Old and New Measures of Population Replacement - A Comparative Review with Application to European countries

Reproduction measures were most popular between the two World Wars, before various methodological remarks produced a general negative opinion about them. Those measures were essentially developed from one-sex population models with no migration; however, since the second half of past century, immigration has become a relevant component of population change in Europe, and nowadays is the most important one in several European countries. With the acknowledged primary contribution of migration to the population dynamics, scholars have tried to incorporate its effects in the traditional reproduction measures, or they have proposed new indicators, which were then taking more a wider meaning of measures of population replacement. This study makes a comparative assessment, both analytically and empirically, of old and new measures proposed in literature. Further, it uses these demographic tools for a revision of the population replacement dynamics in Europe over the last 50 years. It is shown the similarity between some of the existing measures, as well as their different sensitivity to migration changes. A few additional measures of population replacement, variation of existing indicators, are also proposed for illustrative purposes.