite recent trends, can go down as well as up. Migration is notoriously difficult to project, and can be changed by government policy. In many European countries, as in the United States, popular unease over the high volume of immigration is becoming politically important. Denmark and the Netherlands, for example, have introduced effective policies to restrict some inflow, and immigration seems likely to become a major issue in the forthcoming French Presidential election—as it is in the November US Congressional election. If the projections are borne out, however, the compositional shifts can be expected to bring important changes in national self-identity, religion, political orientation, and many other aspects of culture and politics. Yet that prospect is seldom discussed. The immigration debate is mostly about economic costs and benefits, effects on overall population size, and problems of integration. In largely ignoring the further dimensions, says Coleman, "the countries of the West are facilitating a radical transformation of the composition of their societies and the cessation of a specific heritage." And they are doing so by default, perhaps through embarrassment at discussing difficult and sensitive issues. "Democratic approval might have been thought necessary for so notable and permanent a change, the prospect of which would have been dismissed as absurd just a few decades ago." The abstract of “Immigration and ethnic change in low-fertility countries” is available online: www.popcouncil.org/EthnicChange.
Coleman, David. “Immigration and ethnic change in low-fertility
countries: A third demographic transition, “ Population and
Development Review 32(3): 401–446.
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental research organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources. The Council conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research and helps build research capacities in developing countries. Established in 1952, the Council is governed by an international board of trustees. Its New York headquarters supports a global network of regional and country offices. ### Media contacts
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