Simulation of European Migration:
Introduction

European Simulation Program

This simulation of the demography of European domestic and overseas migration enables the user to project the effects of various conditions on the size and composition of the populations involved. The procedure relies on standard demographic techniques, approximating a continuous analysis of population change by dividing populations into five-year age groups and assuming that all events take place at the midpoint of five-year periods (see citations below for detail).

As initial conditions, the simulation assumes discrete groups known as Rural and Urban populations. Members of the Rural population migrate: a given percentage of each age and sex group migrates each year. (The term "migrants" refers to persons in the high-mortality period of the first year following their migration, after which they become "Resettlers" (in Europe) or "Settlers" (abroad).) Migrants undergo an initial mortality, and are then divided into those who remain in the cities of their home country, and those who emigrate to the Americas. The latter group undergoes an additional mortality (corresponding to the voyage across the Atlantic). The simulation keeps track of Rural and Urban populations, Resettler (Europe) and Settler (Americas) populations, and the number of migrants each year.

The user may select varying input data files and one run parameter, as follows:

  • Rural and Urban populations: fertility and mortality rates, and intrinsic net growth rates
  • Migrant population: size, age and sex composition, and mortality rates
  • Resettler and Settler populations: fertility and mortality rates, and intrinsic net growth rates
  • Length of simulation (default is 40 years)
For the World Wide Web version of the simulation, users may select any of five present groups of input files, to see simulation results under five present groups of conditions. (At present, only one set of input files is available.)

When run locally, the simulation allows the user to create and utilize a limitless range of input files.

Output of the program includes population pyramids and calculations of relevant demographic rates for the two initial populations, and for all the original, migrant and settler populations in the last period of the simulation.

For further detail on methodology and results, see Patrick Manning, "Slave Trade: The Formal Demography of a Global System," Social Science History, vol. 14 (1990), 255-79; Nathan Keyfitz, Introduction to the Mathematics of Population (New York, 1977); and P. Manning, Slavery and African Life (Cambridge, 1990).