Demographic frontiers of Europe: proximity and neighborhood

During the 7th edition of the “Giornate di Studio sulla Popolazione” at the Sapienza University in Latina, we presented and discussed the results of some statistical analysis regarding the demographic pattern of the populations belonging to the European Union (Cagiano, Sebastiani, 2007). We showed that these populations tend to converge across time towards a common demographic pattern, which is typical of a “mature” population with low natural increase and high ageing. In this paper we extend the analysis considering the populations belonging to the Euro-Mediterranean area. Specifically, this area comprises all countries bordering on the Mediterranean sea, that is 7 countries which are members of the European Union, 6 which belonged to the ex Yugoslavia, 6 situated in the South-Western Asia (Middle East) and 5 in the Northern Africa. Recently, the Euro-Mediterranean area is of interest to politics of proximity and of neighborhood with the European Union, for promoting the social and economic integration among the countries. Here, we aim to verify whether the demographic dynamics corresponding to the different Euro- Mediterranean populations are similar each other or, nevertheless, if there are some evidences that the Mediterranean populations out of the European Union are beginning to converge towards the common European demographic pattern.