Ageing rich countries need foreign talent and labour as never before, even as they tighten borders and narrow the pathways open to students and skilled workers.
A System Pulled in Two Directions
The global migration system is being pulled in two opposing directions: a growing economic dependence on foreign workers and students, and a political drive to clamp down on who gets in and who can stay. Most major destination countries are moving away from policies that broadly expand migrant labour towards more selective, restrictive approaches, especially when it comes to unauthorized migration.
A striking exception is Spain, which plans to grant legal status to around half a million undocumented migrants to curb labour exploitation in its underground economy while meeting an annual demand for some 300,000 migrant workers. This stands in contrast to the dominant trend of tighter controls driven by political shifts to the right, national security concerns, public pressure, unauthorized border crossings, visa overstays, and fears over changing population composition and social integration. The effect has been to restrict asylum seekers and low‑skilled migrants while redesigning systems to favour highly skilled workers.
Students at the Front Line of Control
International students sit squarely within this new politics of control. Around 7 million students were studying abroad in 2024–2025, with the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia among the main destinations, alongside Germany, Russia, South Korea, China and Spain. Yet those same countries are imposing stricter visa rules and entry requirements, fixed‑term visas, limits on study duration, work permit constraints, higher financial thresholds, and tighter rules on bringing dependents—all justified by high net migration, efforts to curb visa misuse, university enrolment caps, housing pressures, and worries over the costs of family migration.
Migrant Workers in the Global Labour Engine
The scale of cross‑border movement is significant. In 2024, there were about 304 million international migrants—roughly 3.7 percent of the world’s 8.2 billion people—nearly double the 154 million counted in 1990, when they represented 2.9 percent of a global population of 5.3 billion. The United States hosts 17 percent of all migrants, followed by Germany with 6 percent, Saudi Arabia with 5 percent, the United Kingdom with 4 percent and France with 3 percent. As countries of origin, India accounts for 6 percent of all emigrants, China and Mexico 4 percent each, and Ukraine and Russia 3 percent apiece.
Behind these numbers lies a vast global labour system. In 2022, there were about 168 million migrant workers, representing roughly 5 percent of the world’s labour force, with about two‑thirds of working‑age migrants active in the labour market and 60 percent of them men. In richer countries, the reliance is even more pronounced: immigrants and other foreign‑born workers make up about 20 percent of the US labour force—more than 30 million people—concentrated in construction, farming and services, while in Canada they account for about 30 percent of all workers, many of them in technology, manufacturing and healthcare.
These workers are present at every skill level, but many, including those with higher qualifications, end up concentrated in lower‑skilled sectors such as services, agriculture, construction and tourism. At the same time, high‑skilled sectors—particularly information technology and professional occupations—often depend on skilled migrant labour to fill gaps that domestic workforces cannot. International students and skilled migrants therefore occupy a dual role: they are central to economic development and to addressing labour shortages, yet they are also increasingly entangled in restrictive policies.
Demographic Reversals in Rich Countries
All of this is unfolding against profound demographic change. Most developed countries, and many developing ones, are experiencing populations that are declining, ageing and diversifying, driven by shifts in fertility, mortality and migration that will play out over the next eighty years. Fertility rates are projected to remain below the replacement level of about two births per woman, which means population decline will persist; the population of more developed countries is expected to fall by about 14 million by 2050, while the least developed countries are projected to grow by 733 million over the same period.
Life expectancy is also rising. In more developed countries, average life expectancy at birth, currently around 80 years, is expected to reach roughly 84 years by 2050 and 90 years by the end of the century. Many countries have already undergone a “historic reversal” in their age structures: by 2025, 55 countries and areas had reached the point where the share of people aged 65 and over exceeds that of those aged 17 and younger. Put simply, older adults are now outnumbering children in growing parts of the world.
Population ageing will continue to reshape societies. In more developed countries, the median age—now about 42—is projected to rise to 45 by 2050 and 48 by 2100. The share of elderly people will grow in tandem; in Europe, older adults are expected to make up around 30 percent of the population by mid‑century. At the same time, destination countries are becoming more ethnically diverse as migration increases: in Europe, the number of foreign‑born residents has risen from an estimated 57 million at the beginning of the 21st century to about 87 million by 2020.
Identity Politics and the Rise of Hostility
Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are on track to become “minority white” societies, with projections suggesting that white populations will become numerical minorities around 2045 in the US and 2065 in the UK. These shifts are feeding political tensions. High levels of legal migration, combined with mounting unauthorized flows, have intensified negative attitudes and hostility towards immigrants and their families, strengthening far‑right nationalist parties that advocate for tougher, often explicitly anti‑immigrant policies.
These parties argue that immigration—especially unauthorized migration—threatens traditional culture, shared values, national identity, security, ethnic heritage and social cohesion. Their influence has helped to frame migration as a risk rather than a response to demographic and economic realities. Yet on the sending side, the pressures that drive people to move are only growing stronger. Many origin countries, especially in less developed regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, face rapid population growth alongside poverty, political instability, civil conflict and climate change.
Pressure from the Global South
The appetite to move is immense. Around 1.3 billion people are estimated to want to emigrate permanently—a figure that vastly exceeds the number of migrants destination countries are prepared to admit through legal channels and helps explain the persistence of unauthorized migration. Nowhere are the demographic pressures more dramatic than in Africa, home to 33 of the world’s 46 least developed countries. The continent’s population is expected to more than triple over the 21st century, rising from roughly 800 million to nearly 4 billion.
The result is a stark demographic contrast: traditional destination countries are declining, ageing and diversifying, while many sending countries are growing rapidly and remain relatively young, with large cohorts eager to move. Those divergent trends are producing a delicate balance between high demand for labour in ageing economies and the steady ratcheting up of immigration controls. For international students and skilled workers, that balance will shape not only if they can cross borders and settle, but also how they are received once they arrive.
