Dimension reduction for measuring the multidimensional demographic convergence of the European Union populations

Abstract

The European Union (EU) was founded in 1957 in order to prevent new wars in the Continent. Over time, many institutions and instruments have been introduced for defining and implementing common policies concerning economics, society and politics. All these innovations have contributed to generating the “European people”, beyond the single national peoples, with common institutions and cultural heritage. In fact, each people is also a population, describable in terms of demographic structure as well as in terms of natural and migratory dynamics. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask if, over time, all the national populations of the EU tend to converge towards a European population, with a common demographic profile. Here, a statistical method is proposed for measuring the demographic convergence of the populations of the EU towards a common pattern.