Today, it is a very crucial problem that many European countries are encountering demographic challenges stemming from the population decline and aging and according to many studies and future projections, this demographic trend will reach more critical levels for the next 50 years. The most prominent impact of this demographic situation will be on social security systems that the functioning and sustainability of pension and health care systems will be severely damaged with regard to the rapidly increasing number of elderly and the decline in number of young labor force resulting from the low births rates all over Europe. In this context, labor migration that received significant attention, has risen up to the agenda of Europe to serve as a policy option to mitigate the adverse consequences of demographic challenges. Taking its impetus from the mentioned demographic problem, this thesis aims to analyze the discussions over labor migration as a foreseen policy option to compensate the shortage of labor force in Europe. It also intents to bring relevant data and current debates together to generate a ground in order to open this critical issue to discussion and to elaborate the feasibility of labor migration need for Europe. In this regard, the thesis scrutinizes the reactions of European states regarding their reluctance to open their borders again for &ldquo / mass influx&rdquo / and examines briefly the other preferred and enforced policies that exclude migration option, such as aiming to increase fertility rates, ameliorate social security systems or encourage the native labor force participation. By taking all these into account, this thesis aspires to attract attention to this urgent problem and evaluates the labor migration need in Europe by presenting the relevant reactions and appraisals shaping the migration policies both at the nation state and EU level. Finally, this thesis attempts to contribute to the literature in terms of generating a base for further intensified discussions and studies which constitutes a significant need in the context of interaction between demography and migration in Europe.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12605341/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2004 |
| Creators | Ilkserim, Ayselin Yildiz |
| Contributors | Gitmez, Ali |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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