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168 GÁBOR PIRISI
Persian Gulf (high fertility rate, young age composition, high incomes, high-quality
health service).
Let us here take a look at migration as a modifying factor. It is only one side of
the coin that mass migration increases or decreases the population of a region or
country. Migration also influences natural growth (Kulu 2005). In countries
characterized by immigration, there is a constant influx of a population group
whose average age is younger than that of the recipient country. This would have
a positive effect on reproduction even if the fertility rate of the immigrating
communities were not higher than the host country’s average (Genereux 2007):
they usually arrive from countries with a tradition of having more children, and
they normally adhere to their customs in their new homes, at least in the first one
or two generations, with the difference gradually decreasing later. Obviously, on
the global scale, migration only modifies the distribution of people. What can be
seen as its positive impact is that in the sender regions, migration slackens the
pressure on resources and social institutions. Also, the emigrating families’ fertility
rate decreases faster than the rate of those who stay at home. It also mitigates — to
however modest an extent — the problem of overpopulation. Leaving aside the
several legal, cultural, economic and mainly political implications of international
migration , we must still note that in countries (particularly on the eastern periphery
of Europe) where emigration is coupled with a low fertility rate and the natural
decrease of the population, its impact on the local societies is considerable (Atoyan
et al. 2016).
To influence the growth of the population, some countries may draw up — more
or less deliberately and more or less emphatically — demographic policies and may
introduce certain measures. In actual fact, these policies can be one of two kinds:
pronatalist (wishing to increase the number of live births) and (to use a rarely
applied term) antinatalist (aimed at decreasing their number). Traditionally, the
growth of the number of inhabitants in a nation-state is tied to the increase in the
power of the nation: a growing population means growing labor reserves and
military potential. It follows that authoritarian regimes expressly pursue pronatalist
policies, and they are not over-scrupulous in choosing their means: their activity
is characterized by obligations and restrictions (bans on abortion, restriction on
access to contraceptives, punitive tax policies). Countries governed democratically
may also pursue a pronatalist policy, but their means are less drastic. Instead of
prohibitions and obligations, they try to use incentives. The extent of their success
varies, for the effectiveness of these policies and the pertinent soft means are often
doubtful. The introduction of a new tool may enhance fertility for a short time,
but its effect often proves transitory. As Figure 2 reveals, individual countries spend
widely varying portions of their GDP on family support (which is, of course, a
broader concept than demographic policy), but the differences are not really
reflected in the fertility rates. It is not too informative to compare countries of
very different backgrounds, but some comparisons, for example, in Central Europe
may be noteworthy: while Slovakia and Slovenia both spend about 1.75% of their
GDPs on family support, the corresponding figure in Hungary and Poland is
2.6-2.75%, but the fertility rate in all of these countries is around 1.5 (which also
reveals that religion is not such a powerful influencer as is normally believed,
because every known survey has registered a far more intense religiosity in the
Polish population than in the Hungarian) (Inglot 2020).