Maltese migration : a critique of two views

Abstract

The year 1984 may have started a new phase in the international migration movement of Maltese. It registered the lowest number of emigrants and return migrants in a year - 629 and 654 respectively - for the past forty years and thus yielded, practically, a net emigration of zero. This latter result rendered operative one of the basic assumptions underlying population projections in the Maltese Islands introduced by government economic planners in 1977. If this condition persists throughout the eighties, the Maltese population will grow at about 0.9% annually, that is, at the average rate of natural increase for the past years.