Presenter: Dr Andrew Selee
Date: Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Time: 12:30 – 13:45
Venue: ACMS Seminar Room: Room 2163, Solomon Mahlangu House (2nd floor), East Campus, Wits University (directions)
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/95786624514?pwd=53Oi1h6gHcWY2Q43O0p8ZqzOsOLZXp.1
Register: https://tinyurl.com/4zxkc7s8
Abstract:
The world is undergoing rapid demographic change, with most upper and upper-middle-income countries dropping below replacement level fertility and many middle-income countries following close behind. As populations shrink in these countries, immigration will become one of the few ways that countries maintain a robust labor force and ensure fiscal solvency, even taking into account productivity gains and changes in workforce needs brought about by technological innovation. And African countries will almost certainly be the source of most of the migrants that are willing to move to these rapidly aging societies.
However, this transition is likely to be less than smooth, with increased migration also leading to significant push-back within destination countries and to calls both for greater border controls. As a result, managing this transition effectively will require building legal pathways proactively, adjusting the pace of change thoughtfully, and ensuring the credibility of immigration systems to facilitate mobility. It will also require rethinking narratives of national identity in destination societies, while ensuring that emigration from source countries, largely in Africa, can lead to long-term growth and development through proactive investments in human capital.
And while this may initially seem to be a challenge just for the highly developed economies of Europe, North America, and East Asia, it will quickly become relevant in South Africa and significant parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
About the researcher/presenter:
Dr Andrew Selee is president of the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan, independent think tank based in Washington, DC and Brussels, which focuses on data, analysis, and prospective ideas for migration policy. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, both in the School of Foreign Service and in the School of Public Policy. Previously he was the Executive Vice President of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Dr Selee is the author and co-author of several books, including On the Move: Migration Policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (Stanford University Press, 2025), Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together (PublicAffairs, 2018), and What Should Think Tanks Do? A Strategic Guide to Policy Impact (Stanford University Press, 2013). His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, among other publications. He holds a PhD in Policy Studies from the University of Maryland and was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in 2017-18.
