Exploring ‘neo-Malthusian’ demographic rationales in migration policy-making

Despite widespread recognition of the potential benefits of managed migration for achieving future economic prosperity and welfare sustainability, migration policies are mostly shaped by short-term labour market objectives and electoral concerns. Nevertheless, new demographic rationales are emerging in migration policies and debates in some of the major immigrant-receiving countries. In the UK, the impact of immigration on population growth has become a ubiquitous issue in political and media debates on immigration policy. As part of the political agenda of the current conservative-led Government coalition, a range of restrictive policy changes to reduce net migration 'from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands' have been adopted to prevent the UK population from ‘hitting’ 70 million within the next two decades. This paper reviews the role of these emerging ‘neo-Malthusian’ arguments and the key issues and challenges in setting and achieving demographic objectives – with particular reference to managing the size of the population – in migration policy-making. It challenges the notion that an ‘optimum’ population size should play a central role in migration policies and debates and the viability of migration policies inspired by demographic objectives.