Why people migrate

1. economic (eg higher wages)
2. family (eg marriage)
3. housing (eg larger flat)
4. education (eg attending university)
5. violent conflict

A rising tide of mass migration?

For every 1,000 people worldwide, how move over 5-year periods?

Migration can be defined in many different ways

Two types of migration data:
flows & stocks

Our estimates: 0.6% of the world's population move over 5-year periods

Abel & Sander (2014)
Quantifying Global International Migration Flows
Science, vol. 343: 1520-1522.

How to explore a matrix of flows
between 196 countries?

A traditional migration flow map

Circos: a source of inspiration

Circular migration plot

Segment length shows a region's migration volume in millions.

Flows have the same colour as their origin.

www.global-migration.info

Migration in Europe

A data jungle

Population registers capture immigration and emigration through self-declaration

2 problems:

• > lack of incentives for deregistration
• > the time criterion used to identify migrants is based on intended duration of stay and varies from 3 days to 1 year

Research aims at harmonising register-based data, eg IMEM Project (Southampton)

IMEM,
median estimate,
2008

What about the future?

Will sub-Saharan population growth result in mass emigration to Europe?

The global migration system
in 2005-10 and in 2055-60

* iterative proportional fitting was used to estimate flows from projected numbers of in-migrants and out-migrants

Refugee flows triggered by violent conflict make projecting international migration difficult.

Migrants or refugees?

Refugees protected by international law (1951 Convention)

Dublin III protocol

Asylum application only from inside the EU

Distribution of refugees within the EU

A common immigration policy?