Respect at borders, respect of borders: the Italian experience

Raimondo Cagiano de Azevedo, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
Elena Ambrosetti, Università di Roma

The main objective of our research is to study borders from the demographic point of view. The traditional demographic approach sees borders according to ethnic groups: for instance the Balkans’ populations. Some attempts were made to see the boundaries of demography as the borders of fertility and mortality. The idea of the convergence of demographic variables is a direct consequence of the theory of demographic transition. There are border-related demographic variables: convergence or divergence of those variables can lead to migration. For instance in the neighbouring regions in the Mediterranean there are demographic borders across populations and there are population movements across borders. There is a third way to see borders from the demographic point of view. Demography in fact leads to demographic migration. Population aging in Italy had as a result the migration of Ukrainian women employed in the health care assistance for older people. The age pyramid of Ukrainian population in Italy is the result of such specific migration. Demography as a source of migration can be considered as a new field of borders studies: because new frontiers that are raised by demography itself. Our study is organized as follow: on the first part, we are going to explain the strong link between migrations and borders, focusing on the case of Italy and the Mediterranean. Then we will tackle the different definitions of borders. Third, we will analyze borders and migration management policies in the EU as well as in the Mediterranean region. In the last part, we are going to speculate on demographic borders as major issue to be taken into consideration when we think about future migration policies.