The net migration rate is higher than anywhere else worldwide even as many countries face demographic crises. 

You might not think it when walking down a crowded Hong Kong street or looking at the crowded skyline of Guangzhou or Shanghai, but the Asia Pacific region has a deep fertility and migration problem.

As finews.asia wrote in early 2023 when China’s population experienced its first decline since 1961, the demographic drop-off by itself is nothing new and does have to be seen in context.

Thousand-Year Trend

The country's population has been in relative decline compared with the rest of the world since the 1850s. Currently, it is at about 17 percent of the world’s population, the lowest rate it has been in, say, just about 1,300 years or so.

We also maintained at the time there was a dubious link between the decline in fertility, which results in lower populations, and growth.

Accelerating Outflows

Now, however, a graphic published by Visual Capitalization on Sunday adds an entirely new dimension to the entire conversation. The region not only faces a looming demographic crisis but has an accelerating net migration rate that far exceeds that of any other region in the world.

Based on data from the UN World Population Prospects 2024, 2.6 million people left Asia in 2023, almost six times the net migration rate of second-placed Africa and just under 7 times that of Latin America.

Significant Immigration

Moreover, there is a clear acceleration in the regional migration rate, as only 1.76 million left the region in 2020, and 1.25 million in 2010. In fact, it was only in 1980 that the number turned negative given that between 1950 and 1970 more people immigrated than left. By contrast, both Africa (except in 2020), and Latin America (including the Caribbean) have had net migration rates since records started being kept in 1950.

North America and Oceania, by contrast, have had a clear sheet of positive immigration since 1950. Europe is the most interesting of all regions. In the wake of World War II, and the likely impact of the Cold War, people looked for green pastures abroad until 1980, after which it joined the other two regions with very significant incoming immigration rates.

No Done Deal

Does this somehow presage a premature end to the so-called Asian century? When discussing the demographic crisis, it seemed a possibility but not a done deal. 

Now, adding a significant net migration rate on top of that, it seems clear that countries here in the region are going to run out of enough people at some point to keep their economies going. That also seems to render the secular growth dream many had been talking about for decades a distant pipe dream.