Population projections about ‘aging’ or ‘shrinking nations’ are an important reference for public policies in Europe. This chapter contributes to the analysis of processes of demographization by showing that speculative future knowledge influences current immigration policy rationales. A theoretical approach to demographic rationalities within global bio/necropolitics is combined with a detailed Social Science and Technology Studies analysis of statistical knowledge production, with reference to the case of Germany. First the concept of demographization is elaborated in a specific way, highlighting the reductionist population-resources epistemology, methodological nationalism, the opaque combination of quantitative and racist/classist qualitative criteria and the dimension of futurity involved. Then I compare population projections of the EU and the German statistical offices, and unpack different underlying statistical assumption politics on future net migration. An analysis of the strategic political use of the projections follows: different demographic markers are referred to, depending on whether the projections serve as reference points for racist agendas of closed borders or for neoliberal labor recruitment strategies. The paradoxical functions of the projections, either as forecasts or as what-if scenarios, are addressed. Finally, I suggest further research on hegemony-building and argue that the study of demographized immigration policies within the Global North should be integrated into global population policy studies.

Since the 1990s, demographic rationalities have increasingly gained importance within Europe (Repo 2016; Zimmermann 2015). The problematization of a ‘shrinking’ and ‘aging’ population and upcoming government strategies designed to cope with this so-called demographic change have contributed to what some social scientists have called the ‘demographization’ of the political (see also Chapter 1). The concept of demographization comprehensively addresses the increasing influence of demographic knowledge production and connected biopolitical strategies. Demographization refers to an epistemology within which social conflicts and problems are interpreted as demographic conflicts or problems and within which demographic or population policies are highlighted as solutions (Barlösius 2007; Messerschmidt 2017). Diverse policy projects such as neoliberal pension reforms, (class-selective) pronatalist family policies and human capital-oriented migration management have been linked in this way to what David Harvey and others have analyzed as a very reductionist and externalizing population-resources epistemology (Cooper 2016; Harvey 2001; Hummel 2000; Murphy 2017).