Urbanization and Regional Difference in Ageing in Europe

Ilya Kashnitsky, Interdisciplinary Centre On Population Dynamics, University Of Southern Denmark
Joop de Beer, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
Leo van Wissen , Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and University of Groningen

Since young adults tend to move from rural to urban regions whereas older adults move from urban to rural regions, one may expect that differences in population ageing across urban and rural regions have increased. This paper examines whether differences in population ageing across urban and rural NUTS-2 regions of the EU-27 over the period 2003-2013 have diverged. We use the methodological approach of convergence analysis, quite recently brought to demography from the field of economic research. Unlike classical beta and sigma approaches to convergence, we focus not on any single summary statistic of convergence, but rather analyse the whole cumulative distribution of regions. Such an approach helps to identify which specific group of regions is responsible for the major changes. Our results suggest that, despite the expectations, there was no divergence in age structures between urban and rural regions, rather divergence happened within each of the groups of regions.

See paper

 Presented in Session 60. Urbanization and Mortality