The scientist from RUDN University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientific (France) and the University of Leicester (United Kingdom) has shown how the wealth of a country relates to its migration rates. A new mathematical model has laid the basis for future research in this field. The study was published in the Nonlinear Analysis journal. The results were presented at the VIII International Conference on Differential and Functional Differential Equations DFDE-2017 held on August 13-20 in the RUDN University.
Scientists are making increasingly gloomy forecasts for the future because the world population is growing uncontrollably and available resources are limited. In order to make more accurate predictions they create mathematical models on the basis of different data - the birth rate of the population, its mortality, and the rates of migration from one region to another.
People move from place to place depending on various economic, cultural and political factors. This movement is certainly more complicated than animal migration. However, they change locations due to similar factors - richer resources and better quality of life in a new place. Therefore, scientists used mathematical approaches designed to describe the movement of animal populations as a starting point for modeling population dynamics in different countries.
Researchers have analyzed how the distribution of wealth changes due to migration. Scientists understand wealth as the amount of material goods and services people consume in different countries and whether their needs are satisfied. Using a system of partial differential equations specialists have designed a mathematical model that describes migration both in random directions and in places where the greatest amount of resources necessary for well-being is concentrated.
"It is well known that production and consumption of wealth depend on the population density, while birth and death rates depend on the welfare level," said Vitaly Volpert, one of the authors of the study, senior CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientific) researcher from the Institute of Camille Jordan at the University of Lyon 1 and a visiting professor and senior researcher from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. "The objectives of the study were not only to define the correlation between these processes, but also to find out the regularity of distribution of population and wealth in various conditions."
Modeling also took into account the ways wealth moves from developed countries to poor regions: through trade, investment, production transfer from one country to another, and so on.
The new model linking population dynamics and wealth distribution will boost future research in this field.
"We expect mathematical models to help us face the challenges posed by migration in the global economy," Volpert concluded.
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Journal
Nonlinear Analysis