Different Strategies for Modelling and Simulation of the Impact of Migration on Regional Population Development

Abstract

Demographic developments are not only a point of interest on national but also on sub-national level where migration rates are typically much higher compared to international movements. This article presents several models for the simulation of the impact national and international migration has on regional population development. Hereby we contribute to the research field of demographic modelling as we demonstrate pros and cons of the different modelling strategies when trying to parametrize the models with real-world data. Since the influence of an individual’s age and sex on its mobility is a common feature discussed in literature, the models developed mainly focus on these influences. While the first models use decoupled migration processes, one additional approach is designed to take into account an individual’s wish ofmoving to a particular place and not being distributed to a random region. All models are further enhanced with a region-specific external migration tool.