Migrations for decades One of the main themes of politics in the West. In recent years, anti-immigrant rhetoric has not only become one of the biggest polarizers in the public sphere, but the “refugee crisis” has had a tremendous impact on the European Union.

We know all this very well in Spain. In the late 19th, early 20th, and post-war years, we moved from a “problem” with immigration to a “problem” with immigration in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. So much so that a large part of our foreign policy is explained by “controlling immigration flows”. However What if this is about to end? and yes as some argue Are we living in the last age of great migrations?

Although it is often said that people have migrated since the beginning of time, the truth is that when we speak of “migration” today, we are talking about something very specific, which is just a “family resemblance” to traditional life. migrations.

This happens with many other terms: prehistoric and contemporary historians use terms like “state” or “class” to refer to similar things, yes; but completely different. Like this, Contemporary migrations are a very “modern” phenomenon.. Something that emerged in the eighteenth century (and that includes transatlantic slavery, although we usually don’t back down) and that developed hand in hand with the industrial revolution and its modulations.

Before the eighteenth century, of course, there were population movements, wars, and conquests; but the truth is the traditional demographic regime left little overpopulation enough for these “migrations” to be similar to existing ones.

What happened exactly in the eighteenth century was that death rates fell sharply in some countries, thanks to agricultural productivity, incipient industrialisation, advances in health, and advances in literacy. This causes an increase rearranged population through a series of migrations according to the productive structure: first internally (towards the industrial areas of the country) and then internationally, thanks to the first steps of colonialism and globalisation.

An empty world: soon there will be no one left to migrate

But if we look demographic transition is a phenomenon with an expiration date. There is no country in the world today with a traditional demographic regime. If there are some countries (Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria or the Republic of Congo) that keep their birth rates very high, but the death rate has already fallen.

How long will it take to walk the path that countries like Guatemala, Algeria or Chile (who have already seen how their birthrates drop) have already come? Or moreover, how long will it take to stabilize the birth rate with the death rate and end the demographic transition?

Less than we thought. If we listen to the forecasts, the population collapse of Africa and Asia in a few decades will alleviate population pressure and with it the current need for thousands of people to migrate to richer countries. Logical. As the clearest example, the African continent is urbanizing almost twice as fast as the world, and the world population is urbanizing with a forced march. In 2007, half of humanity already lived in cities for the first time. We are now 55% and will reach 66% before 2050.

Most demographers agree that the urbanization of the world’s population is a major factor in this decline in fertility. And ‘biological’** not for nothing, but for socio-cultural incentives. Cities are environments where having many children does not mean a significant economic return. In the rural world a child is a fortune, in the city a burden. Only six of the world’s 39 largest megacities above the replacement rate.

Let’s talk straight: poor countries are stopping childbearing at record speed. we before a fruitful revolution with little precedent on a historical level. Only very specific groups with very specific ideological characteristics, such as the Amish, Orthodox Jews, or Mormons, have been able to “escape” this curse of low birth rates.

And I put “escape” in quotation marks because, indeed, Mormons also seem to be suffering from signs of population decline. They’re still big families, yes; but not as much as before. In addition, we have ample empirical evidence that if these community strategies were capable of “solving” the demographic problem, it would be very difficult to make government policies on this issue.

“The world population will never reach nine billion. It will reach a maximum of 8 billion in 2040 and then decrease”, says The Guardian Jørgen Randers, a Norwegian demographer known for his work on overpopulation. This is not an isolated opinion, with more experts pointing out that overpopulation alarms are still false.

And without overpopulation there will be no great migrations. At least in the medium term. Because, in fact, there is a power that can create. large population movements without population growth: climate change. And the thing is that although we have somewhat separated ourselves from nature today, we are connected to it. We always have been.

Image | Bernat Armangue/AP