The economic cost of ‘remigration’
An old word has returned to the political debate with a new meaning: ‘remigration’. Those who propose it argue that there is a need to reduce the number of immigrants – including those with legal status – through policies of forced return, deportation or restrictions on their stay within the country. The ethical, legal and social issues are clear. Less discussed, however, is the economic cost – or the potential benefit – of such a policy. A remigration policy would not, in fact, merely reduce the number of resident immigrants. It would also reduce the overall population, the labour force and, above all, the working-age population.
On this point, recent economic research offers findings that are broadly consistent. For Italia, a study by the Bank of Italy shows that, with an ageing population, migration flows help to offset the decline in the working-age population (Basso et al., 2025). The US experience, on the other hand, allows us to assess the impact of migration policies that hinder these flows. Here, the current tightening of immigration controls has had negative effects on employment and wages, even for workers born in the country (East et al., 2023). At European level, the European Commission’s analysis reaches similar conclusions. Immigration and labour mobility help to alleviate the labour supply constraints caused by demographic ageing (Kiss et al., 2026). Reducing the number of immigrants may therefore exacerbate, rather than alleviate, the effects of the so-called ‘demographic winter’.
But what would actually happen to the Italian economy if a remigration policy were implemented on a large scale? The point can be put in relatively simple terms. Real GDP per capita – that is, a measure of the average income produced per inhabitant, adjusted for inflation – depends on three factors: the average output per person in employment, the proportion of the working-age population in employment, and the proportion of the total population that is of working age. In other words, a country’s average income depends not only on its labour productivity, but also on how many people are in work and on the age structure of the population. This is an accounting identity that highlights an aspect that is often overlooked. Given the same levels of productivity and employment, if the proportion of people of working age decreases, per capita income also tends to fall.
According to the European Commission’s AMECO data, between 2000 and 2024 Italia recorded the weakest growth in real GDP per capita amongst the major industrialised countries, at a mere 0.23 per cent annual average. This was driven by an increase in the employment rate (+0.74%), whilst productivity per employee (-0.25%) and the decline in the proportion of the working-age population (-0.26%) had the opposite effect.
How does ‘remigration’ fit into this picture? In an ageing country, the number of immigrants affects both the total population and the labour force, as well as the employment rate. Let us therefore analyse the impact of migration flows on growth through a counterfactual exercise (Bellocchi and Travaglini, 2026). Let us imagine excluding those born abroad from the resident population, whilst keeping average labour productivity unchanged. The effect on per capita income operates through two channels. The first is employment-related. If immigrants account for a larger share of employment than they do of the working-age population, their exclusion reduces the employment rate. The second is demographic. As immigrants are, on average, younger, their exclusion reduces the proportion of the working-age population relative to the total population. In 2024, foreign-born residents accounted for 11.3 per cent of the population in Italia, 15.3 per cent of the working-age population and 15.9 per cent of those in employment. The counterfactual analysis shows that the real per capita income of the remaining residents would fall by 5.4 per cent, or approximately €1,800 gross per person per year. Of this loss, 4.7 percentage points stem from the demographic channel and 0.7 from the employment channel. In the short term, the assumption of constant productivity reflects the fact that productivity tends to change only slowly, mainly through capital accumulation and technological progress. In the long run, a reduced labour supply could push wages upwards, accelerating the substitution of labour with capital and technology. If this process were to take place, productivity would tend to rise and the loss of income could be more limited. If, on the other hand, the reduction in the labour supply were to hamper productive activity and investment decisions, the downward pressure could become even more pronounced over time. Given the weak growth in investment and productivity in Italy over recent decades, this latter scenario unfortunately appears plausible.
