Becoming a Net Receiver of International Migrants: An Age-Structural Model of the Shift to Persistently Positive Net Migration Rates

This study adheres to a logistic regression modeling protocol originally developed for long-range intelligence analyses and employs data from UN demographic estimates (2024 Revision) to generate a set of statistical functions that suggest a moderately strong relationship between median age and the direction (arithmetic sign) of the international net migration rate (NMR). According to this functional relationship, from 1990 to 2015, the probability of experiencing a persistently positive net migration rate (a +NMR, directly followed by five consecutive years of +NMRs) rose from less than 0.13 at a median age of 15 years, to a probability greater than 0.55 at 36 years, and to nearly 0.78 at 45 years. Assuming that a significant number of countries surpassing a median age of 36 years before 2055 will become continuous migrant net receivers, several countries in Asia, Latin America, and North Africa, for which UN scenarios currently project a continuous series of -NMRs, or a pattern of sign-switching NMRs, will likely experience a continuous series of +NMRs. These results suggest that, by 2055, more of the flow of international migrants could be spread amongst a more varied pool of continuous net-receiving states than the UN’s future scenarios currently indicate.