The 7th Berlin Demography Forum’s motto in 2018 was “Shaping the Future: Domestic and International Migration in Europe”.

From April 10-11, 2018, leading national and international experts from academia, politics, business and society came together at the ESMT Berlin to discuss the challenges that result from increasing domestic and international migration in Germany and Europe.

 

Leading questions were:

• “The Future of Africa”: How can innovation in education, health, labour and governance lead to a sustainable development of the African Continent? What measures have to be taken for the people to stay and to prosper in their region?
• “Frailty Research”: How do biomedicine and healthcare provision aspects explain the topic of “frailty”? What differences do data on healthcare management from various countries yield?
• “Domestic and International Migration in Europe”: Which measures should be taken to remedy the lack of sufficient data in the debate on mobility within Europe, international migration to Europe and the immigration of refugees to EU member states and regions? Can one identify trends on domestic migration? Which factors influence international migration?
• „Binnenwanderung in Deutschland“ [“Domestic Migration in Germany”]: Does the available data suggest any trends and patterns of domestic migration in Germany? What are the underlying factors influencing national migration movements?
• „Binnenwanderung als Herausforderung für Stadtverwaltungen und Politik“ [“Domestic Migration Challenging Municipalities and Politics”]: What challenges are municipalities and local governments faced with by increasing domestic migration? How can provision of health care for less mobile and elderly citizens as well as marketing efforts of municipalities and local governments improve their level of attractiveness?
• „Binnenwanderung als Herausforderung für den Arbeitsmarkt“ [“Domestic Migration Challenging the Labour Market”]: How do companies attract skilled employees, especially in structurally weak regions? How can companies counteract the shortage of skilled workers in the health care sector effectively? What kind of changes will ongoing digitisation and artificial intelligence trigger for employees, employers and society at large? To what extent does increasing flexibility at the workplace promote voluntary work and/or family caregiving?