The patterns and trends in global international migration flows since 1990: a revisit with new data and methods

Nikola Sander¹, Phil Rees² & Guy Abel¹

¹Wittgenstein Centre | Vienna Institute of Demography

²University of Leeds

European Population Conference, June 2014

View the slides at http://nikolasander.github.io/epc2014

Global migration has accelerated and diversified!

In the age of globalisation, migration has become:

...more intense

...less spatially focussed

...less unidirectional

Limited empirical testing of these assumptions!

Largely due to a lack of global flow data.

So, what data are available on global migration flows?

Most widely available are data on migrant stocks

Captured in censuses, registers and surveys

Comparing country of birth with country of current residence

An accumulative measure of migration over several decades that cannot capture contemporary trends

Migrant flow data much less widely available

Censuses only capture inflows, registers use varying definitions

Harmonisation exist for European flows (IMEM)

Outside Europe only unharmonised data for selected countries

International migration ↭ Internal migration

Studies on international migration focus on migration systems, gravity models and net migration.

King & Skeldon (2010): Mind the Gap! Integrating Approaches to Internal and International Migration

Literature on the spatial structure of internal migration

Bell et al., 2002

Rees, Bell, Duke-Williams, & Blake, 2000

Rogers & Raymer, 1998

Plane & Mulligan, 1997

Research Question:

Has migration indeed become more intense, less spatially focussed and less unidirectional?

Bridging the gap by applying new migration flow estimates to indicators proposed for internal migration.

Estimating flows from stocks

UN bilateral stock data lifetime transitions 1990, 2000, 2010 more than 200 countries

➜

New global flow estimates 5-year transitions 1990-95 to 2005-10 196 countries

Our interdisciplinary approach:

Applying five measures put forward by Bell et al.(2002) to capture four key dimensions of spatial structure:

↗ Intensity: Total migrants; Crude Migration Rate

↘ Connectivity: Coefficient of Variation (CV)

↘ Impact: Migration Effectiveness Index (MEI)

↗ Distance: Median distance moved

Bell et al.(2002): Cross-national comparison of internal migration: issues and measures. // Internal Migration Around the Globe (IMAGE) Project

Conclusions

New estimates of global migration flows can be downloaded from the Science website.

→ e.g. for exploratory analysis and global population projections.

In 1990-95 the spatial structure was quite distinctive.

Overall, migration has not become more intense.

The spatial focussing of flows has not universally decreased.

The impact of migration did not decrease continuously, but shows strong regional variation.

Further details

Guy Abel & Nikola Sander (2014): Quantifying Global International Migration Flows. Science, Vol. 343, pp.1520-22.

Interactive data visualisation"The Global Flow of People"

Thanks to Elin Charles-Edwards and the IMAGE Project Team for their help with calculating the global indices!

Contact

nikola.sander@oeaw.ac.at

@nikolasander