Demography is moving in one direction. Global politics is moving in the opposite direction. This is not a subtle difference; it’s a structural conflict.
Demographics tell us that we are living longer, having fewer children, investing more in education, moving around more, and living in increasingly diverse and multigenerational societies. Politics, on the other hand, promises a return to the past: more homogeneity, more closure, more rigid identities, more nostalgia for a hierarchical world — a world that no longer exists.
Today this gap has a clear face. In the US, President Donald Trump has made the fight against immigration and the closure of borders one of the pillars of his political agenda, promising mass deportations and an unprecedented strengthening of the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
The construction of the wall on the border with Mexico has become the symbol of a policy that interprets human mobility as a systemic threat rather than a structural component of a demographically mature society in need of human capital.
In Europe, too, sovereigntist forces have contrasted the defence of national identity with the acceptance of immigration flows. Viktor Orbán in Hungary has made closing the door to immigration the cornerstone of his political model, arguing that cultural survival depends on homogeneity.
The message seems clear: the future is defended by reducing diversity. But demographics tell a different story. We have never lived so long in the history of humanity. Global life expectancy now exceeds 73 years; in several countries it is over 83. In 120 years we have, on average, gained 40 years of life.
We live in a different world from a generational point of view, for the first time in history. Yet political discourse continues to speak as if we were still in a world that no longer exists. In Europe and East Asia, fertility is well below replacement level — from Italy to Poland, from South Korea to China. In addition to ageing, the decline in birth rates is leading to a real demographic contraction.
Yet while demographics tell us that youth cohorts are shrinking and every new birth is precious human capital, politics in many countries is attacking universities, research and inclusion policies. In the US, rhetoric against diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) policies has become central to the political debate.
Federal states have limited or abolished university programmes dedicated to diversity. In Europe, the term “inclusion” is increasingly the subject of political suspicion. Never before has human capital been such a decisive strategic resource. Never before have we witnessed political rhetoric that divides or politicises it.
Let’s talk about migration. Some 300-million people now live outside their country of birth. This is the highest figure in human history. And internal migration is four to five times greater. The great global cities — from New York to London, from Hong Kong to Toronto — are laboratories of superdiversity. This is not an anomaly: it is the natural outcome of decades of demographic change. Yet the dominant political response is closure.
Trump promises the largest deportation operation in American history. In Italy, more restrictive measures on sea rescues are being introduced. In the UK there were proposals to transfer asylum seekers to Rwanda. In France and Germany, governments are facing growing electoral pressure to limit entry and tighten controls.
Politics is acting as if immigration were a temporary phenomenon. Demographics tell a different story. In societies with very low fertility and rapid ageing, migration is not an exception: it is a structural component of demographic balance. Countries such as Germany, Canada and Australia have maintained economic dynamism thanks in part to their ability to attract and integrate skilled migrants. Those who close themselves off in a demographically restricted world risk reducing their productive and fiscal base just as the burden of pension and healthcare spending increases.
The conflict between demography and politics is also generational. In many mature democracies the electorate is increasingly older. Decisions on public debt, climate, welfare and migration are made in political systems where younger cohorts — those who will live for far longer with the consequences of these choices — have less relative weight. Brexit was a prime example of this: older generations influenced a decision that will have a longer-lasting impact on the lives of young people.
Demographics tell us that the future is long. Politics acts as if it were short. The problem is not ideological, it is strategic. A Europe that is ageing and closing itself off to immigration — despite needing workers and taxpayers — is weakening itself geopolitically. An America that politicises diversity while competing with China for global talent risks eroding its innovative advantage. East Asian economies that fail to fully reconcile gender equality and parenthood risk a demographic contraction that no industrial policy can compensate for.
Meanwhile, the demographic centre of gravity is shifting. Africa is seeing the highest birth rates. Future migratory pressures will not be an exception but a structural consequence of the divergence between expanding and contracting regions.
Demographics point to older, more educated, more interconnected and more diverse societies. A growing part of the political sphere is reacting as if the challenge were to restore the homogeneity and demographic pyramids of the past. That past was by no means a golden age, and one that will never return.
Fertility rates cannot be quickly brought back to around two children per woman (the global average today) in societies based on female education and labour participation. Decades of migration and urbanisation cannot be erased. Fortunately, there is no going back on longevity.
The real choice for political leaders — from Washington to Rome, from Berlin to Paris — is not whether to accept demographic change. It is whether to continue to fight it symbolically or to start governing it strategically.
Governing it means rethinking welfare and pensions for long lives. It means rebalancing the pact between generations. It means investing in human capital in societies with fewer young people. It means treating migration as a structural component of demographic sustainability, not as a permanent emergency.
Demographics are not destiny. But building a geopolitics against demographics is a strategic mistake that no great power can afford. History will not return to the pyramid. And those who base their strategy on nostalgia risk discovering too late that the clock has already moved on.
• Billari is professor of demography and rector at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.
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