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Opinion
1 May 2016 2.00 h

from the editor

marcela topor. mtopor@cataloniatoday.cat

An opportunity rather than a problem

The per­spec­tives for the growth of Eu­rope's pop­u­la­tion in the com­ing years paint a wor­ry­ing pic­ture. Yet, the age­ing of Eu­ro­pean so­ci­ety is not only a threat to fu­ture socio-eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity, but is al­ready an alarm­ing re­al­ity. The de­mo­graphic bal­ance is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern in Cat­alo­nia, where ex­perts es­ti­mate that life ex­pectancy will con­tinue to rise against a back­drop of fewer young peo­ple thanks to em­i­gra­tion and one of the low­est birth rates in Eu­rope. The main so­lu­tion to turn the sit­u­a­tion around and en­sure healthy pop­u­la­tion growth is im­mi­gra­tion. With­out the so­cial and eco­nomic con­tri­bu­tion of mi­grants, there will be lit­tle chance to re­verse a trend in which the older gen­er­a­tion comes to out­num­ber the younger gen­er­a­tion. Mi­grants tend to be of work­ing and fer­tile age, thereby help­ing to plug the gap be­tween ei­ther end of the pop­u­la­tion pyra­mid. More­over, we are cur­rently ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a refugee cri­sis, with thou­sands of peo­ple des­per­ate to start a new life in Eu­rope. Per­haps rather than see­ing it as a cri­sis, we should start see­ing the ar­rival of fresh blood as an op­por­tu­nity to build a sus­tain­able so­ci­ety for the fu­ture.

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Marcela Topor
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