WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A UN report is a plan for replacement migration.
OUR VERDICT
False. It is a population analysis that makes no policy recommendations.
AAP FACTCHECK - A decades-old UN report does not outline a plan for replacement migration, despite claims on social media.
The research document is a study that assessed whether international migration could offset population decline and ageing in several developed countries.
It did not outline the implementation of specific migration policies nor did it make any formal recommendations to governments.
The report concludes that migration alone is unlikely to solve the long-term economic challenges of ageing populations.
It also identifies several alternative options that governments may need to consider to address demographic shifts, including raising the retirement age.
However, false claims that the study is actually a UN plan to use migration to replace countries' populations have been spreading on social media.
One Facebook post that links to the report calls it "replacement migration orders by the United Nations".
"This is around 177 pages of the document from the UNITED NATIONS its called replacement migration," the caption reads.
"It explains what thry [sic] are doing , how they are implementing it, which countries are going to be affected.
"Australian's really need to get educated on exactly what is being put in place this is going to be the destruction of Australia our nation.
"It will also be their one world rule, one religion, New world order.
"People have laughed at this said it can never happen read this get educated as they have planned, implemented things into place to achieve their goal."
The post links to a UN report called 'Replacement Migration: Is it A Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?' published in 2000.
It presents scenarios for how demographic trends may change over time, focusing on France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the UK, the US, the EU and Europe as a whole.
It identifies two key trends facing developed nations: population decline and an ageing of that smaller population between 1995 and 2050 (page 4).
Researchers conclude these trends will have economic consequences (p4), particularly because the working population, aged between 15 and 64, is forecast to shrink.
For example, it highlights that ageing populations may directly affect the viability of public pension schemes (p11) as the number of tax-paying workers will shrink while the number of retirees will rise.
This balance between the working-age population and those aged 65 and over is referred to as the "support ratio" by demographers.
The report said few believed fertility would rebound sufficiently to reach replacement levels, making population decline inevitable in the absence of increased migration (p4).
However, it found that the migration levels required to maintain the proportion of the working-age population would be far larger than any country had experienced historically.
"Maintaining potential support ratios at current levels through replacement migration alone seems out of reach, because of the extraordinarily large numbers of migrants that would be required," the report stated (p4).
"In most cases, the potential support ratios could be maintained at current levels by increasing the upper limit of the working-age population to roughly 75 years of age."
Other measures worth examining included getting more people into work, higher health and retirement contributions from workers and employers, or reduced benefits for retirees (p94).
Productivity gains were another possibility, the report said, but they could also raise workers' and retirees' expectations and demands.
Vladimir Canudas-Romo, head of the School of Demography at the Australian National University, said rather than being a plan, the document was a population analysis, which is a core UN function.
It examined possible policy levers needed to maintain the ratio of the working-age population to retirees, he said.
"The UN is just presenting that," Professor Canudas-Romo told AAP FactCheck.
He also pointed out that while the UN can advise countries, it doesn't have the ability to impose plans.
"The views of the report as a 'plan' should just be dismissed as uninformed comments," Prof Canudas-Romo said.
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