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European Economic Restructuring

Demographic Responses and Feedbacks

Gerhard Mercator University, Duisburg, Germany

Russell King

University ofSussex, UK

This paper seeks to comprehend the nature of the relationship between economic restructuring and various processes of demographic change in Europe. The analysis reveals a broad set of complex inter relations between the economic and population systems. Population cannot be taken as a single de pendent variable acting in response to economic change. Demographic processes such as ageing and fertility decline can also act as independent variables providing feedback and input into socio-economic restructuring, and they can also be regarded as a kind of background system, reacting rather inertly compared to the short-term cycles and transform ations in the economy. Therefore demographic changes are often underestimated in their medium and long-term feedback effects. The labour market is taken as the main field of interplay between the sys tems of economy and population and thus this paper takes a close look at some important changes within the European labour market and submarkets. Changing employment conditions - the growth of the secondary labour market, the flexibilization of labour demand and increasingly also of supply, grow ing female labour force participation rates, generally high ethnic minority unemployment - reflect differ ent aspects of the transition from the Fordist to the postFordist regime as well as changing demographic and life-style influences. Together they have deeply transformed the European landscape of employment and unemployment The specific role of international migration is also analysed and it is seen to have fun damentally altered between the Fordist and postFordist eras. Less clear to interpret are changing internal migration patterns: has counterur banization stopped in response to restructuring and integration and is a new postFordist population map unfolding? The paper concludes by evaluating the nature of the relationship between economic restructuring and population trends and identifying pointers for future research.

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