Uncontrolled migration—spurred by a growing populations, fewer resources like water or arable land as well as increasing conflict—has become a contentious political issue, particularly in advanced economies like Europe and the United States, argue demography experts Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin. Passions run high as liberals support assistance and an emphasis on human rights of displaced people while conservatives advocate limits and enforcement. Resources are limited and government responses to unwanted migrants vary including information campaigns, financial assistance to countries with conditions on tougher policies to block migrants, mechanisms for legal migration, refugee support, border security as well as various deportation, relocation, and amnesty programs. Separate or combined, the responses are not enough, Chamie and Mirkin conclude, and ignoring the challenges poses consequences for host nations, governments and migrants.

Most governments must juggle budgets and confront the fact that the world has fewer people of working age to support the swelling ranks of the elderly. Joseph Chamie, a demographer, analyzes the Potential Support Ratio, or PSR, and suggests the statistic could reveal more about the overall health of an economy than GDP or other common indicators. “The PSR has weighty implications for governments and businesses concerning the labor force, taxation, education, housing, production and consumption, retirement, pensions, and health services,” Chamie writes. “The unprecedented shift towards a larger proportion of older persons and concomitant declines in workers is gradually and inexorably necessitating redesign of national economies.” In 1950, the world’s median age was 23, allowing about 12 people of working age per elderly individual; today the median age is about 30, with eight people of working age per elderly individual. Countries risk economic chaos by not planning ahead to the challenges of aging populations. Options include increased immigration, incentives on fertility, higher retirement ages, and reduced benefits in retirement and health care for the elderly.

UN sustainability goals should not overlook population growth centered in the poor, least developed countries.

The drowning of hundreds of men, women, and children off the coasts of Italy and Malta has brought world attention back to the dilemma faced by the developed world from desperation migration.