Demography and Migration

The role of demographic factors in economic and social developments has always been a key aspect of ESRI research. In recent years, the focus of work in this area has been on immigration. Given the large inflows of immigrants into Ireland over the last decade, research has addressed:   

Looking ahead, population ageing will be an emerging feature of Ireland’s economy and society and so this will become an increasingly important element of ESRI research. The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) is a large-scale survey of people aged over 50 and living in Ireland. It will provide an enormously useful research resource and the ESRI will play a key role in exploiting it, as Professor Alan Barrett will act as lead researcher on the economics element of the project.

For the years 2008 and 2009, the Institute’s programme of research on immigration was partly financed through a project funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The ESRI also conducts work on migration as part of the activities of the Irish National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN), a network which is funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Justice, Freedom and Security. The EMN was established on a permanent legal base in May 2008 and the ESRI has acted as Irish National Contact Point since 2003. The ESRI also continues to be responsible for the Irish reports to SOPEMI, the OECD Continuous Reporting System on Migration; these reports have been produced on an annual basis since 1994.

Work on migration has also been conducted within other Programme Areas. For example, the issue of the schools and their experiences in catering for a large immigrant inflow was analysed in a report, Adapting to Diversity, published as part of the ESRI Research Series and conducted by researchers in the Education Programme.